■ Japan
Minister refuses to go
A minister yesterday refused to step down for disparaging women as "child-bearing machines" as the opposition boycotted parliament to demand he quit. "I want to do my best at the job I've been given," Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa told reporters. The opposition camp boycotted the parliament session for the second straight day to demand Yanagisawa step down.
■ Japan
Drug crackdown working
A crackdown on a drug trafficking ring with links to North Korea and other anti-narcotic operations has sharply reduced the flow of illegal drugs into the nation, sending prices surging, police said yesterday. With stricter inspections and more patrols, authorities exposed 77 alleged smugglers last year, almost twice the number reported the year before, according to figures released by the National Police Agency. The price of amphetamines is up tenfold from 2002, according to the police's annual report.
■ South Korea
North Korean teens suffer
North Korean children experience stunted growth in their early teens due to chronic malnutrition, a scholar said yesterday. Park Sun-young, an anthropology professor at Seoul National University, surveyed 1,192 North Korean child defectors. Children aged between two and 14 at the time they left showed no major differences with South Korean counterparts in terms of growth, she told Yonhap news agency. A 2004 survey of 2,300 North Korean defectors showed that the average adult North Korean men and women are respectively 5.9 centimeters and 4.1 centimeters shorter than their South Korean counterparts.
■ Hong Kong
Mothers-to-be not welcome
New rules aimed at barring heavily pregnant women from mainland China abusing Hong Kong's hospital system came into effect yesterday. Immigration officers at the border were under orders to stop any woman more than seven months pregnant and refuse them entry to the territory unless they had a hospital appointment. By mid-day there were no figures available for the number of women who had been turned away, although television pictures showed some being questioned. A government spokesman said a tally would be issued later in the day.
■ Pakistan
Six rapists arrested
Police have arrested six men who allegedly raped a teenage girl and forced her to parade naked through a village in a so-called "honor punishment," officials said on Wednesday. The men kidnapped the 16-year-old girl in Habib Labalo village in southern Sindh Province on Saturday because her cousin had an affair with a woman from their family, local police officer Aftab Farooqi said. Two of them raped her and other members of the group later forced her to walk naked through the streets before villagers intervened, Farooqi said quoting the girl's family members and local residents.
■ China
Vote-buyers prosecuted
Beijing has prosecuted 192 officials for vote-buying and electoral fraud in the current round of village elections across the country, state media reported yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party allows limited direct elections in 680,000 villages across the country. But it has resisted calls for elections at township, county, provincial and national levels. The appointments of 613 officials were annulled in elections for local party committees, heads of local people's congresses, local governments and advisory bodies that began last year and will finish in 2007, the Shanghai Daily said.
■ Bangladesh
Election officials resign
All five of the country's election commissioners have resigned following a string of violent street protests alleging their favoritism toward a political party headed by former prime minister Khaleda Zia. Interim President Iajuddin Ahmed accepted the resignations on Wednesday, the presidential palace said in a brief statement. It did not give a reason for the commissioners' move. The resignations could further delay as-yet-unscheduled elections, postponed last month when the caretaker government declared a state of emergency to quell weeks of political unrest. Mainul Hosein, legal adviser to the government, said three new election commissioners would be appointed soon.
■ Philippines
Army pledges impartiality
The newly appointed defense secretary yesterday pledged to ensure the country's armed forces would not help candidates cheat during upcoming elections in May. "We have to insulate the Armed Forces of the Philippines from partisan activities," Hermogenes Ebdane said in a speech as he formally took over the post. Ebdane said troops would be barred from providing security detail to politicians, transporting ballot boxes and providing a venue inside their camps for vote-counting. Independent poll monitors however can call on troops to enforce a firearms ban and neutralize "serious armed threats" during the May 14 polls, military chief General Hermogenes Esperon said.
■ Sweden
Cookie injury compensated
A salesman who chipped a tooth on a cookie while visiting a customer is entitled to compensation for his dental work after a court ruled the incident was a work-related injury. The Supreme Administrative Court ruled in favor of Calle Montell's claim for state compensation, saying the injury was work-related because it occurred while he was practicing his job. The Jan. 18 ruling ended a legal battle that begun on Oct. 31, 2002, when Montell bit into a cookie offered by a customer, and cracked his tooth on a cherry pit.
■ United Kingdom
Magazine offers space trip
A magazine is offering readers the chance to win a trip to space simply by answering the question "What is the best patented invention and why?" it said yesterday. The winner of the New Scientist contest will be blasted into space 100km above Earth, from where they will be afforded stunning views of the planet and feel weightlessness. The prize is the latest off-the-wall opportunity from the magazine, which previously gave readers the chance to have their bodies cryogenically frozen after they died. "We delight in trying to find unusual prizes for people," editor Jeremy Webb said.
