■ China
Satellite fails
A Chinese communications and broadcast satellite has failed less than a month into orbit due to the inability to deploy its solar panels and communications antennae, Sino Satellite Communi-cations said yesterday on the company Web site. The satellite, launched on Oct. 29 from Sichuan Province, was designed to serve live TV signals and digital broadband multimedia systems in China, Macau and Taiwan. Sinosat said the satellite was still in orbit and otherwise functioning normally.
■ Japan
Who to mend relations with?
China topped a list of countries with which the Japanese public most want to improve relations, a poll released yesterday showed. The US was second, followed by South Korea, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. China has replaced the US as Japan's top trade partner, as Beijing has emerged as a global economic powerhouse. After South Korea, Europe -- excluding the UK -- was followed by India, the poll said. Russia and the UK were named as the sixth and seventh nations with which the Japanese believe Tokyo should put most effort into improving relations, the Nihon Keizai said.
■ Philippines
Tropical storm approaches
Tropical Storm Durian entered Philippine territory yesterday with weather forecasters warning it could develop into a "super typhoon" before it makes landfall. As of 10am, the eye of the storm was 870km east of Samar island, packing maximum winds of 95kph and gusts of up to 120kph, the Philippine weather bureau said. The storm -- named after the pungent fruit native to Southeast Asia -- was moving in a northwest direction and expected to reach metropolitan Manila by Friday morning. "This could become a typhoon or super typhoon before it makes landfall," forecaster Nathaniel Cruz said.
■ North Korea
Pyongyang ready for talks
Pyongyang is prepared to return to six-country talks on its nuclear weapons program at any time now that it has "gained a defensive position" with a nuclear test, a senior envoy of the communist state said yesterday. But Kim Kye-gwan told reporters on arrival for talks in Beijing that Pyongyang still had differences to narrow with the US, which has squeezed its external sources of financing for more than a year. "After the nuclear test, we have gained a defensive position against those who are trying to suppress us. Now we are in a very confident position and so we are ready to come back to the talks any time," Kim told reporters.
■ South Africa
Court fines `pregnant' man
A man on Monday was fined by a local court for playing hooky from work and trying to cover it with a fake gynecologist's certificate attesting he was pregnant and needed a week off. A magistrate's court in Vereeniging, near Johannesburg, fined 27-year-old Charles Sibindana 1,000 rand (US$140), the SAPA news agency reported. Sibindana stole a medical certificate from a health center used by his pregnant girlfriend but was apparently unaware that only women consulted gynecologists.
■ Medicine
Age perceptions shifting
Cosmetic surgery is altering not just how people look but how they feel by changing perceptions of middle age, a study showed on Monday. Global research group AC Nielsen surveyed people in 42 countries and found 60 percent of US citizens, the world's biggest consumers of cosmetic surgery and anti-aging skin care, believe their sixties are the new middle age. On a global scale, three out of five consumers believed forties was the new thirties. "Our forties are being celebrated as the decade where we can be comfortable and confident in both personal and financial terms. The majority of global consumers really believe life starts at forty," AC Nielsen Europe President and CEO Frank Martell said.
■ United Kingdom
Politicians face big bill
A bill for thousands of pounds was racked up on a cellphone stolen from the Scottish parliament, officials said on Monday. The cellphone was for use by staff during weekends or while out of the office. It went missing in January 2004, when lawmakers and staff moved into the new parliament building in Edinburgh. But the alarm wasn't raised until this years when Vodafone warned of excessive use, and by then, the bill had reached ?50,000 (US$97,000). A spokeswoman for the parliament said the big charges were made in the early part of this year. The police have begun an investigation.
■ Germany
Berlin ho-hoping for Santas
Berlin is facing an acute shortage of Santas just a month before Christmas, the head of a Father Christmas placement agency said on Monday. The director of the Heinzelmaennchen agency, which provides Santas to thousands of families every Christmas Eve, said he was having trouble getting enough qualified help. "We prefer chubby men, of course, ideally with a real beard but we're not picky and take what we get," said Rene Heydeck, whose official title is Ober-Weinachtsmann (chief Santa Claus). The Santas, many of whom are students, earn 28 euros (US$37) a visit for bringing a sack of presents provided by the parents into each home and handing them out.
■ United Kingdom
Artists track stuffed bears
Two artists prowled the country in search of stuffed polar bears -- and uncovered 34 of the proud Arctic icons discarded in stockrooms or languishing in stately homes. The result is "Great White Bear" -- a new photo exhibition that explores mankind's fascination with the magnificent creatures and underlines the fragility of their future. Mark Wilson and his Icelandic partner Bryndis Snaebjornsdottir spent three years tracking down and photographing their elusive quarry everywhere from dusty museum basements to a hotel's glass showcase.
