■ CHINA
Uranium reserve to be set up
The government plans to set up a national strategic uranium reserve as part of its five-year plan for the nuclear industry, the semi-official China News Service reported yesterday. Beijing would encourage careful exploitation of domestic uranium deposits and the stockpile would include both Chinese and imported uranium, the report said. It also suggested it would be linked up with a commercial stockpile system to ensure an adequate fuel supply for electricity generation. China plans a rapid expansion of its nuclear power plants to 40 gigawatts -- around half the UK's entire capacity -- by 2020, from under 10 gigawatts at present.
■ CHINA
Luxurious buildings banned
Communist leaders have banned the building of luxurious government buildings with such things as indoor fountains, soaring atriums and dance stages in a bid to curb waste and corruption, state media reported yesterday. Xinhua news agency said a circular from the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council said that government buildings could not have lobby areas higher than a single story, meeting rooms equipped with simultaneous translating facilities, indoor gardens or atriums.
■ CHINA
Artificial snow created
China has created artificial snow for the first time in Tibet, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, months after experts warned of melting glaciers and drought in the Himalayan region. The Tibet meteorological station had performed a "successful artificial snowfall operation" last week in northern Tibet, about 4,500m above sea level, the agency said. "The first artificial snowfall proves it is possible to change the weather through human efforts on the world's highest plateau," it quoted Yu Zhongshui, an engineer with the meteorological station, as saying.
■ JAPAN
Right-wing activist arrested
Police arrested a former right-wing activist in Tokyo yesterday for allegedly throwing a gasoline bomb at a newspaper building last year protesting an exclusive report on the wartime emperor's decision to stop visiting a Tokyo war shrine. Motohide Hiraoka, 42, was arrested on suspicion of lobbing a wine bottle filled with gasoline at the Tokyo headquarters of the Japanese business daily Nikkei last July, a police spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol. The bottle did not catch fire, and there were no injuries or major damage. News reports said Hiraoka was angered by a Nikkei report from July 20 saying that wartime Emperor Hirohito stopped visiting Yasukuni shrine out of displeasure over its 1978 decision to honor executed war criminals.
■ PAKISTAN
Removal of judge protested
Nearly 1,000 lawyers and opposition supporters held fresh protests yesterday against the removal of the country's top judge by President Pervez Musharraf. Crowds shouted "Go Musharraf, Go" outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad, where suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was to appear before a judical council hearing misconduct charges against him. Police arrested scores of opposition activists in the capital and nearby Rawalpindi late on Tuesday, with newspapers saying up to 250 were detained.
■ GERMANY
Man falls under train
A drunken man who fell under a city train after being jolted out of a nap at a station emerged unhurt from beneath the train. The 19-year-old had fallen asleep on the station platform in Cologne but was startled by the incoming train. Losing his balance, he fell in front of the train, police said. "According to the man, he fell exactly between the two tracks and just felt a light knock on the head," Cologne police said. The shocked train driver pulled the emergency brakes only to see the man emerge unaided from under the engine.
■ NIGER
Students lynch soldier
High school students lynched an off-duty soldier on Tuesday, the third such killing in a spate of violent protests by university students and school pupils, the Interior Ministry said. The soldier was driving home on his moped in the capital Niamey on Tuesday when protesters attacked him, the ministry said. Demonstrations have escalated in recent days, calling on security forces to withdraw from the national university campus. The dispute stems partly from student opposition to the coordinator of student services, Djibril Abarchi, who was appointed for a year in a compromise between academic staff and the government.
■ NORWAY
Terrorism bill introduced
The justice ministry on Tuesday presented a bill to parliament that would increase the sentence for acts of terrorism from the present 21 years in prison to 30, the ministry said in a statement. A 30-year sentence would be the lengthiest in the country's justice system. The ministry said the maximum prison term would be used in the most severe cases of terrorism that result in the deaths of a number of people. The government was however not planning to allow police and intelligence services to expand their investigation methods, the statement said.
