■ CHINA
Thugs beat villagers: group
Local authorities have reportedly sent thugs to beat villagers in the northeast part of the country over the past month for opposing a land grab by officials planning an industrial park, a rights group said yesterday. The rights group said village officials wanted to attract investors to build steel factories and had seized farmland that supports 80 households. In June, the Fuxin authorities and the Zhaodaban village committee offered 500 yuan (US$66) per year per unit of land for an indefinite period. "When a majority of the villagers rejected the offer, the township government reportedly sent out unidentified individuals to threaten and harass them," the group said.
■ PAKISTAN
Military jet crashes
A Pakistan air force plane crashed yesterday during a training flight, but no one was hurt, a military spokesman said. The pilot of the Chinese-made F-7 fighter ejected safely shortly after takeoff from a base near the southwestern city of Quetta, said Major Mohammed Bukhari, an air force spokesman. The country has lost a string of military planes in crashes, including at least five this year. The previous incident was on March 13 when a F-7 went down also near Quetta because of an unexplained technical malfunction.
■ SOUTH KOREA
First space traveler named
Seoul said yesterday that a 30-year-old expert on artificial intelligence will be the country's first person in space when he flies on a Russian Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station next year. The Ministry of Science and Technology selected Ko San, who has done research on artificial intelligence, Vice Science Minister Chung Yoon said. Ko beat out Yi Soo-yeon, a 29-year-old female mechanical engineer, following performance and other tests during training in Russia. "Ko proved to be more comfortable communicating with the Russian cosmonauts and he scored higher on performance and scientific experiment tests," Chung said.
■ THAILAND
Hotel fire forces evacuation
A hotel caught fire in downtown Bangkok yesterday, injuring 16 people and forcing hundreds of guests to evacuate, police said. The blaze broke out shortly after midnight in a second-floor room at the Mandarin Hotel, said police Lieutenant Colonel Chakarin Panthong. Sixteen people -- all foreign tourists -- suffered smoke inhalation and were hospitalized, he said. About 400 other guests were evacuated safely. Police were investigating the cause of the fire, but initial investigations showed a short-circuit was responsible. The fire burned for about three hours before firefighters extinguished it.
■ INDONESIA
Man avoids death sentence
A US national escaped a potential death sentence in Bali yesterday after prosecutors dropped a drug trafficking charge against him and instead sought a seven-year jail term. Prosecutors told the Denpasar district court that the primary charge against the 57-year-old defendant of offering narcotics for sale could not be substantiated and that he was only proven to have possessed illegal drugs. "The defendant, Derik Arthur Weston, has not been proven of having ever offered or sold dangerous outlawed drugs," prosecutor Made Tangkas said. Weston was arrested in the southern tourist resort area of Kuta on March 3, allegedly in possession of 245g of hashish.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Shakespeare killed by car
A pet water buffalo named William Shakespeare was a victim in a collision that left two car drivers and a passenger with minor injuries. The huge animal crumpled the front of a Fiat Punto after roaming on to the A590 highway where it skirts the Lake District in northern England at Dalton-in-Furness. The car's 19-year-old driver escaped with bruises and a few cuts. William Shakespeare, who died at the scene, weighed more than 1 tonne and belonged to an enthusiast in nearby Walney. He had a record of trying to escape.