■ United States
Trial opens in child deaths
A 24-year-old mother's mental illness may have led her to toss her three young boys into chilly San Francisco Bay, but lawyers disagreed about whether the act was first-degree murder. LaShuan Harris is on trial in the deaths of her three children in October last year. She has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. During opening statements on Monday, the prosecutor warned jurors that while Harris' motive may have been delusional, her actions were not. Defense lawyer Teresa Caffese said her schizophrenic client heard voices telling her to sacrifice her children to God.
■ Canada
Baby in freezer a no-no
A man who could not figure out how to deal with his girlfriend's feverish 10-month-old daughter put the baby into a freezer to cool her down, the Charlottetown Guardian newspaper reported on Friday. Derrick Hardy, 21, faces charges of criminal negligence and assaulting the infant, who was rescued when her mother came home, the paper said. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp said the mother found the girl crammed into the freezer alongside ice cubes and hamburger meat. Hardy said he had left the door ajar but the mother said it had been closed when she returned.
■ United States
Child abuse trial opens
Discipline will be a key issue in the trial of adoptive parents accused of locking some of their 11 special-needs children in cages. Michael Gravelle, 57, and Sharen Gravelle, 58, of Wakeman, Ohio, are charged with 16 counts of felony child endangering and eight misdemeanor child endangering charges. Sharen Gravelle's attorney, Ken Myers, blames authorities for inflaming the media and the public by saying the children were held in cages. Myers said the children slept in enclosed beds that were necessary to keep the children from harming themselves or one another. Opening statements in their trial were scheduled for yesterday.
■ United States
Quake rocks California
A magnitude-4.1 earthquake rattled California's central coast on Monday night, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, authorities said. The quake was centered about 6km west of Paso Robles, or about 153km southeast of Monterey, according to a preliminary report by the US Geological Survey. It was followed three minutes later by a magnitude-2.1 aftershock. San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Sergeant Jason Nefores said his department had not received any calls about injuries or damage. The quakes were near the location of a magnitude-6.5 earthquake in Dec. 2003 that killed two women.
■ Colombia
Cab driver outwits robber
A taxi driver got the better of an armed robber by rolling his cab over an embankment -- with the assailant still inside. The driver, whom police identified as Isidro, 66, suffered a stab wound from the would-be thief, 16, who landed in hospital with multiple fractures, police said on Monday. Isidro's wife said her husband's wound was slight, but he feared the thief would kill him and so rolled his hack toward the embankment and jumped to safety. The robber wanted to take the driver's income for that day, some US$40, Santander Province police chief Alvaro Miranda said, adding that the incident took place in Bucamaramanga, Colombia's fifth-largest city.
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
ANTI-SEMITISM: Some newsletters promote hateful ideas such as white supremacy and Holocaust denial, with one describing Adolf Hitler as ‘one of the greatest men of all time’ The global publishing platform Substack is generating revenue from newsletters that promote virulent Nazi ideology, white supremacy and anti-Semitism, a Guardian investigation has found. The platform, which says it has about 50 million users worldwide, allows members of the public to self-publish articles and charge for premium content. Substack takes about 10 percent of the revenue the newsletters make. About 5 million people pay for access to newsletters on its platform. Among them are newsletters that openly promote racist ideology. One, called NatSocToday, which has 2,800 subscribers, charges US$80 for an annual subscription, although most of its posts are available
GLORY FACADE: Residents are fighting the church’s plan to build a large flight of steps and a square that would entail destroying up to two blocks of homes Barcelona’s eternally unfinished Basilica de la Sagrada Familia has grown to become the world’s tallest church, but a conflict with residents threatens to delay the finish date for the monument designed more than 140 years ago. Swathed in scaffolding on a platform 54m above the ground, an enormous stone slab is being prepared to complete the cross of the central Jesus Christ tower. A huge yellow crane is to bring it up to the summit, which will stand at 172.5m and has snatched the record as the world’s tallest church from Germany’s Ulm Minster. The basilica’s peak will deliberately fall short of the
Venezuelan Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado yesterday said that armed men “kidnapped” a close ally shortly after his release by authorities, following former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s capture. The country’s Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed later yesterday that former National Assembly vice president Juan Pablo Guanipa, 61, was again taken into custody and was to be put under house arrest, arguing that he violated the conditions of his release. Guanipa would be placed under house arrest “in order to safeguard the criminal process,” the office said in a statement. The conditions of Guanipa’s release have yet to be made public. Machado claimed that
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