■ JAPAN
Shoplifter has serious cash
Police were surprised to discover that a man arrested for a petty theft worth US$2 was carrying US$90,000 in cash. Kazuo Nojiri, 53, was caught red-handed at a supermarket in the Tokyo suburb of Kawasaki as he stole two cans of beverage worth a grand total of ¥256 (US$2.30), police said yesterday. "With his consent, we opened his pockets which had been sewed up so that nobody could get their hands in," a police investigator said. Inside were stacks of money totaling ¥9.6 million (US$90,000). "He said he was always carrying the money ... as he doesn't trust banks," the investigator said.
■ INDIA
Bus crash kills at least 38
A bus carrying Hindus on a religious pilgrimage skidded off a hillside road and plunged into a gorge in western India, killing at least 38 people and injuring 40 others, police said yesterday. At least five children, 17 women and 16 men died in the accident late on Sunday in Nashik district, Maharashtra state, said N. Gupta, police superintendent at the Nashik police station. Nashik lies about 250km east of the state capital, Mumbai. The bus was only supposed to seat 45 passengers but it was carrying about 80 when it crashed, Gupta said. The driver survived the accident but fled the scene, he said.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Pyongyang delays rail talks
North Korea has delayed this week's talks on boosting railway links with South Korea, Seoul said yesterday. The rival Koreas had agreed to open the two-day, working-level discussions today at the North's border city of Kaesong to discuss railroad repairs in the North. The two Koreas started a weekday cargo rail service last month across their heavily fortified border for the first time in more than half a century to ship goods to and from their joint industrial complex in Kaesong. South Korea hopes the railway will ultimately be linked to Russia's Trans-Siberian railroad and allow an overland route connecting the peninsula to Europe.
■ CHINA
Beijing to raise child fines
Beijing plans to make an example of celebrities who flout China's one-child policy by dramatically raising fines to prevent them buying their way past the rule, state media said yesterday. The government has played up reports of celebrities and other wealthy citizens skirting the policy, which limits urban families to one child. The rocketing incomes of the wealthy have allowed them to bypass the rule by paying a fine set at around 100,000 yuan (US$13,800) for Beijing residents, but which is typically lower, Xinhua news agency said. It cited the case of Hao Haidong (郝海東), a soccer player, who was fined just 50,000 yuan for having a second child despite an annual salary of 5 million yuan.
■ THAILAND
Saucy soap angers union
Flight attendants yesterday lodged a formal complaint against a TV company for airing a salacious soap opera portraying female cabin crew fighting for the affections of a pilot. Krishnaratn Puranarasamriddhi, vice president of the Thai Airways labor union, said War of Angels ignored the important safety and customer service work carried out by flight attendants. He said crews from flag carrier Thai Airways and private carrier Bangkok Airlines would submit a letter of protest to Culture Minister Khaisri Sri-aroon. War of Angels follows the trials and tribulations of a crew of beautiful flight attendants and married pilots, and the various love triangles that ensue.
■ FRANCE
WWI veteran dies
World War I veteran Louis de Cazenave died on Sunday at age 110, his son said, leaving just one known French survivor of the 1914 to 1918 conflict. De Cazenave, who took part in the Battle of the Somme, died in his home in Brioude, said his son, also named Louis de Cazenave. "He died at his house, in his sleep, without suffering," the son said by telephone. He said his father was to be buried today in Brioude. The last known French veteran of World War I -- known as "poilus," meaning hairy or tough -- is Lazare Ponticelli, also 110.
■ NIGERIA
Rebels ask for Clooney
Rebels in the oil producing Niger Delta on Saturday invited the UN's new "messenger of peace," actor George Clooney, to step into its conflict with the government over oil wealth. In an open letter sent by e-mail to the media, a prominent armed group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, asked Clooney to visit the impoverished wetlands region, which is home to Africa's largest oil reserves.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Man killed by taser
A man has died after being shot by a taser stun gun in Bedford, police said on Sunday. Officers were called to a house in The Spinney, in the Goldington area of the city, at about 7pm on Saturday following reports of a domestic dispute between a mother and son. Outside the property, they found an injured man, aged in his 30s, armed with a knife, a spokeswoman for Bedfordshire Police said. The man threatened officers and was shot with a taser. He retreated inside the property, where officers later found him in need of urgent medical treatment.
