■ China
Snail poisoning saga ends
All 160 people who contracted meningitis after eating undercooked snails at Beijing restaurants have recovered and have been released from hospitals, a news report said yesterday. The meningitis cases occurred since late June and were blamed on undercooked giant Amazonian snails that carried the parasite angiostrongylus cantonensis, which can cause meningitis. Most were infected after eating at the Chinese capital's Shuguo Yanyi Restaurant. The government hasn't said where else diners were infected or how many restaurants were involved. Earlier reports said two of the patients were under age 13. Health authorities reportedly inspected hundreds of Beijing restaurants after the outbreak.
■ China
Ex-legislator executed
A former member of China's legislature was executed on charges of rape, weapons possession and misappropriating US$15 million, a news report said yesterday. Sang Yuechun (桑粵春) was executed on Friday in the northeastern province of Jilin. Sang, president of Jigang Industrial and Trade Group Corp and a former deputy to China's legislature, the National People's Congress, was convicted of taking bribes, rape, weapons possession and misappropriating 120 million yuan (US$15 million), the Xinhua news agency said.
■ China
Mass murderer apprehended
Chinese police have arrested a man accused of slaying 13 people after a massive manhunt in the country's northeast, state media reported yesterday. Shi Yuejun (石悅軍) killed eight people in rural Jilin Province a week ago and killed five more while on the run from police, the China Daily reported. Shi left another four injured, three seriously, the report said. The dead included four members of the same family, according to earlier local newspaper reports. The 37-year-old professional pig butcher was finally caught on Friday in a cornfield near his hometown after a hunt involving 14,000 people, including 2,000 police.
■ Malaysia
Crackdown on illegal aliens
Malaysia will continue to arrest illegal aliens despite a critical lack of space at detention centers throughout the country, news reports said yesterday. "If they have to sleep on floors right next to one another, so be it," Home Affairs Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said. "But we do not feel nice about making them do this, so we need to find more space for them." As of Thursday, 7,467 alleged illegal aliens were held at 15 centers nationwide, including 1,482 women and 303 children. The majority are Indonesians, he said. Radzi said the situation could become worse early next year because Malaysia plans to launch a major operation to round up illegal aliens.
■ Japan
Condolence money
A wealthy Japanese businessman accused of killing British woman Lucie Blackman sent ¥100 million (US$850,000) to the former British Airways flight attendant's family, Kyodo news agency reported yesterday. Quoting defense lawyers for Joji Obara, charged with killing Blackman in 2000, Kyodo said the Japanese man had sent the "condolence money" to her family in Britain. A millionaire property developer, Obara, 54, is accused of drugging, raping and killing Blackman, who had been working at a hostess bar in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district.
■ Belgium
Broadband in EU schools
Almost all schools in the EU have access to the Internet and just over two-thirds have high-speed, broadband connections, the European Commission said on Friday. However, it said the broadband picture is mixed across the 25 EU nations, ranging from 90 percent of schools in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia and Malta to under 35 percent in Greece, Poland, Cyprus and Lithuania. By comparison, 95 percent of US public schools have a broadband connection, said the survey, which assessed the use of information technologies in European schools. The survey found that the number of pupils sharing computers connected to the Internet ranges from 3.8 to 5.5 in Denmark, Britain and Luxemburg to as many as 19 in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Greece.
■ Gaza
IDF destroys Hamas home
An Israeli airstrike destroyed the home of a local Hamas leader in the southern Gaza Strip late on Friday, officials said. There were no reports of casualties. The owner of the home, a senior member of Hamas' military wing in the area, received a call from the army approximately 15 minutes ahead of the blast telling him to evacuate the building, Hamas officials said. The Israeli army confirmed the airstrike, saying it had targeted a weapons storage facility. It said it warned people to stay away from the structure ahead of the attack to avoid civilian casualties.
■ United States
Elderly woman rams bus
A 90-year-old motorist went through a red light and rammed a school bus hard enough to knock it over, injuring 11 children, authorities said. One child was in critical condition, and the car's driver was also taken to hospital, officials said. The bus was struck while carrying the learning-disabled students to the Palmdale Learning Plaza in the Antelope Valley northeast of Los Angeles, authorities said. California Highway Patrol Officer Henry Roth said the elderly woman driving a Lincoln Continental failed to stop at a red light and struck the bus broadside.
■ United States
Bomb hoax author jailed
A Mexican man who hoaxed US officials last year by inventing a plot by Chinese nationals to release a "dirty bomb" in Boston was sentenced on Friday to three years in federal prison. Jose Ernesto Beltran Quinonez, 34, pleaded guilty in May to one count of passing on false information about a terror attack to federal officials. According to court documents, Beltran called California Highway Patrol dispatchers in January last year to report that a nuclear warhead would be smuggled within four days through a tunnel connecting Mexicali and Calexico, California.
■ United States
White House snubs Borat
Borat, the fictional TV reporter from Kazakhstan, may have gotten under the skin of Kazakh officials but on Thursday he couldn't get past the gates of the White House. Secret Service agents turned away British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as the boorish, anti-Semitic journalist, when he tried to invite "Premier George Walter Bush" to a screening of his upcoming movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Cohen's stunt was timed to coincide with an official visit by Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not