■ China
Protest halts rail traffic
Disgruntled residents blocked railway tracks in Jiangxi Province for almost six hours to protest a government redistricting plan that they fear could reduce social welfare benefits, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The protest began shortly before noon on Wednesday when a crowd descended on a railway station in Guixi, voicing anger over a proposal to place part of the city under the jurisdiction of a neighboring district, Xinhua said. "They worried that the re-division would affect their salaries and welfare," the report said. It gave no details. Benefits and public sector salaries vary widely in China depending on the local economy and tax base.
■ China
Reporters test hospitals
A group of reporters came up with a novel idea to test how greedy local hospitals were -- pass off tea as urine samples and submit the drink for tests. The results: six out of 10 hospitals in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, visited by the reporters over a two-day period this month concluded that the patients' urinal tracts were infected. Five of the hospitals prescribed medication costing up to 400 yuan (US$50), the online edition of the semi-official China News Service said in a report seen on Wednesday. Of the hospitals, four were state-owned.
■ India
Man makes threat on plane
Police on Wednesday arrested a drunken Mexican passenger on a New Delhi-bound flight from Bangkok after he allegedly threatened to blow up the plane, officials said. The state-run Indian Airlines flight with 88 people aboard made an emergency landing after passengers raised the alarm, airline spokesman Ashok Sharma said. "The Mexican passenger, F. Edwardo, 47, is still under the influence of alcohol. He is lying at the immigration department of the airport," police Superintendent Pravin Kumar said. The plane, carrying 82 passengers and six crew, made an emergency landing at Dum Dum International Airport in Kolkata, India.
■ Indonesia
Volcano alert raised
Authorities have raised the alert level for the smoking Mount Batutara volcano, warning fishermen and others to stay away from the remote island it is situated on. "We recommend ... to be alert and not to go close to the mountain," local official Sentianus Medi said, as the alert level was raised to the second of four possible levels. The volcano is located on a normally deserted island in the Flores sea, but fishermen and others who occasionally land there were warned to stay at least 2km away. "The mountain has shown increased activity with smoke rising between 500 meters to 1,500 metres above the volcano," Medi said.
■ New Zealand
Man to exhibit father's ashes
An artist is planning to exhibit his father's ashes, saying he was "much more useful dead than he ever was alive," a report said yesterday. Nigel Madden, from Napier, North Island, previously exhibited photographs of his father Neville, an alcoholic and one-time radio announcer, lying on a mortuary slab after suffering a fatal heart attack. The photographs shown last year in the Norsewood Art Awards offered an insight into his dysfunctional relationship with his father, Madden said. This year Madden plans to display his father's ashes in a pewter urn, he told the Dominion Post newspaper.
■ United Kingdom
Chopin's piano found
The grand piano Frederic Chopin took on his last concert tour in 1848 has been found in an English country house thanks to detective work by a Swiss music scholar. "It came as a bolt from the blue," said British collector Alec Cobbe after discovering that the piano he bought 20 years ago for £2,000 (US$3,900) is a piece of musical history. For more than 150 years after the composer's death, Chopin's piano vanished until Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger researched the ledgers of French pianomaker Camille Pleyel. He came to see the collector armed with details of where and to whom all the Pleyel pianos were sold.
■ Israel
Female spies wanted
The government lifted the veil over its secret services' recruiting practices on Wednesday by issuing a public call for more women and foreign Jews to sign up for sensitive government jobs in information technology. The Military Intelligence and the Mossad and Shin Bet spy agencies are believed to have world-class electronic eavesdropping facilities, but officials have long complained of qualified candidates being lured away by private high-tech firms. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement that he had ordered his security chiefs to seek out more female employees for "high-end" technological duties.
■ Gaza Strip
Islamic professor kidnapped
An Islamic university professor, affiliated with the militant Hamas movement, was kidnapped by gunmen late on Wednesday, Hamas officials said. Hamad al-Sousi was abducted as he was leaving evening prayers at a mosque south of Gaza City, they said, blaming rival Fatah for the incident. It was the first such kidnapping since a new Fatah-Hamas government took office on Saturday. Hamas and Fatah have often used kidnapping in their battles, which have killed more than 140 Palestinians from last May until a cease-fire was called in early last month.
■ United States
Vitamin D may help wheeze
High levels of vitamin D, obtained through the diet or through supplements, during pregnancy appear to reduce the risk of recurrent wheeze or wheeze symptoms in early childhood, according to the findings of two studies reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In the first study, Carlos Camargo, from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues used a food questionnaire to assess vitamin D levels during pregnancy and then correlated these findings with recurrent wheeze in the child at three years of age.
■ United States
Police nab passport dealers
London police arrested 22 people in a crackdown on illegal passport factories and suppliers, Scotland Yard said yesterday. More than 100 officers took part in dawn raids at 13 addresses across the capital on Wednesday, backed by officials from the Immigration Service, the Identity and Passport Service, South Yorkshire Police and the Department of Work and Pensions. The action came the day after the Home Office admitted that about 10,000 Passports had been issued to fraudulent applicants in the year to last September. Police said 19 of those arrested were accused of crimes including unlawful facilitation and identity card offences.
■ United States
Assaults in military rise
Reports of sexual assaults in the US military increased by about 24 percent last year and more than twice as many offenders were punished. There were nearly 3,000 sexual assault reports filed last year, compared with almost 2,400 the previous year, a Pentagon report said on Wednesday. Action was taken against 780 people, from courts-martial and discharges to other administrative remedies. The military counts rape, nonconsensual sodomy, indecent assault and attempts to commit any of those as sexual assault, though the 17-page report contained no data on how many of each were reported.
■ United States
Soldier guilty in rape case
A soldier has pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the slaying of her family. Private First Class Bryan Howard, 19, on Wednesday also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice by lying to his superior officers about the attack last year in Mahmoudiya, 30km south of Baghdad. It was one of the most shocking atrocities committed by US troops in the Iraq war. Howard agreed to five years in prison under a plea deal but will not serve more than 27 months if he follows conditions of the agreement, military judge Colonel Stephen Henley said. In a statement to the court, Howard apologized to the military, his family and the victims.
■ United States
Judge protects porn
A federal judge yesterday threw out a 1998 law that makes it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access "harmful" material. In the ruling, the judge said parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit the rights of adults to free speech. "Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if [free speech] protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," wrote Senior US District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. The law would have criminalized Web sites that allow children to access material deemed "harmful."
■ United States
Sex monster convicted
A man was convicted of several hundred sex-crime counts for abusing a girl for a decade. A jury in Brookfield, Pennsylvania, found Clarence Thomas, 56, guilty Tuesday of 971 counts. Those included more than 100 charges each of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault and corruption of minors; more than 200 counts of aggravated indecent assault; and nearly 400 counts of indecent assault. Prosecutors accused Thomas of sexually assaulting his victim, now 20, from 1994 to 2004. Thomas testified he weighed 195kg to 240kg at the time. He also said spinal injuries would have made it impossible for him to commit the crimes.
■ United States
US reduces Palestinian aid
The Bush administration will reduce by nearly half a proposed US$86 million security assistance package to the Palestinian government to see that none of the money ends up with forces loyal to Hamas. As she prepares to visit the Middle East later this week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on she would soon send Congress a revised package that will fund only security elements loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. A senior US official said the cut would amount to about US$36 million.
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
‘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