■ Hong Kong
Women has brush with death
A woman somehow swallowed her toothbrush but still managed to dial 999 and call for an ambulance, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. The 42-year-old woman's brush with disaster happened on Tuesday morning when she slipped, jamming the offending 15cm implement down her throat, the South China Morning Post said. The woman was still able to call 999 without choking and request an ambulance, the paper reported. "Paramedics obtained another 15cm-long toothbrush at her home, which she said was similar to the one she swallowed, and took it with them to the hospital," the newspaper said. The instrument was eventually extracted with endoscopic surgery.
■ Malaysia
Midget mobsters nabbed
Police detained an eight-member gang of small-sized robbers dubbed the "midget gang," who allegedly confessed to committing 14 break-ins over the past three months, a news report said yesterday. All the gang members, aged between 14 and 23 years, were diminutive, the Star newspaper said without saying whether they were dwarfs or just small. Some of them who were less than 150cm tall would be picked to squeeze through small openings into the houses they robbed, the Star said. Gang members confessed to their crimes when they were detained, according to the report.
■ Vietnam
Three Norwegians detained
Three Norwegians were briefly detained by police as they arrived at the monastery of an activist Buddhist monk in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday, the Norwegian embassy in Hanoi said. The arrests were not immediately confirmed by authorities, who last month denied a visa to the chairman of the Rafto Foundation of Norway that awarded the monk, Thich Quang Do, its annual human rights prize last year. "I can confirm three Norwegians were arrested, questioned by police and released," an official at the embassy said.
■ India
Fifty policemen killed
Fifty policemen were killed in a Maoist rebel attack on a jungle security post in the central state of Chhattisgarh, an official said yesterday. "Fifty police have been killed, including special police officers and state police personnel," said K.R. Pisda, administrator of the area where the overnight attack took place. Maoist rebels, who launch frequent attacks in their fight for the rights of neglected tribes and landless farmers, have gained control of 10 of the state's 16 impoverished districts, according to police. Officials have said the Maoist insurgency, which dates back over four decades, now threatens huge swathes of the country's center, east and south.
■ Japan
Company admits coverup
A power company admitted yesterday that it had covered up a 1999 incident in which mishandling of nuclear fuel rods led to an unintended self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction for 15 minutes. Hokuriku Electric Power said that there had been no radiation leak as a result of the mistake, which caused the company's Shiga No. 1 nuclear unit in central Japan to go into a "critical state" for 15 minutes. The unit was shut down manually after an automatic shut-down function failed. The company apologized at a briefing for not reporting the incident, which occurred during a test while the unit was off line.
■ United Kingdom
Men charged for jail time
Two men who spent more than 12 years in jail for a murder they did not commit must pay the "living expenses" they incurred in prison from their compensation, the Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday. By a four-one majority, five law lords upheld the deduction from the Home Office compensation awarded to cousins Vincent and Michael Hickey for their wrongful conviction in 1979. The pair argued that it was wrong to charge what was, in effect, board and lodging during their unjustified incarceration. The Hickeys' lawyer said: "To deduct saved living expenses from their compensation offends against justice." The dissenting judge likened the men's incarceration to a "prolonged kidnapping."
■ United Kingdom
Posthumous pardon wanted
The descendants of an 18th century British admiral shot by firing squad after his failure to "do his utmost" to defeat the French are pressing the government to grant him a posthumous pardon. On the 250th anniversary of Admiral John Byng's execution in 1757, family head Lord Torrington has written to Defence Secretary Des Browne asking for a pardon. "I have asked the defence secretary to consider the matter because Admiral Byng has been judged not guilty by the fullness of time," he told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "At the most, he made an error of judgment, but he was in no way a coward."
■ Russia
Hitman hired to kill son
A woman paid a former convict to kill her 17-year-old son because she was fed up with sharing her small one-room apartment with him, the newspaper Izvestia reported on Wednesday. The 42-year-old crane operator paid the man a 2,100 rouble (US$80) deposit to kill her son, Izvestia said. But the would-be hitman told the police who set up a sting operation and arrested her when she handed over the 900 rouble "completion" payment.
■ Germany
Probe unearths Neo-Nazis
The former vice-president of the Central Council of Jews, Michel Friedman, said on Wednesday that some of his bodyguards had been neo-Nazis. The interior ministry for the state of Hesse said in a statement the police themselves had uncovered this and notified prosecutors of the evidence. Friedman said the investigation had been under way for around a year but has yet to produce results. The neo-Nazi connection to Friedman's bodyguards was unearthed during an internal probe of fraud charges involving the Frankfurt police who were charged with protecting Friedman at the time, the Hesse interior ministry said.
■ Iran
Movie `300' denounced
In the country's pantheon of hated Western symbols Hollywood is already firmly established as a place of cultural decadence. But now the country's Islamic leadership has accused it of "psychological warfare" in its depiction of the battle between the Greeks and Persians at Thermopylae in 480BC, regarded by some as a key event in the birth of Western democracy. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has joined members of parliament, bloggers and local media in denouncing the newly released Warner Brothers film, 300, as a calculated attempt to demonize Iran. Ahmadinejad's spokesman branded the film "an insult to Iran."
■ United States
Men report harassment
A record number of men reported being sexually harassed in the workplace last year, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Newly released data from the EEOC showed that 15.4 percent of the 12,025 charges of sexual harassment during the last fiscal year were filed by men, as opposed to 11.6 percent a decade ago. The data released does not indicate whether the harassers were male or female. The fact that more complaints are being filed by men may mean that victims are more willing to report discrimination, rather than an increase in actual instances of sexual harassment.
■ Argentina
Police fire at governor
Police in Buenos Aires fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Wednesday to oust a governor who refused to leave his office despite his suspension over corruption allegations, local media reported. La Rioja Governor Angel Maza hunkered down through the night at his Government House offices after the provincial legislature voted on Tuesday night to suspend him and start impeachment proceedings over allegations that he manipulated bids for mining concessions. At midday about a dozen police cleared a path through about 200 Maza supporters and regained control of the building. The governor was abruptly driven away and there were no reports of serious injuries.
■ United States
Unicorn in defense mix up
On Tuesday, a Billings, Montana, prosecutor told a district judge that Phillip Holliday, 42, claimed a unicorn was driving when his truck crashed into a light pole earlier this month. Apparently, Holliday told police an unnamed woman was driving when his truck hit the pole -- not a unicorn. The mixup occurred when a deputy prosecutor misunderstood an e-mail from a colleague who used the phrase "unicorn defense," thinking it was an actual statement from Holliday. "Unicorn defense" is a term used by prosecutors when someone blames a mythical person for a crime, he said.
■ Canada
Caterpillars vomit liquid
Biologists have discovered that some caterpillars loudly click their jaws to warn predators and then vomit up foul liquid to avoid being eaten, the British weekly New Scientist reports. The silk moth caterpillar uses the unusual defense instead of the better-known mechanism of camouflage, according to the team at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. The clicks, "about as loud as lightly snapping your fingernails," are the first time that caterpillars have been known to make warning sounds, New Scientist says in tomorrow's issue.
■ United States
Sudan owes damages
A judge in Virginia ruled on Wednesday that Sudan should pay damages to the families of 17 sailors killed in the the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. District Judge Robert Doumar said he would determine how much Sudan should pay the families of the 17 sailors who died in the attack on the guided-missile destroyer. Evidence at the two-day trial detailed the financial and logistical support Sudan gave to al-Qaeda. Six family members also testified about the loss of their loved ones. Payment is expected to come from the US$68 million in Sudanese assets in the US that have been frozen because of the country's links to terrorism.
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
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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