■ PHILIPPINES
Military officers dismissed
A military tribunal dismissed 12 army and navy officers from service yesterday for a failed mutiny in 2003, part of a deal that allows them to escape doing further jail time. Brigadier-General Nathaniel Legaspi said the officers had pleaded guilty to a lesser offence of conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman. The sentence has to be confirmed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The officers will remain in custody until then. The 12 were among 29 leaders of a mutiny when soldiers took control of a service apartment block in the center of Manila's Makati financial district for several hours.
■ JAPAN
Arm breaker machine pulled
A game maker said yesterday it would withdraw arm-wrestling machines from arcades after three players broke their arms. Players would choose a strength level from 10 characters, ranging from a maid to a professional wrestler, and face off with an artificial arm on the other side of the table. Atlus, an arcade game maker, said it will remove all 155 machines of the game. "We had done careful simulations on the possibility of injuries before putting it on sale, but unexpected accidents can happen with game machines when people are too excited or fail to follow instructions," a company spokeswoman said.
■ CAMBODIA
UN voices judge concerns
The UN yesterday urged Phnom Penh not to transfer a key judge away from the country's genocide trials amid concerns his departure could delay efforts to try former Khmer Rouge leaders. You Bunleng, one of the court's investigating judges, was appointed head of the nation's Appeal Court last week, forcing him to quit the UN-backed tribunal intended to prosecute atrocities. He had been seen as crucial to determining which suspects will go to trial. The UN "invited the Cambodian authorities to consider keeping Judge You Bunleng in his current function," said a statement from the world body's tribunal spokesman Peter Foster. "The United Nations is now awaiting a response from the Cambodian authorities."
■ CHINA
Used chopsticks re-sold
A Beijing factory recycled used chopsticks and sold up to 100,000 pairs a day without using any form of disinfectant, a newspaper said yesterday, the latest in a string of food and product safety scares. Officials raided the factory and seized about half a million pairs of recycled disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging machine, the Beijing News said. The owner, identified only by his surname Wu, said he had made an average of about 1,000 yuan (US$130) a day. Wu, who had no license to sell the goods, said he sold 100,000 pairs a day when business was good.
■ CHINA
Con artist revealed
A man earned US$2.6 million in payoffs in a scam in which he masqueraded as a senior official, the government said on Tuesday. The man, surnamed Huang, was arrested for fraud, the official Chinacourt Web site said. To pose as a secretary of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Huang rented a courtyard house as an office. Huang hired retired soldiers as guards and had fake photos of him with top leaders. In January, Huang told a man surnamed Han that a hotel was to be sold and convinced him to pay US$1.3 million for shares. Han later found out Huang was not an official and contacted the police.
■ FRANCE
Minister's brother jailed
A brother of Justice Minister Rachida Dati, already convicted of drug trafficking, was sentenced to a year in prison for drug offences on Tuesday, just after his sister pushed through tougher sentences for repeat offenders. An appeals court in Nancy imposed the sentence on Jamal Dati, one of the minister's 11 siblings, for consuming and selling heroin in 2005. A different court had already sentenced him to a six-month suspended jail term earlier this year but the prosecution appealed, arguing that the sentence was too light.
■ GAZA STRIP
Hamas militant killed
An Israeli air strike killed at least one Hamas militant in the Gaza Strip near the border fence with Israel yesterday, the Islamist group and local residents said. An Israeli army spokesman said there had been an air attack on a group of Palestinian militants in the border area. "We fired on them and reported hitting them," he said. Hamas said its fighters were looking out for Israeli military movements near the fence when they came under attack.
■ AUSTRIA
Pigs in accidents saga
About 200 unlucky German pigs suffered two road accidents in less than 12 hours on Tuesday, police reported. The 192 animals first ran amok on a highway in Upper Austria after their truck turned over in the early morning. The authorities had to catch the pigs in the dark, some of which were severely injured and had to be put to death. A couple and their two children were also injured when their car collided with one of the animals. The pigs were to face a further trauma barely seven hours later, when their replacement truck crashed in a tunnel near Graz, in the south of the country, after their substitute driver apparently fell asleep. Neither the driver nor the passengers were injured and the pigs continued their journey, in a third truck this time, to a meat-processing facility south of Graz.