■ GERMANY
Army instructor sacked
The Defense Ministry said on Tuesday it had dismissed an army instructor who was filmed ordering a recruit to imagine he was in the Bronx firing a machine gun at "African-Americans" who were insulting his mother. He said the non-commissioned officer, whose name is being withheld, was stripped of his rank and pay. The ministry is still investigating a second soldier who filmed the training scenes. It was unclear how long this investigation would take, the spokesman said. On Monday, the ministry condemned the scene depicted in the video footage as unacceptable. Television broadcasters aired the 90-second video clip over the weekend.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
`Neighbor from Hell' jailed
An 81-year-old woman, once dubbed by a judge the "original neighbor from Hell," was jailed for six months on Tuesday for harassment. Dorothy Evans, from Abergavenny in Wales, was sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court. The judge had threatened her with arrest after she failed to turn up for sentencing on Monday. At her February trial, the court heard Evans had subjected neighbors to months of abuse. She called one a prostitute, told her husband to go back to Italy and told their daughter she was a witch and would cast a spell over the family.
■ UNITED STATES
Firefighter attacker jailed
A man who shot at firefighters after they refused to get his cat out of a tree has been sentenced to five months in jail. Jeffrey Francis Cullen, 59, of Kingman, Arizona, reported a tree fire on Aug. 17. Once the three-person crew arrived, Cullen told them he wanted his cat rescued from the tree. Hualapai Valley Fire Department spokeswoman Sandy Edwards said a battalion chief told Cullen to call animal control or to wait for the cat to get hungry and come down. The response apparently incensed Cullen, who retrieved a small handgun from his home and came out shooting.
■ MEXICO
No nudes at pyramids
The government is unlikely to allow US artist Spencer Tunick stage a nude photo shoot at its famous Teotihuacan pyramids, citing possible damage to the ancient site. Tunick has asked archeological authorities for permission to photograph masses of naked people at Teotihuacan, the country's oldest major ruins, on May 6. "The application has been filed and the National Anthropology and History Institute is evaluating it, but it looks like they won't let him. It's not the last word but they have told me it will be rejected," Alejandro Sarabia, who runs the Teotihuacan site, said on Monday.
■ UNITED STATES
Aldrin announces lottery
Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, announced plans on Tuesday for a lottery which would send its winner into space in a bid to spread the dream of extraterrestrial travel beyond the super-wealthy. Aldrin, who followed US astronaut Neil Armstrong onto the moon in July 1969, said the lottery would be run through his ShareSpace Foundation, which he set up to promote interest in science and space travel in schools. Details of the competition are still sketchy, Aldrin said at a space investment conference on Wall Street on Tuesday, with the legal status of selling lottery tickets still to be resolved.
■ UNITED STATES
Cabbies face penalties
Muslim cab drivers at Minnesota's biggest airport will face new penalties including a two-year revocation of their taxi permits if they refuse to give rides to travelers carrying liquor or accompanied by dogs, the board overseeing operations ruled on Monday. The Metropolitan Airports Commission, responding to complaints about the liquor issue, voted unanimously to impose the new penalties beginning next month. A large number of taxi drivers in the area of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are Muslim Somali immigrants. Many say they feel the faith's ban on alcohol consumption includes transporting anyone carrying it.
■ UNITED STATES
Mafia boss goes to jail
The acting boss of one of the so-called "Five Families" that control Mafia activity in New York was jailed on Tuesday for 18 months on racketeering charges, justice officials said. Genovese family capo Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello was convicted of collecting unlawful labor payments from union officials and obstructing a grand jury investigation into the union. Ianniello pleaded guilty to the charges in September. Prosecutors said a union official identified as Salvatore "Hotdogs" Battaglia regularly received illegal payments from local bus companies in return for favorable treatment. Ianniello was involved with collecting the payments, they 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