■ China
Babies puzzle police
The discovery of five babies in a stolen car has stumped police, who suspect the infants were kidnapped and are investigating where they came from, state media reported on Wednesday. The babies, three boys and two girls about 10 days old, were found on Sunday after highway police flagged down a "suspicious" vehicle at a toll station in Hebei Province, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. Two male occupants of the car brandished knives before fleeing, leaving the car and babies behind at the scene in Nanchong City. Police later discovered the car had been reported stolen in Shanghai and suspect that the babies had been abducted. The case has sparked a flood of media and public interest.
■ Indonesia
Warning system disabled
Angry residents in Aceh have disabled a tsunami warning system after a false alarm spread panic in a province still traumatized by the deadly 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, an official said yesterday. Residents cut power to a siren on a tsunami warning tower in the Lhoknga area near the provincial capital Banda Aceh by smashing an electricity box, Syahnan Sobri, the head of the meteorology and geophysics agency in Aceh said. A technical glitch prompted the siren to ring for about 30 minutes in Aceh Besar district on Monday, sending residents rushing out of their homes in panic.
■ Australia
Prisoners' water restricted
Prisoners in the tropical state of Queensland will be limited to three-minute showers and six toilet flushes a day under a plan to save water, local media reported on Wednesday. Queensland prisoners had been restricted to four-minute showers, the same as the top level-five water restrictions for residents in the dry southeast of the state. But prisons will have new technology installed to turn the water off after three minutes, said the state's Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence. "After three minutes the water will automatically cut off. With the new technology they will only be allowed six flushes a day. That will be the new regime for prisons in Queensland," Spence told parliament, Australian Associated Press reported.
■ Tonga
Legislators to stand trial
Five legislators will stand trial on sedition charges for their alleged role in a riot last year which left eight dead and destroyed much of the center of the capital, a magistrate said. Following a preliminary hearing, Police Magistrate Peau Pifeleti ruled on Wednesday the five should be tried in the Nuku'alofa Supreme Court. The five, including veteran political activist Akilisi Pohiva and former police minister Clive Edwards, have been campaigning for the government to speed up political reforms in the semi-feudal South Pacific monarchy of 115,000 people.
■ Australia
Troops cleared by hearing
Australian soldiers who shot and killed a US civilian truck driver at a checkpoint in Iraq have been cleared of any wrongdoing, the army said yesterday. An Australian Defence Force (ADF) investigation found they had acted within the law and the rules of engagement when they opened fire after the contractor failed to stop, Brigadier Gus Gilmore told reporters. The driver, Hector Patino, 58, was a decorated Vietnam war veteran working for the US company Kellogg Brown and Root. His family has rejected the Australian military's findings and called for an independent inquiry.
■ United Kingdom
Artist's work pans Blair
An artist's triptych of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, naked, stony-faced and surrounded by haunting images of the unpopular war in Iraq, is one of the arresting sights at a major London art exhibition. Michael Sandle, whose Iraq Triptych was unveiled on Wednesday at the Royal Academy of Art's annual Summer Exhibition, depicts a morose Blair and his horrified wife, Cherie, as Adam and Eve, struggling to cover their nude forms outside their Downing Street home. Sandle's black-and-white drawing includes panels showing a soldier beating hooded and naked prisoners and a pile of corpses, one with tape covering its mouth."This is a biblical allegory -- Adam and Eve expelled from paradise -- and this is Blair's legacy," Sandle said, calling the Iraq war "disgraceful."
■ United Kingdom
Mugabe stripped of degree
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was stripped of an honorary degree by Edinburgh University on Wednesday because of Mugabe's links to atrocities in Matabeleland in the early 1980s. Edinburgh granted him an honorary doctorate in 1984 for his "services to education in Africa." The University of Massachusetts in the US was poised to take similar steps over an honorary doctorate of laws. Michigan State said it was also investigating whether honorary degrees could be revoked.
