■ India
Pakistani killed in shootout
Police killed a Pakistani man and injured another during a shootout in central Mumbai yesterday, as the pair were being investigated for possible links to last month's rail bombings that killed more than 200 people. Lead police investigator K.P. Raghuvanshi said the two Pakistanis opened fire on police in an abandoned building early yesterday. Automatic rifles were recovered from them, he said.
■ India
Wrong virus blamed
A deadly virus that has claimed nearly 90 lives this year in the Gorakhpur region in Uttar Pradesh state was not Japanese encephalitis as originally thought but another illness, officials said yesterday. The state's top health official B. Nath said 28 of the 31 samples tested positive for Coxsackie-B virus, which causes high fever and diarrhea among children. More than 1,450 children died of Japanese encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh last year and hundreds more were left disabled. More than 6 million children in the state were vaccinated against the illness this year in a bid to prevent a similar outbreak. The Coxsackie virus spreads through contaminated food or water and there is no vaccine against it. Japanese encephalitis is a mosquito-borne viral disease.
■ Japan
Birthrate rises
The number of births in the first six months of the year rose for the first time in six years, raising hopes for a turnaround in the plunging annual birthrate, officials said yesterday. A total 549,255 births were registered from the first of the year to the end of June, up 11,618 from the same period last year, according to Health Ministry statistics released on Monday.
■ Indonesia
Humans not passing bird flu
Investigators found no proof that bird flu is spreading among humans in a remote part of Java where two people died from the virus and a third was sickened, the WHO said yesterday. Four other people died in the Cikelet region of West Java before swab samples were taken to determine the cause, according to local health officials. Test results are pending for five others receiving medical treatment for symptoms of the disease, including a 61-year-old man admitted to hospital early yesterday. "Though some of the undiagnosed deaths occurred in family members of confirmed cases, the investigation has found no evidence of human-to-human transmission and no evidence that the virus is spreading more easily from birds to humans," the WHO statement said.
■ Indonesia
Chili used in prison break
Prisoners squirted a mixture of water and chili peppers in the eyes of guards at a prison then bolted for freedom past their temporarily blinded captors, police said yesterday. Eighteen prisoners broke out of the jail in Pematang Sinatar on Sumatra on Sunday, but 16 of them have since been apprehended, local police detective Den Martin said. The men were on the way to the canteen for breakfast when they stormed the prison gates shouting "Attack! Attack!" and spraying the fiery liquid from plastic bottles at guards, Martin said. "The is the first time chili has been used to get out of this penitentiary," prison warden Harianaja was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post.
■ India
Hitler restaurant slammed
A new restaurant called Hitler's Cross in Mumbai drew condemnation yesterday from the city's small Jewish community, which said it would appeal to the owners to change the name. The eatery has a huge poster of Adolf Hitler prominently displayed at the entrance and is decorated by Nazi swastika symbols. "The Jews are very disturbed by the enormity of the ignorance and the insensitivity" displayed, said Jonathan Solomon of the Indian Jewish Federation. "We believe it is an act of ignorance rather than deliberate malice," he said. The restaurant owner said he had not realized the Nazi theme would upset people.
■ India
`Witches' hacked to death
Unidentified attackers hacked to death five villagers accused of practicing witchcraft in the state of Assam, officials said yesterday. The deaths take the toll of people believed to have been killed over sorcery allegations to at least nine in the past two weeks in a remote part of the state, where many indigenous tribes believe in witchcraft. The latest killings took place on Sunday in the village of Nandipur said Mrinal Talukdar, a senior police official. "Six men armed with machetes stormed a house ... and hacked three members of a family to death late Sunday accusing them of practicing sorcery," he said. Another middle-aged couple also suspected of practicing sorcery was killed on Sunday in a nearby village.
■ India
Idols `drink' milk
Thousands of people flocked to temples in Uttar Pradesh on Monday hoping to see a miracle as word spread that idols of Hindu gods were drinking milk, TV reports said. TV pictures showed milk disappearing as people held up spoons full of the liquid to idols of deities such as Lord Shiva, Ganesha and goddess Durga. "Even Shiv's lingam [revered phallus] drank milk. I feel blessed by the god," visitor Rukmani Devi said.
■ Spain
Derailment kills five
A train derailed in the northern town of Villada on Monday, killing at least five people and injuring around 30, police said. The six-car, long-distance train was carrying 426 passengers, the state rail company RENFE said. The cause of the derailment was not immediately known, authorities said. Police said the derailment occurred in the train station of the town, some 150km northwest of Madrid. Of the injured, three were hospitalized and the rest were treated on the scene at a field hospital, officials said. The train was heading from the northwest Galicia region through the Basque region toward the border with France.
■ United States
Sexy billboards constitutional
A law banning sexually suggestive billboards along Missouri highways is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court panel ruled on Monday. The law took effect in 2004 after the state claimed the ads were inappropriate for children and could lead to traffic accidents. Monday's ruling by the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the law was too broad. A less broad ban, it said, could achieve the same aims. The state will seek a rehearing before the full appeals court, said John Fougere, a spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. House Speaker Rod Jetton called the court's ruling "unfortunate." "It leaves Missourians of every age exposed to sleazy billboards along our highways," he said in a statement.
■ Switzerland
Conventions now universal
The 1949 Geneva Conventions on the protection of civilians and prisoners during war has now achieved universal acceptance following the recent accessions of Montenegro and Nauru, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday. The ICRC, which is the official guardian of the conventions, said that with the ratification by Nauru on June 27 and that of recently independent Montenegro on Aug. 2, 194 nations are now signatories. "For the first time in modern history an international treaty has achieved universal acceptance," the humanitarian organization said.
■ Russia
Space tourist barred
Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto will not be allowed to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) next month after failing to meet medical requirements, Russian space agency officials in Moscow said on Monday. Enomoto will likely be replaced by Iranian-born American Anousheh Ansari for the 10-day flight to the orbiter with a Russian crew, Roskosmos spokesman Igor Panarin said. She will pay around US$20 million for the trip and become the first female "space tourist." Enomoto, 35, will be unable to fulfill his dream of orbiting the earth dressed like his cartoon pilot hero "Char Aznable", a character from the Gundam robot animation series.
■ United States
Dark matter `observed'
A huge collision between two clusters of galaxies has provided the first direct evidence of the existence of the universe's mysterious dark matter, researchers said on Monday. "This is the most energetic cosmic event, besides the Big Bang, which we know about," said Maxim Markevitch of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The impact forced apart dark and normal matter, offering the strongest evidence yet that most of the matter in the universe is dark, researchers said. "We've come closer than ever to seeing this invisible matter," Doug Clowe, a leader of the study, said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was