■ Thailand
Chat room page shut down
The government has shut down a popular political online chat room, the Web site said yesterday, just days after YouTube was blocked for videos deemed insulting to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The political page of Pantip.com was closed for national security reasons at the request of the Information Communication and Technology Ministry (ITC), a notice on the Web site read. "ICT has asked for the temporary closure of [the political page] `Rajadamneon Room' after it found several topics that might endanger national security," the site said in a notice.
■ Hong KOng
Burial-at-sea operational
The ashes of 11 people were scattered off a small island a mile from downtown as a new burial-at-sea scheme went into operation in the space-scarce city, the government said yesterday. Family members and religious ministers took to the high seas aboard a specially decked out boat for the burials Saturday afternoon. Each deceased was given a religious send-off of their family's choosing before their ashes were tossed over the side, a government spokesman said. The government gave the go-ahead for burials at specific sites around the territory's coast last year in a bid to ease competition for burial space in its choked cemeteries and crematoria.
■ Hong Kong
Tourism boss to stop scams
The Hong Kong Tourist Board's new boss James Tien (田北俊) vowed yesterday to crack down on high-street retail scams that prey on unsuspecting Chinese visitors. The comments by Tien, follow revelations that a number of jewelry shops had sold fake goods to Chinese tourists. "I find these allegations shocking and deeply damaging for our tourism industry," Tien, a tycoon lawmaker and former Cabinet member, said in an address on public radio. Chiefs at the Tourism Industry Council trade body warned that such scams would damage the territory's reputation as a shopping destination.
■ China
Parent care check planned
Changyuan County plans in-depth checks on how its officials' treat their parents, with those who are nice to their mother and father first in line for promotion, Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. Up to 500 family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors will be grilled by special investigators about the behavior of each official in the county, including their family values and any drinking or gambling habits, the report said. The findings will be considered when deciding promotions.
■ Australia
Hicks cannot sell story
Al-Qaeda supporter David Hicks will be barred from selling his story when he returns home from Guantanamo Bay prison camp, despite having broken no law, the attorney general said yesterday. Hicks will soon be sent to a prison in his hometown of Adelaide to serve a nine-month sentence after pleading guilty two weeks ago to aiding al-Qaeda in a plea deal agreed on at the US naval base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. The deal includes the condition that Hicks not speak to the media for a year, and does not sell his story -- provisions that Attorney General Philip Ruddock said will not be enforceable once he returns home. However, Ruddock said a separate federal law against criminals profiting from crime through media deals will stop the 31-year-old from selling his story.
■ United States
Famous criminal dies
Jimmy Lee Smith, the lifelong criminal whose role in the 1963 kidnapping and killing of a police officer inspired Joseph Wambaugh's true-life crime novel The Onion Field died in jail at age 76, a California prisons official said. Smith died on Friday at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, where he was being held for failing to report to a parole officer, Bill Sessa, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokes-man, said on Saturday. Foul play was not suspected, but the cause of death was under investigation, the county coroner's office said.
■ United States
Man wants to give house
Mike Bassett wants to give away a house, a big house, with a fireplace, built-in cabinets, a bay window, two full bathrooms and walk-in closets. There is just one catch -- the lucky recipient has to move it. Bassett says if he does not have a taker by July 1, he will raze the structure to make way for more parking for his supermarket and gas station next door in Bellevue, Ohio, 72km southeast of Toledo. "I hate to tear it down," Bassett, 54, said on Friday. "It's a beautiful house." He said that in the past week he has received about 20 inquiries about the house, which was used for offices until last June.
■ United States
Dolphin chat line opened
A marine mammal rehabi-litation facility opened a dolphin "chat line" on Saturday, hoping to teach a deaf dolphin's unborn calf to communicate. The stranded dolphin has been recovering at the Marine Mammal Conservancy in Key Largo, Florida, since Jan. 30. A battery of tests has confirmed she is deaf. Dolphins need to hear echoes of sounds they produce to find food, socialize and defend themselves. Researchers decided to electronically connect the dolphin's habitat with a lagoon at Dolphins Plus, a nearby research facility. Underwater speakers and microphones were installed at both locations and connected via telephone lines.
■ United States
Moviegoers shocked
A family-film audience was stunned to get an unintended glimpse of a horror movie, which left some parents shaken and the theater chain apologizing for the mix-up. The moviegoers were expecting to see The Last Mimzy, the PG-rated tale of a brother and sister who discover a mysterious box of toys and become endowed with superhuman powers to help preserve the future. Instead, the crowd saw the opening scene of The Hills Have Eyes 2, the R-rated sequel to a remake of a 1977 horror classic by Wes Craven. The movie, which centers on National Guard troops who stumble on a clan of mutant cannibals, starts with a chained woman giving birth to a mutant.
■ United States
Flight canceled over fit
Northwest Airlines canceled a flight from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Detroit, Michigan, after the captain cursed on a cellphone in a bathroom, then swore at one of the 180 passengers on the plane, officials said on Saturday. "He used what was described to me as rude language," Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said about Friday's incident on Northwest Flight 1190. "At some point during the boarding process, he left the cockpit, went into the front lavatory, locked the door and continued his conversation. "Passengers who were boarding the aircraft could hear his end of the conversation through the lavatory door."
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