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World News Quick Take

■ 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.
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