■ SPAIN
Playful shark captured
Biologists caught a 2m long shark that had become a tourist attraction by making daily incursions into knee-high water on a northeast beach, wrestling it with their bare hands and dragging it ashore. The 50kg sandbar shark -- not generally associated with attacks on humans -- first showed up early last week at a beach called Miracle in Tarragona Province, forcing authorities to close off the water to bathers. The fish turned into a novelty by swimming regularly into plain view in very shallow water. A team of three biologists from the Barcelona Aquarium waded in on Monday and after two failed attempts finally managed to capture the flailing shark.
■ GERMANY
Woman drives into grave
A woman on her way to pay respects to a dead relative ploughed across the cemetery drunk in her car, smashing up headstones and tombs before she ground to a halt in someone's grave, police said on Tuesday. The woman drove into the graveyard in the southern town of Mitterteich on a track running through it, but veered off as she struggled to control her vehicle, local police said. "Eventually she ended up stuck in a grave and couldn't get out, so we had to pull her out," a police spokesman said. "She said she'd come to visit one of her relatives' graves."
■ IRAN
Tehran agrees to timing
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran on Tuesday agreed on a timetable for the government to answer outstanding concerns about its contested nuclear program in the face of Western threats of further sanctions. IAEA Deputy Director-General Olli Heinonen and top Iranian national security official Javad Vaeedi announced the agreement after two days of talks. Neither Heinonen nor Vaeedi gave concrete details of the timetable, but the former said these would be revealed in an IAEA report on the program to be released in two weeks.
■ CANADA
Oil spill threatens whales
Environmentalists are concerned that the recent diesel spill off Vancouver Island could threaten the habitat of the killer whales who frequent the area. About 50 killer whales have swum through the slick after a barge overturned on Monday and dumped a loaded diesel truck near an ecological reserve off Vancouver Island. Kate Thompson, a spokeswoman with British Columbia's Ministry of the Environment, said the barge was just outside the reserve's border when it overturned. However, Jennifer Lash, executive director of the nonprofit organization Living Oceans, said reports from the scene suggest that the barge was about 100m to 200m inside the protected area. It is not known how much fuel the truck was carrying, but a slick of between 2km and 8km long was reported.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Biker shooting arrests made
Detectives investigating the shooting of a Hells Angel biker on the M40 motorway said yesterday they have made arrests. Gerry Tobin, 35, who lived in south London, died after being shot in the back of the head as he rode home from an annual biker event in Warwickshire on Aug. 12. Detectives believe Tobin had been deliberately targeted after being followed from the Bulldog Bash. A spokeswoman for police in Warwickshire would not comment on the arrests, but confirmed more than one person was being held.
■ UNITED STATES
Tidiest toilets named
A suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, grocery store cleaned up on Tuesday in an annual contest for the US' tidiest toilets. The restrooms at Jungle Jim's International Market appear to be portable toilets, but they actually lead to real jungle-themed restrooms with flowers, marble and tropical pictures. They were named the nation's finest in an online poll sponsored by bathroom supply firm Cintas Corp. "I'm all about putting smiles on people's faces," store owner Jim Bonaminio said. "People are so tense these days. Those bathrooms just seem to make people laugh and that's what we're all about: laughing and having fun."
■ UNITED STATES
Weapons trade a fake
A suspected missile launcher handed in to police in Florida as part of a sneakers-for-guns program turned out to be a carrying case for an anti-tank weapon, the Orlando Sentinel said on Tuesday. Last Friday stunned officers in Orlando were handed a long olive-green tube they thought was a surface-to-air missile launcher. As part of the "Kicks for Guns" program aimed to reduce gun violence, they traded it in for a pair of Reebok sneakers, the daily said. But military defense contractors later determined the object was a carrying case for an anti-tank weapon. The man who traded in the case will likely get to keep the sneakers he got for his daughter, as the anti-violence program runs on a no-questions-asked basis.
‘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