■ SOUTH KOREA
Astronaut back on her feet
South Korea’s first astronaut has left hospital after treatment for severe back pain caused by her unexpectedly rough return to earth, officials said yesterday. Yi So-yeon, 29, had been admitted to an air force hospital late last month with dislocation and bruising of the vertebrae caused during her return from the International Space Station on April 19. Yi’s Russian-designed Soyuz capsule landed in Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometers off target and at a greater speed than expected. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Yi has been discharged and has visited the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology to examine research data she brought back from space. She is expected to return to Russia this month to take part in a technical debriefing session on her mission, Yonhap news agency said. South Korea paid Russia US$20 million for her mission, becoming the 36th country to send a astronaut into space.
■ JAPAN
Opium poppies discovered
Shimotsuma City north of Tokyo has been forced to destroy thousands of flowers grown for a local festival after a police officer noticed they were illegal opium poppies, an official said yesterday. About 100 officials were mobilized in Shimotsuma City north of Tokyo to pluck and burn the one-hectare field of lilac-colored papaver setigerum flowers, the city official said. The flowers were grown by volunteers using seeds imported from abroad, she said, adding that the city was checking how the seeds entered the country. “A small number of them had been spotted since a few years ago but nobody ever realized they are a banned type. We are so surprised,” she said. The Shimotsuma flower festival draws 2,000 to 3,000 visitors every year.
■ UNITED STATES
Deportees being drugged
The government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will, the Washington Post reported yesterday, citing medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged. The newspaper said it has identified 250 cases in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has deported since 2003. Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees without medical justification is a violation of some international human rights codes, the Post reported. Records show that the government has routinely ignored its own rules, which allow deportees to be sedated only if they have a mental illness requiring the drugs, or if they are so aggressive that they imperil themselves or people around them.
■ CANADA
ETA suspect to be deported
The Immigration and Refugee Board on Tuesday ordered the deportation of a suspected member of the armed Basque separatist group ETA held in Montreal since last June. Immigration and Refugee Board commissioner Louis Dube said that Ivan Apaolaza Sancho was likely a member of ETA, which is considered a terrorist group by Canada, the US and the EU. As such, he was unable to remain in Canada. Sancho’s attorney William Sloan said he would appeal the decision to a federal court. Sancho, who was linked to several attacks in Madrid since 1999 when a ceasefire between Spanish authorities and ETA broke down, was arrested in last June, six years after he arrived in Canada under a false name.
■ CANADA
Copter crash kills four
A helicopter plunged to the ground and burst into flames in a residential neighborhood in Cranbrook, British Colombia, on Tuesday, killing three on board and a pedestrian on the street. Elmer Bautz said he watched the helicopter fly around for a few minutes in the middle of the town before it came right down on top of a pedestrian, dragging the person several meters after it hit. “There was a pedestrian walking on the street across from me and he was just about at the back alley, and I don’t think he even knew what hit him,” Bautz said. The Transportation Safety Board said the pilot, two passengers and a pedestrian died. The helicopter was under hire by the province’s hydro utility.
■ UNITED STATES
Freshman voted mayor
A 19-year-old first-year student at the University of Oklahoma was elected mayor of Muskogee, a city of 38,000, on Tuesday. John Tyler Hammons won with 70 percent of the vote over former mayor Hershel Ray McBride. “The public placing their trust in me is the greatest, humbling and most awesome experience I’ve ever had in my life,” said Hammons, who is from Muskogee but attends the university in Norman. Hammons, who will be sworn in next week, said he plans to continue his education but expects to transfer to a school closer to Muskogee.
■ ITALY
Bum photographer nabbed
Police arrested a man in Venice who was allegedly wandering around St. Mark’s Square and other landmarks secretly filming women’s bottoms, officials said on Tuesday. The man was arrested Saturday after a police patrol noticed him closely following a young woman while carrying a large bag hanging from his shoulder. Inside the bag was a sophisticated camera that the man had used to film some 3,000 women over more than three years.
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
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
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