■ MALAYSIA
Mother offers to do jail time
A woman wants to join her son in jail to make sure he receives insulin injections three times a day, as well as anti-rejection drugs for a transplanted kidney. "I don't want him to die in jail," a tearful Chew Ten Hee, 67, told the New Straits Times newspaper, adding that her son, Sim Chung Mine, 41, would die if he did not get his medication regularly. "I don't understand how the police can claim he was involved in a robbery when he is so weak, he can't even walk without assistance," she added.
■ CHINA
Man sets himself on fire
A man set himself on fire in front of the office where citizens go to petition for help from the National People's Congress, a witness said yesterday. "A man who looked 40 to 50 set himself on fire in front of the petition office of National People's Congress Building in Beijing on Wednesday," said Li Jian, who witnessed the incident. "He poured gasoline on his body, set himself on fire with a lighter and was shouting: `My son was murdered, I was set up,'" Li said. "The guards ... sent him to hospital. We heard he died."
■ INDONESIA
Floods kill 107
The death toll from devastating floods and landslides on Sulawesi Island has risen to 107, as aid distribution to survivors gained pace yesterday, an official said. Forty-four bodies have been recovered but 63 people remain missing, presumed buried under landslides, said Rustam Pakaya, who heads the health ministry's crisis center in Jakarta. Officials have said at least 45,000 people were affected by the floods, which have hit in an area known for rampant deforestation. Indonesia has been repeatedly afflicted by deadly floods in recent years, with activists warning that logging and a failure to reforest denuded land will continue to cause tragedies.
■ JAPAN
No damages for daughters
A court yesterday refused to grant damages to the daughters of a doomsday cult leader on death row for ordering a deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Two of Shoko Asahara's daughters had demanded the state and a psychiatrist who checked him pay a total of ¥50 million (US$420,000), accusing them of deliberately rushing court proceedings. Asahara's death sentence was finalized last September after courts refused to accept an appeal that was submitted late. Tokyo District Court judge Nobuhiro Katada rejected the daughters' arguments, saying: "It cannot be recognized that judges proceeded with an unlawful or unfair intention." Asahara and his sect shocked the world on March 20, 1995, by releasing sarin gas in rush-hour Tokyo subway, killing 12 people and injuring thousands.
■ POLAND
Bus driver loses big
A bus driver has been fired for sending 38,000 text messages on his company cellphone in a losing effort to win a contest jackpot, a spokesman said on Thursday. Leszek Wojcik, a bus driver in Slupsk, ran up a tab of some US$34,000 with his text messages while trying to win a US$36,000 SMS contest that ended on June 30, Slupsk city transport spokesman Hubert Boba said. Boba said a city bus drivers' monthly company phone bill is supposed to be limited to US$5. Wojcik sent an average of 1,200 SMS text messages a day, each costing US$0.86, on his work cellphone.
■ LEBANON
Soldiers killed in fighting
Troops were battling Islamist militants house-to-house at a Palestinian refugee camp yesterday as the death toll from 10 weeks of fighting, the country's worst since its civil war, rose to 248. Security sources said two soldiers were killed in overnight exchanges, bringing to 122 the number of soldiers who have died since fighting against Fatah al-Islam militants at Nahr al-Bared camp in the north began on May 20. A military source said on Thursday the army was gradually occupying the last pockets controlled by the al-Qaeda-inspired group in the heart of the camp, once home to 40,000 refugees.
■ SWITZERLAND
Animal court cases mulled
The country could soon be voting on whether lawyers should be allowed to defend animals in court. Swiss Animal Protection submitted a petition on Thursday to the federal government to introduce cantonal (state) lawyers for animals. It made the request after having collected 148,294 signatures, more than the 100,000 needed to prompt a referendum to introduce a new law. The aim is to further crack down on the mistreatment of animals. While anyone who mistreats an animal can hire a defense lawyer, there is nobody to represent creatures, the agency said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Granny faces life in jail
One of England's oldest female murderers was facing life in jail after being convicted of slaying her son's wife in an "honor killing." Grandmother of 16, Bachan Athwal, 70, and her son were found guilty of killing Heathrow worker Surjit Kaur Athwal, who disappeared in December 1998 after deciding to leave her husband following their arranged marriage. Bachan Athwal was furious about her daughter-in-law's plans to leave, which she believed would disgrace the family, the court heard. Bachan Athwal and her son lured Surjit Kaur Athwal to India on the pretext of attending family weddings, but instead they strangled her.
■ UNITED STATES
Inmate busted for exposure
A Florida inmate was convicted of indecent exposure after a guard complained that he had masturbated in his cell. A jury took 45 minutes to convict Terry Lee Alexander, 20, of the misdemeanor on Wednesday. The judge sentenced him to 60 days in the county jail. He had faced up to a year. In November, Broward County deputy Coryus Veal, who was monitoring Alexander's cell from a control room, saw him masturbating while he was sitting on his bunk, alone in his cell. She testified that she brought the charge against him the third time he masturbated in view of her. Veal has brought similar charges against seven other inmates in six months.
■ UNITED STATES
Full backyard pool stolen
Daisy Valdivia is annoyed that someone stole her backyard pool -- and baffled at how they did it without leaving behind a splash, drip or trace of the 3,785 liters of water it contained. Valdivia awoke to find her family's hip-high, inflatable, 3m diameter swimming pool gone from her back yard in Paterson, New Jersey, on Wednesday. Valdivia told the Record of Bergen County the theft must have occurred between 1am, when her husband went to bed, and 5am, when she awoke. She's amazed someone could steal the pool that quickly and said she just wanted to know "what the heck they did with the water."
■ UNITED STATES
Man gets 2,000 credit cards
He wanted a couple of credit cards. He got a couple of thousand. Manhattan accountant Frank Van Buren found himself flooded with plastic in recent weeks, as the ExxonMobil cards kept on coming. Van Buren, who said he has had an ExxonMobil account for his business for 17 years, had ordered two copies of his card because it was expiring. He got the cards he requested -- and then got two boxes with 1,000 cards each. Van Buren said it took hours to shred the cards, which all had his name and account number, the Daily News reported on Thursday. "How could you send me 2,000 cards by mistake?" Van Buren said he asked customer service representatives.
■ UNITED STATES
Rocket explodes at airport
A rocket exploded on Thursday at an airport in the California desert, killing two people and seriously injuring four others, firefighters said. "There was an explosion on the Mojave Airport at 2:30pm this afternoon," fire engineer Roberto Figueroa of the Kern County Fire Department said. "There are two confirmed fatalities and four seriously injured. What exploded was a rocket," he said. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. The airport is located 130km north of Los Angeles. Local television CBS2 broadcast images taken from a helicopter showing debris scattered over a wide area and a semi-trailer split by the blast.
■ UNITED STATES
Cat predicts patients' deaths
Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die -- by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff at the Providence, Rhode Island, home to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live. "He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said David Dosa in an interview. He described the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
■ CANADA
Court officers sentenced
Four former Toronto court officers who used an inmate as a mop to wipe up some spilled juice were sentenced to a combination of house arrest, curfew and probation. The four -- John Feeney, a supervisor, and former officers Thomas Findlay, Kamaljeet Kang and Jeffrey Martin -- were convicted of a 2004 assault on a prisoner who they claimed had spilled some juice on Findlay and refused to clean it up. Authorities said the men then followed Dexter Boyce to his cell, where they kicked and punched him before picking him up and mopping the floor with him. Prosecutors had sought terms of up to five months for the four men, who were convicted last month and sentenced on Wednesday.
‘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
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