■ SLOVENIA
Inmate digs out of jail
An inmate completed an audacious prison escape attempt on Tuesday by digging through a 1m thick wall, jail authorities said on Tuesday. "By examining the security camera recordings, it was determined that the prisoner escaped through a hole dug through the wall on top of the workroom," a statement from the prison said. Although the escape in the city of Maribor was discovered 10 minutes later, the 24-year-old former detainee remains on the run, it said. Television reports said that the successful freedom bid by Sinisa Josic was not the prisoner's first escape attempt.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
London subway still limited
Commuters in London faced a second morning of severely limited subway service yesterday despite the end of a strike by maintenance workers. The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union agreed on Tuesday night to send 2,000 members back to work after saying it had received satisfactory assurances on job security and pensions. Peter Hendy, commissioner of transport for London, said safety checks would delay the resumption of full service. "Some things we hope will start fairly soon but the suspension came so late last night that it will be impossible to start normally," Hendy said in an interview with BBC radio.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Woman's heart in museum
Jennifer Sutton's heart almost killed her. On Tuesday she got her first look at the culprit. The transplant patient came to contemplate a mass of pink and yellow tissue suspended in a transparent container at a medical museum in London. She said her first look the organ was an "emotional and surreal experience." "It caused me so much pain and turmoil when it was inside me," Sutton, 23, said in a statement released by the Wellcome Collection in London, where the heart is now on display. Sutton's heart was replaced in June after she developed restrictive cardiomyopathy. She agreed to have the organ used as part of an exhibit.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Engineer pleads guilty
A German engineer pleaded guilty to being part of an international nuclear smuggling network that supplied Libya and Pakistan with weapons technology, the state prosecuting authority said on Tuesday. Gerhard Wisser was given an 18-year suspended sentence by the Pretoria High Court, where he faced seven charges relating to the network run by disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. In a plea agreement, Wisser pleaded guilty to activities linked to the network as well as forgery. The state agreed to suspend Wisser's sentence for five years, but he must do three years of correctional supervision. He also agreed to forfeit US$3.8 million and 6 million rand (US$838,000) as proceeds from his crimes.
■ UNITED STATES
Performer to take up law
A tattoo-covered Coney Island side show performer who specializes in eating nails says he has found a new calling in the law. "I know it sounds weird, but I want to be a freak lawyer," the man known for 15 years as "Eak the Geek" told the newspaper AM New York in an article published on Tuesday. Eak, 45, a native of Mexico whose given name is Eduardo Arrocha, said he starts law classes this month and is following in the footsteps of his father and brother, both lawyers. Arrocha, a burly 1.83m tall with tattoos from his shaved head to his toes, acknowledges that his new career will bring some challenges: "I've never had to tie a tie before."
■ UNITED STATES
Lifeguard rescues shark
A lifeguard in New York's Coney Island beach came to the rescue of a 0.6m sand shark that was being smacked by frightened swimmers. Chiseled lifeguard Marisu Mironescu, 39, of Brooklyn, said in Tuesday's edition of the Daily News that he saw about 75 people circling the shark off Coney Island's beach. "They were holding onto it and some people were actually hitting him, smacking his face," said Mironescu, who has been a lifeguard since 1985. "Well, I wasn't going to let them hurt the poor thing," he said. He grabbed the largely harmless fish in his arms and carried it, backstroking out to sea, where he let it go.
■ UNITED STATES
Emu stalks golfers
A large flightless bird similar to an ostrich made golfers nervous as it followed them around a Elma, Washington, golf course on Tuesday. The emu -- a native Australian bird that can grow to more than 1.5m and 45kg -- followed a pair of golfers for seven of their nine holes, watching each swing and sometimes walking between them or standing directly in front of them. "It was strange," Sue McMeekin told the Daily World. "She's awful big and she made me nervous." The bird seemed to take special interest in McMeekin's red fleece jacket. A deputy was called but could not figure out where the bird had come from -- until the bird's owner came from his home across the street and rounded the bird up.
■ UNITED STATES
Mother pleads guilty
A woman pleaded guilty on Tuesday to killing her four young children aged 2 to 8, describing how she took them to the basement and gave them sleeping pills before strangling them with her hands. Angelica Alvarez, 27, a Mexican immigrant, told Elkhart Circuit Judge Terry Shewmaker she then unsuccessfully tried to hang herself with an electrical cord from a lamp. The woman left a note on the computer saying the children would be better off in heaven, her attorney, Juan Garcia Jr., said. `"I know that sounds odd to you and me, but that's where she was mentally at that point," he said.
■ UNITED STATES
Peeper sues for porn
A California man recently jailed for secretly videotaping a woman and a teenage girl has sued a police department for the return of his massive porn collection taken during the investigation. Dennis Saunders, 59, filed suit against San Rafael police after the department refused to give back some 500 pornographic movies and 250 magazines his lawyer described as unrelated to the peeping case. "There's absolutely no legal foundation for them withholding perfectly legal adult-oriented material," Jon Rankin said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion