■ CHINA
Ex-soldiers riot at schools
About 2,000 former soldiers rioted in three cities last week over poor conditions in railway vocational schools where they were retraining, smashing equipment and setting fires, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in Hong Kong yesterday. Nearly 1,000 vandalized their school in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, and clashed with hundreds of police, leading to 20 people getting injured and five arrests. Similar riots occurred in Baoji, Shaanxi Province, and Wuhan in Hubei Province, on the same day, Sept. 3, the center said. An official at the Baoji school would only say: "Everything has returned to normal."
■ INDIA
Engineers suspended
Three engineers have been suspended for negligence after a highway overpass collapsed in Hyderabad, killing two people and injuring nine, the Press Trust of India news agency said. The overpass was under construction when it collapsed on Sunday night, crushing vehicles and pedestrians taking shelter from heavy rain. The state's chief minister has ordered a panel of independent experts to investigate the accident.
■ VIETNAM
Mass grave uncovered
A mass grave containing the remains of communist soldiers killed in the Vietnam War has been found in Quang Tri Province, an official said yesterday. Authorities believe the grave may contain the remains of several hundred men, said the head of Gio Linh district military command. So far six sets of remains have been found. They are believed to be those of commandos killed while attacking a South Vietnamese military station. The remains were discovered after officials were tipped off by soldiers who fought in the battle.
■ CHINA
Chicken used as taster
Think a bottle of mineral water might have poisoned you? Then test it on a chicken. One family on Hainan island had just that idea when one of them started vomiting blood after drinking a bottle of water, the Beijing News said. They fed the chicken the rest of the water to see what would happen, the newspaper said. "The result was the chicken died within a minute," it said, showing a picture of a man holding a plastic bottle squatting over the bird's crumpled body.
■ MALAYSIA
Cop caught purse-snatching
A man who snatched a woman's handbag and was caught by bystanders in Perak state on Monday turned out to be an off-duty policeman, a police official said yesterday. A group of men chased the suspect after hearing a woman's cries for help.
■ IRAQ
Captors post Web ultimatum
The captors of a German man in Iraq, whose mother was freed in July, threatened to kill him if Berlin does not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan within 10 days, a video posted on the Internet showed yesterday. "We give the German government another 10 days to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, otherwise we'll slit [his] throat like a lamb," a spokesman for the "The Arrows of Righteousness Brigades" says in the video. The date of the ultimatum remained unclear. The video shows Sinan Krause, 20, and his mother Hannelore, and also announces her release "for having converted to Islam."
■ ZIMBABWE
Archbishop Ncube resigns
Archbishop Pius Ncube has resigned from his post in the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo after a state-run newspaper accused him of adultery, a priest from the archdiocese and the Vatican said yesterday. Pope Benedict XVI "accepted the renunciation of pastoral leadership in the archdiocese of Bulawayo," a statement released in Vatican City said. Zimbabwe state television quoted Bulawayo priest Father Frederick Chiromba as saying that the resignation was tendered to the pope by Ncube. Ncube has been archbishop since 1998 and is one of the most outspoken critics of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
■ SPAIN
Crowd flocks to Dalai Lama
More than 10,000 people turned out on Monday for a speech by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, organizers said. Participants paid 20 euros (US$27.50) to listen to a speech by the 72-year-old Buddhist on "The Art of Happiness" at Barcelona's Palau Sant Jordi. "In the animal world there are fights but in general they live in peace. But man does not, we are dissatisfied, we want more and more, and that generates stress," the Nobel laureate told the gathering. "If we are full of annoyance, we do not sleep, while positive emotions, like love or compassion, not only do they bring to us peace but they are also good for our health," he added in comments broadcast on Spanish radio. The Dalai Lama arrived in Spain on Sunday for a three-day visit.
■ GERMANY
Town ditches traffic lights
A town council in the western town of Bohmte has decided the best way of improving road safety is to remove all traffic lights and stop signs downtown. From today, all traffic controls will disappear from the center of town to try to reduce accidents and make life easier for pedestrians. In an area used by 13,500 cars every day, drivers and pedestrians will enjoy equal right of way, mayor Klaus Goedejohann said. The idea of removing signs to improve road safety, called "Shared Space," was developed by Dutch traffic specialist Hans Monderman, and is supported by the EU.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Debt woes on the rise
Calls to a citizens advice charity in England and Wales about problems with personal debt rose by 20 percent last year to a record high of 1.7 million, Citizens Advice said yesterday. The national charity said debt was now the No. 1 concern among callers, accounting for one in three of all phone calls to its offices. Of those calls, 40 percent were for credit card woes and problems with unsecured loans. The number of calls about bankruptcy jumped by 50 percent while problems with mortgages with secured loans rose 11 percent.
■ UNITED STATES
Craig files to withdraw plea
Lawyers for Senator Larry Craig filed court papers on Monday asking that he be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct in an airport sex sting. In an affidavit, Craig said that he was "deeply panicked" in the aftermath of his arrest on June 11 on suspicion of soliciting a plainclothes officer in a men's room at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport and that, with an Idaho newspaper already investigating his sexuality, he signed a guilty plea on Aug. 1 to try to keep the arrest from being disclosed.
■ UNITED STATES
Man tries to cut off leg
A man awaiting trial on child sex charges in Arkansas tried to saw off his right leg in an apparent escape bid, police said on Monday. Days before he was due to appear in court on charges of rape and engaging children in sexually explicit conduct, Jerry Scholes sawed down to the bone of his right calf, just above his electronic tracking anklet, Detective Sergeant Doroteo Delacruz said. "If he had succeeded in cutting off the leg, he would not have set off the alarm on the monitoring device and he would have had 48 hours before anyone knew he had done it," Delacruz said.
■ UNITED STATES
Actress Wyman passes on
Jane Wyman, the Oscar-winning Hollywood actress who was late president Ronald Reagan's first wife and went on to star in the popular 1980s television drama Falcon Crest, died on Monday at age 93. Wyman married Reagan, who was also an actor, in 1940, but divorced him in 1948. She died at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, said William Morton, a spokesman for Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary. Wyman won an Oscar as best actress for her 1948 role -- played at the age of 34 -- as a teenage deaf-mute raped in Johnny Belinda, directed by Jean Negulesco. She was best known to a later generation of viewers as the tough, empire-building matriarch Angela Channing in Falcon Crest.
■ UNITED STATES
Killer escapes hospital
A confessed killer who had privileges to walk the grounds of the psychiatric hospital where he was being held apparently escaped with a backpack full of survivalist equipment, and police were searching for him. Authorities looked for William Enman on Monday near Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in southern New Jersey and other areas where he was thought to have contacts. Enman, 64, has been in state psychiatric hospitals since 1975, when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the killing of his roommate and the man's four-year-old son. He was found at the time to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia.
■ UNITED STATES
Old navy ship still of use
Many retired Navy ships have been turned into museums, but community groups in Hawaii are hoping for what military officials say would be a first: turning a decommissioned vessel into a floating homeless shelter. The 195m destroyer tender Acadia was built in 1981 and sailed around the world several times with a crew of 1,500 before it was decommissioned in 1994. In January, Navy officials decided to dispose of, sell off or give away the vessel, which is docked at Pearl Harbor. Most navy ships are used for scrap or training after they are retired. The Acadia Acquisition Committee is negotiating with the state for a place to put the ship.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of