■ South Africa
`Mama' Tambo passes on
Adelaide Tambo, the widow of African National Congress (ANC) stalwart Oliver Tambo and a hero of the anti-apartheid movement in her own right, died on Wednesday night, the ANC said. Tambo, who joined the ANC at the age of 18 and quickly became one of its most prominent leaders, collapsed and died at her Johannesburg home, the party said in a statement. She was 77. Adelaide, a primary school teacher and political activist, married Oliver Tambo, who at one stage led the ANC, in 1956. Newspapers yesterday mourned the woman known affectionately by the nation as "Mama Tambo," famous for her record as a campaigner for women's rights.
■ United Kingdom
Final `Potter' out on July 21
The fate of fictional boy wizard Harry Potter will finally be revealed on July 21, the publication day for the seventh and final instalment of J.K. Rowling's hugely successful book series. In what promises to be one of the biggest publishing events in recent years, book stores will be bracing for another outbreak of Pottermania as fans across the world snap up their copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Speculation has been rife that Rowling may kill Harry at the end of book seven. Two top US authors, John Irving and Stephen King, were sufficiently concerned over the fictional hero's fate to urge Rowling to spare him. Bloomsbury Publishing announced the release date yesterday.
■ United States
Heart disease gene found
A gene variant predisposes women to heart disease, a new study found, offering clues to the origins of heart attacks and strokes. Women with the variant were four times more likely to suffer coronary artery disease, the researchers at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California said. The study was published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. The scientists relied on data the University of Iowa gathered through a study of 11,377 people since 1971. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among women, the WHO says.
■ United States
Senator censured over intern
The South Dakota Senate on Wednesday refused to expel a lawmaker accused of fondling an 18-year-old legislative intern in a motel bed, but voted to censure him instead. Democratic Senator Dan Sutton, 36, had admitted sharing a bed with the intern last winter but denied groping him. The censure amounts to a public reprimand that has no effect on Sutton's legislative powers. The motion to expel Sutton failed 14-20, and the censure vote was 32-2. Sutton left the chamber when the debate began over his future, and he was the only senator not voting. Attorney-General Larry Long said that the criminal investigation was continuing.
■ United Nations
Oil-for-food fight drags on
Four years after the UN Security Council ordered the shutdown of the troubled oil-for-food program for Iraq, some Iraqi officials still appear intent on using it for illegal gains, it was disclosed on Wednesday. The UN has been trying to close down the US$64 billion program since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. The Security Council last year called on UN managers to resolve all outstanding issues so it could be ended definitively in 2007. However, former secretary-general Kofi Annan, in a Dec. 8 letter made public on Wednesday, said that task had been complicated by allegations from two vendors that authentication documents needed to clear some of the last payments "have been improperly withheld by authorities in Iraq."
■ Mexico
Big bambino draws crowds
He is called "Super Tonio," and at a whopping birth weight of 6.6kg, the ``little'' fellow is causing a sensation in the resort city of Cancun. Residents have crowded the nursery ward's window to see Antonio Vasconcelos, who was born early Monday by Caesarean section at Jesus Kumate Rodriguez hospital. The baby measures 55cm in length. According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest baby born to a healthy mother was a boy weighing 10.2kg, born in Aversa, Italy in September 1955.
■ Mexico
Price hikes lead to protest
Thousands of people marched in Mexico City on Wednesday to protest the sharp hike of basic food products, including tortillas and milk, and to demand the government exclude food staples from the North American Free Trade Agreement. "No corn, no country," the protesters shouted in the first major demonstration to confront President Felipe Calderon since he took office Dec. 1. Participants also demanded a minimum wage increase. The Calderon administration recently hiked minimum wages US$4.30 to US$4.60 per day. The protest was triggered by Calderon's decision to raise the price of tortillas by between 40 and 100 percent.
■ United Nations
Top officials defy Ban
Most top UN officials have defied a request to submit their resignations to make way for new appointees, the world body said on Wednesday, hinting at the obstacles to reform faced by new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. On. Jan. 4 Ban sent letters to 58 senior officials at UN headquarters in New York and elsewhere asking them to offer their resignations. Just 20 have done so, UN chief spokeswoman Michele Montas acknowledged. The request applied to individuals working at the level of undersecretary-general or assistant secretary-general and most are working under contracts which expire at the end of this month, she said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
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
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