■ CHINA
Electric bike explodes
Police were investigating a bike explosion that killed one person and injured five others, state media said yesterday. The blast occurred on Wednesday evening on a downtown street in Hunan Province's Zhuzhou City when an electric bike suddenly exploded, Xinhua news agency reported. Xinhua said initial investigations showed that the blast was caused by a cache of explosives on the electric bike. It did not say if police believe the material was being transported or was detonated by the bike's 35-year-old rider, who was killed in the blast.
■ JAPAN
`Shoplifter' beaten to death
Police arrested the manager of a supermarket on Wednesday on suspicion of beating a man to death for stealing two cans of beer. The 40-year-old supermarket manager is thought to have dragged the man to a storage area at the back of the shop in Chiba Prefecture on Tuesday and beaten him around the stomach and face before leaving him in the road, Kyodo news agency said. A passer-by called an ambulance, but the man later died in hospital, Kyodo said. "I never thought he would die," Kyodo quoted the manager as telling police. Police said they were trying to confirm the identity of the victim, who appeared to be in his 50s or 60s.
■ NEPAL
Prince suffers heart attack
Crown Prince Paras suffered a major heart attack and was admitted to the Norvic hospital in Kathmandu yesterday, doctors said. The prince, 35, was in stable condition, Dr. Bharat Rawal said. "He had his right artery blocked and we were able to treat that on time," Rawal said. "He is out of danger and fully conscious." Paras will have to stay at the hospital for at least five days, first two days in intensive care unit, he said. Paras remains an unpopular prince, dogged by allegations of involvement in two vehicular homicides and frequent drunken brawls in nightclubs and discos.
■ MALAYSIA
Pig cull called off
The government has called off a cull of 50,000 pigs amid concerns it could stoke racial tensions between Chinese pig farmers and their Muslim neighbors. Authorities in Malacca state abandoned the cull on Tuesday night after dozens of farmers formed a human barricade around their farms. Riot police were called in to keep them at bay. Officials had said they ordered the cull following complaints from residents about the smell and water pollution from the pig farms. The government denied on Wednesday the cull had been called off because of fears of racial tensions and said farmers had now agreed to reduce their herds. But an opposition party said the racial dimension had forced authorities to back down.
■ CHINA
Sandwich not cause of death
Tainted food was not to blame for the death of Whang Joung-il, a South Korean diplomat in Beijing, even though the man became ill after eating a tuna sandwich, Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu (陳竺) said on Wednesday. Whang suffered severe stomach pains and vomiting after having the sandwich from a nearby eatery on the night of July 28. He checked himself into a health clinic the next morning and died two hours later. An investigation determined the sandwich was not to blame for the death of 52-year-old Whang, Chen said. Whang's family has said the ministry told the embassy on Aug. 5 that it had reached a tentative conclusion that Whang died of "acute myocardial infraction," a kind of heart attack.
■ AUSTRIA
Aunt found mummified
A Viennese woman lived with the mummified remains of her dead aunt for more than a year, police said on Wednesday. Officials said the remains of the 96-year-old aunt were discovered late on Tuesday in a bed in the apartment the two women shared, and that a preliminary investigation indicated the elderly woman died in August last year. Her niece, described only as a 51-year-old, was taken to a psychiatric hospital for examination. Investigators planned to conduct an autopsy to determine if foul play was involved. Police did not specify how the body came to be mummified.
■ AUSTRIA
Young soldiers investigated
Prosecutors are investigating young soldiers seen exchanging Hitler salutes in a video that appeared on the Internet, Defense Minister Norbert Darabos said on Tuesday. In a statement, Darabos said suspects had been tracked down and were being questioned over the incident in an army barracks in Salzburg, captured by a mobile-phone camera and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. Any display of Nazi propaganda or symbols is a crime, which took decades to acknowledge it was more a willing party than a victim of Nazi Germany's Third Reich.
■ South Africa
`Witches' burnt to death
Two women were burnt to death by a group of students who suspected the victims had bewitched their high school with evil spirits, the South African Press Association (SAPA) reported on Wednesday. The 60-year-old women, identified as Mangubane Msaba Zungu and Qibile Thabitha Thusi, were dragged from their homes near Manguzi in KwaZulu-Natal province and taken to a sports field by students from Manhlenga High School, police told SAPA. There they were doused with petrol and set alight, police said. Zungu died at the scene and Thusi later in hospital.
■ South Africa
Perverts not welcome
Concerns over unwelcome "sex perverts" have prompted strict access controls to this weekend's "reed dance" by hundreds of topless maidens carrying reeds to the Zulu king as a symbol of their purity and virginity. Nhlanhla Mtaka, media director for the ceremony, said on Wednesday that any journalists wishing to cover the event would have to prove their credentials "beyond reasonable doubt" and not seek access to restricted areas. "Zulu maidens are increasingly becoming targets of unscrupulous photographers and cameramen who take the pictures of maidens and flash them on Internet porn sites," Mtaka told the South African Press Association.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Jude Law arrested
Police arrested Jude Law after he allegedly attacked a photographer outside his London home. The actor, however, denied the allegations on Wednesday. The photographer accused The Talented Mr. Ripley star of trying to grab his camera during a scuffle late on Tuesday, Britain's Press Association reported. The 34-year-old actor voluntarily went to a West London police station after the incident, his lawyer Graham Shear said in a statement. "Mr. Law provided the police with a statement regarding his denials of allegations by a paparazzi photographer against him and made his own allegations concerning the photographer," Shear said. He said he would not comment further at present.
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