■ GREECE
Arsonists destroy banks
Unknown arsonists destroyed several banks and dozens of cars at dealerships in a rampage across Athens and in the northern port city of Thessaloniki early yesterday morning, reports said. Arsonists, using mechanical time devices, bombed three different car dealerships located in the northern and southern suburbs of Athens. Approximately 30 luxury cars were destroyed in the attack. At the same time, four bank branches, in various areas of the capital and in Thessaloniki, were also seriously damaged, but no injuries were reported. Police are investigating for signs of the arsonists.
■ ITALY
Alitalia passengers arrested
Three passengers on an Alitalia airline flight from Milan were arrested after they failed to heed requests to turn off their mobile phones, newspapers reported on Sunday. The Alitalia captain, who had already asked three times for passengers to switch off their mobiles, aborted take-off at the last minute because he noticed interference with the plane's navigation instruments. Police boarded the plane at Milan-Linas airport and arrested the three offending passengers identified by the flight crew. The three face prosecution for failing to observe safety regulations and face three months in jail.
■CANADA
Israel protests torture
list Israeli Ambassador Alan Baker said he found it shocking that his country was labeled a practitioner of torture in a training manual prepared for Canadian diplomats. Baker said he contacted Foreign Affairs officials in Ottawa as soon as he learned of the matter and demanded that Israel be deleted from the list of suspected human-rights abusers. "I was considerably surprised and even shocked, because it's simply not true," he said on Sunday. "Israel doesn't engage in torture, it's prohibited by Israeli law. Whoever had written this manual simply didn't know, or was misguided, or didn't understand." He expressed satisfaction that Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier has since ordered a review of the manual. US Ambassador David Wilkins has also protested the US' presence on the list.
■ UNITED STATES
Child's body found in Gulf
A body believed to be the last of four children who were allegedly tossed from an Alabama bridge by their Vietnamese father has been recovered, authorities said. The body of an Asian child was found in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana by boaters who contacted Coast Guard officials, Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran said on Sunday. Alabama authorities will not be able to confirm whether the body is that of Hannah Luong, 2, until they get it back, Cochran said. But they ended the search of Alabama and Mississippi coastal waters based on the body's recovery. The search began on Jan. 8 after prosecutors said the father broke down and confessed to driving the children to the two-lane bridge and throwing them into the waters.
■ UNITED STATES
Four die as Cessnas collide
Two private planes flying about 1.6km from a small airport near Los Angeles collided, killing at least four people and raining debris down on car dealerships below, authorities said. The small Cessnas collided on Sunday afternoon near the Corona Municipal airport and a freeway in Riverside County, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said. Three of the dead were from the planes and the fourth was in a car hit by debris on the ground, he said. The Corona airport does not have a staffed control tower, he said. Eyewitness Hector Hernandez said he saw bodies falling from the sky. "One of them crashed into the top of a Ford Mustang, and another one fell not too far behind that one on the parking lot," Hernandez told KCBS-TV.
■ GUATEMALA
Gang gunbattle kills seven
Seven teenagers were killed in a shootout between rival gangs on a road near the capital, police said on Sunday. Police believe the gunbattle, which took place on Saturday night in Guatemala City's northern suburbs, was between the Pandilla 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs, spokesman Faustino Sanchez said. Among the dead was a 15-year-old boy, Sanchez said.
■ TURKEY
Speech limits to be eased
The government plans to submit a plan to parliament in the next few days to amend a controversial law that restricts freedom of speech, Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said yesterday. Sahin told the Sabah newspaper that the government hoped the amendment would be approved by the end of the month. The government has been under heavy pressure from the EU and rights groups to amend article 301 of the penal code, which makes "insulting Turkishness" a crime and has been used to prosecute dozens of writers.
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
‘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
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