■ Belgium
Pools cause asthma risk
Infant swimming lessons in an indoor pool may have the unintended effect of raising some children's risk of asthma later on, research findings reported in the journal Pediatrics suggest. In a study of 341 children, researchers found that the 43 children who had been enrolled in a swimming program as infants were about three times more likely to have asthma or suffer recurrent bouts of bronchitis than children who did not. The problem, they said, is that chlorine byproducts may irritate infants' developing airways, causing changes that make them more susceptible to lung disease later in childhood.
■ Iran
Diplomatic spat with Spain
Iran summoned the Spanish ambassador to protest the calling in of its envoy to Madrid over the latest anti-Israeli outburst by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Mehr news agency reported yesterday. Ahmadinejad provoked a new storm of controversy earlier this week by saying a "countdown" had begun that would end with Lebanese and Palestinian militants destroying Israel. Top foreign ministry official Ebrahim Rahimpour told ambassador Antonio Perez-Hernandez Torra late on Wednesday. Rahimpour, the ministry's pointman for Western Europe, also accused Spain of "double standards" in its policy on the Middle East, saying it condoned Israeli killings of Palestinians while not supporting the Palestinian government.
■ Finland
Tehran frees fishermen
Three Finns detained by Iran while fishing near a disputed island in the Gulf were released on Wednesday, a senior foreign ministry official said in Helsinki. The three employees of mobile telecoms equipment firm Nokia Siemens Networks apparently drifted into Iranian-controlled waters while on an angling trip from the United Arab Emirates. They were detained on Saturday. Nokia Siemens spokesman Barry French said: "As far as we know they are in good condition."
■ United States
Residents told to save water
Los Angeles residents were urged on Wednesday to take shorter showers, reduce lawn sprinklers and stop throwing trash in toilets in a bid to cut water usage by 10 percent in the driest year on record. With downtown Los Angeles seeing a record low 10cm of rain since July last year -- less than a quarter of normal -- and with a hot, dry summer ahead, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city needed "to change course and conserve water to steer clear of this perfect storm." It is the driest year since rainfall records began 130 years ago.
■ United States
Officers seize pet rats
Officers seized more than 100 pet rats, dozens of rabbits and other animals including several birds from the home of an 81-year-old woman, who was later treated at a hospital for what appeared to be bites, authorities said. "The woman had no food in the house for herself and seemed disoriented," said Annette Ramirez, an officer with the city's Animal Services Department. "Her arms were covered with open wounds apparently caused by animal bites." Animal control officers discovered the scene while investigating a report on Monday of unkempt conditions at a home in suburban Wilmington. In all, they found about 120 rats, 25 rabbits, six parakeets, a dog, a quail and a cockatiel, she said.
■ United States
Grocer leaves US$1 million
A woman who ran a small grocery store in a rural New York state community has left a local school district US$1 million in her will. Alice Harris died on May 23, her 97th birthday. She and her husband, who died nine years ago, owned the Harris Grocery store on the southeastern edge of the Adirondacks. "Nobody ever knew she had that kind of money available," said Becky Mosher, who bought the small grocery store from Harris, who had no children. "She didn't spend money, she didn't go anywhere," Mosher said. Harris's money will establish the Loren and Alice Harris Scholarship Foundation for graduating students, which is expected to generate about US$50,000 in scholarships each year.
■ United States
Former lawman executed
A former sheriff's deputy was executed on Wednesday evening for the robbery, rape and fatal stabbing of a Houston woman at her family's flower shop. Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Michael Griffith said "No, sir." Griffith was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1994 slaying of Deborah McCormick, 44. Griffith had been a repeat customer at the shop run by McCormick and her mother, and he was known to the victim, who was alone at the time of the attack. "Our family lost much more than a beautiful daughter, mother, sister and friend on October 10, 1994," McCormick's daughter, Dawn Kirkland, said in a statement after the execution. "We lost the glue that held our family together."
■ United States
Bob Barker signs off
Blowing kisses to the camera, game show host Bob Barker signed off on 35 years on The Price Is Right and 50 years in TV in the same low-key, genial fashion that made him one of the US' biggest daytime stars. Barker, who had said before the taping in Los Angeles on Wednesday of his final appearance that he would try to act as if it was "just another show," stuck to that promise. He ended the program as he always has, signing off with the words: "Help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered. Goodbye everybody."
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
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