■ CHINA
Navy ship goes to Japan
A naval ship left yesterday for a port call to Japan for the first time since World War II in a further sign of easing in Sino-Japanese relations. The guided missile destroyer Shenzhen departed from its base in Zhanjiang and was scheduled to arrive in Japan next Wednesday for a four-day visit, Xinhua news agency reported. The port call is the first to Japan by the People's Liberation Army naval forces and is supposed to be reciprocated under plans agreed to by the countries' defense ministers in August. The ship's first stop will be Tokyo.
■ CHINA
Jailed reporter wins award
Imprisoned journalist Li Changqing (李長青) has been awarded the World Association of Newspapers' annual press freedom prize, the Paris-based organization said on Tuesday. Li was sentenced last year to three years in prison for "spreading false and alarmist information." His arrest followed an investigation into a graft-busting bureaucrat that Li promoted in his writings who was later sentenced to life in prison on bribery charges. Supporters said the accusations against the official, Huang Jingao (黃金高), were trumped up. Prosecutors accused Li of leaking information about a dengue fever outbreak to an overseas Web site.
■ AUSTRALIA
Navy rescues 16 from boat
The navy rescued 16 people, 10 of them children, from a boat sinking in rough water off the northwest coast, the defense department said yesterday. It was not immediately clear whether they were trying to seek asylum or where they were from. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said they had set off in a wooden boat from Indonesia's Rote Island. Immigration officials were working to determine their identities and nationalities. Many asylum seekers set off from Indonesia in rickety boats bound for Australia. In 2001 the Norwegian vessel Tampa rescued 433 asylum seekers from a sinking Indonesian ferry and attempted to take them to Australia. Prime Minister John Howard refused to allow the ship to dock.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Piglet found in toilet paper
A piglet nicknamed Andrex is recovering after being found in the back of a truck full of toilet paper at a supermarket. The animal, thought to be two or three weeks old, was discovered in a delivery at a Tesco store in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. Staff wrapped the piglet in a blanket and called the RSPCA, a Tesco spokesman said on Tuesday. He was taken to an animal shelter in Radcliffe-on-Trent, outside Nottingham, suffering from cuts and bruises to his snout.
■ FRANCE
Chirac under investigation
Judges have placed former French president Jacques Chirac under investigation for embezzlement of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris, his lawyer Jean Veil said yesterday. Chirac, who lost his immunity from prosecution after leaving office in May, has consistently denied any wrongdoing while he was mayor between 1977 and 1995. The case revolves around jobs allegedly handed out to sympathizers by Paris city hall.
■ ZIMBABWE
Ian Smith dies at 88
Rhodesia's last prime minister Ian Smith, who has died aged 88, once insisted black rule would not come to pass in a thousand years. Four years later he was a citizen of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. It was a typically outspoken and ill-judged prediction by a man who turned his country into a global pariah but also won grudging admiration in some quarters for defying international isolation and sanctions for more than a decade. Smith spent his last days living with his daughter-in-law in Cape Town. Janet, his wife, died in 1994. Their only son Alec died last year.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Met mascots too white
The Metropolitan Police in London are spending £15,000 (US$31,000) to create "ethnically diverse" mascots after complaints about a model deemed too white and too male, reports said on Tuesday. Met chief Sir Ian Blair ordered the new politically correct models after an Asian officer complained about PCSO Steve, the mascot produced to visit to schools to promote the police force. Critics said the fact that Steve was white, with blue eyes and blond hair, risked leaving Asian and women officers "isolated," the Daily Telegraph said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Charity pub crawl planned
A group of "pilgrims" is planning to stage a charity pub crawl next month to mark the anniversary of a mysterious London meander by a senior English clergyman, who denies he was drunk. The Bishop of Southwark made headlines last December when he wandered home from a pre-Christmas party at the Irish embassy, ending up with a black eye, lost possessions and colorful tales reported of his antics en route. The clergyman, Tom Butler, claimed to have no memory of what happened to him on the night, but witnesses recorded how at one point he was found sitting in someone's car, throwing toys out of the window. When asked to explain himself he uttered a line which has since come back to haunt him: "I'm the bishop of Southwark, it's what I do." Now the Ship of Fools, dubbed "the magazine of Christian unrest," is organizing a "pilgrimage" involving pub-hopping along the bishop's alleged route. "Only 30 pilgrims -- for the sharp-eyed among you, the number which assembled in Southwark at the start of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales -- will be able to make the trip," the organizers said.
■ BRAZIL
God is one of them
"God is Brazilian," President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva said on Tuesday in relation to his government's announcement earlier this month that massive new oil reserves had been discovered offshore. "This discovery ... proves that God is Brazilian," he said during a speech at his presidential palace in Brasilia. His theological assertion is not original: people there have long claimed that God shares their nationality on the basis of the natural resources at their disposal. The British magazine The Economist also made reference to that, saying in its take on the oil find in an article last week titled "God may indeed be Brazilian after all."
■ UNITED STATES
Trio sentenced for hate crime
Three men who beat a homosexual man and chased him onto a road where he was struck by a car and killed were sentenced to prison, prosecutors said. In what prosecutors called a hate-inspired robbery scheme, the men found Michael Sandy in an Internet chat room frequented by gay men, lured him out to New York's Plum Beach with a promise of a date and attacked him. The men received sentences of seven to 21 years in jail for second-degree manslaughter as a hate crime and attempted robbery.
■ UNITED STATES
Polygamist gets jail
The head of a polygamist sect was jailed for five years to life on Tuesday following his conviction on rape charges over the marriage of a schoolgirl against her will to a cousin. Warren Jeffs, 51, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was found guilty in September on two counts of acting as an accomplice to rape. At a sentencing hearing in St George, 480km south of Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jeffs was given consecutive terms of five years to life for each offense.
■ UNITED STATES
Boy stabs brother over TV
A 12-year-old boy stabbed his 13-year-old brother during a fight over what to watch on TV, seriously hurting him, police said. The older brother was in extremely critical condition, authorities said. The two had been fighting when the younger boy allegedly went to the kitchen, returned with a 12cm knife and stabbed his brother in the abdomen, Phoenix Police Lieutenant Rob Howe said. Their father heard them fighting over the TV, Phoenix Police Sergeant Joel Tranter said. The boys' seven-year-old sister was in a different room at the time of the stabbing.
■ UNITED STATES
Dolphin has three mothers
A two-month old dolphin calf at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, is being nursed by three females, the aquarium said. While it is known that female bottlenose dolphins can spontaneously produce milk if a calf is present, the practice is not well documented and aquarium staff are carefully watching the process. The unnamed calf was born to a dolphin named Jade, who is being helped in her nursing duties by the mother-daughter team of Chesapeake and Shiloh, the aquarium said in a statement issued Tuesday to announce the birth. Aquarium officials are compiling a list of possible names for the calf, which appears to be thriving.
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