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World News Quick Take

■ JAPAN

Tokyo hopes to end dispute

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will try to resolve a key territorial dispute, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said yesterday. Machimura said he hoped the next week’s meeting would serve as “an important catalyst” to resolving the longstanding dispute over four islands. Although Medvedev recognizes the difficulty over resolving the dispute, Japan welcomes his intention to resolve the issue over the Kuril Islands, Machimura said. The pair are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Toyako next week.



■THAILAND

Schools closed after killing

The government has closed 55 state-run schools indefinitely after a principal was shot dead by suspected separatists in the Muslim-majority south, an official said. All the schools have been closed indefinitely in Raman District, Yala Province, where elementary school principal Weera Mueanchan was gunned down after classes on Wednesday, a local education official said. His death came after a series of attacks on targets linked to schools in provinces along the southern border with Malaysia, including the killing of a bus driver and parents dropping off their children. The teachers’ union plans to meet to discuss how to improve security, but no date has been set, he said.



■THAILAND

Taxi drivers hike fare

Bangkok taxi drivers lined up yesterday to change their meters after winning permission to raise their fares for the first time in 16 years. A typical cab ride will rise about 12 percent. The base fare of 35 baht (about US$1) remains the same, but the meter will tick more quickly, a transportation ministry official said. “The new rate of taxi fares takes effect today,” the official said. “Only taxis that have their meter recalibrated by certified companies will be able to charge their passengers the new rate,” he said.



■SOUTH KOREA

Nuclear reactor shuts down

A nuclear reactor shut down automatically yesterday after a water supply problem, but there was no danger of atomic leaks, a spokesman said. Reactor No. 1 at the power plant in Uljin, 230km southeast of Seoul, closed down after its steam generator ran short of water for unknown reasons. “There is no risk of any radioactive material leaking in this kind of accident,” Korea Hydro Nuclear Power Corp spokesman Choi Young-jin said. “We are now investigating to determine why water supply to the steam generator stopped,” he said. Choi said automatic shutdowns happen on average 0.5 to 0.9 times a year at each of the country’s 20 nuclear reactors.



■CHINA

American freed from jail

A US citizen was released from a jail in Shanghai after serving 10 years of a 16-year term, US embassy spokeswoman in Beijing Diane Sovereign said. Jude Shao was released on Wednesday, she said. “US ambassador Clark Randt has spoken to Shao by telephone, confirming and welcoming his release from prison,” she said. Shao’s case had drawn the attention of the US government at the highest level, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top US diplomats repeatedly calling for his release, she said. Shao was arrested in 1998 and convicted of tax evasion in March 2000 when his 16-year sentence was handed down. Shao had maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal, citing numerous procedural irregularities in his trial and conviction.

■ LITHUANIA

State pays for sex change

The government has paid 40,000 euros (US$63,140) for a citizen to undergo a full sex change operation abroad because it missed a July 1 deadline set by a European court to adopt a domestic gender reassignment law. Last year the individual, who was born female in 1978, won a case against the state in the European Court of Human Rights. The court ruled the predominantly Catholic country had to enact a gender reassignment law, or pay to enable surgery to take place abroad. The government drafted a law to allow gender reassignment surgery in Lithuania and presented it to parliament in 2003, but the bill has not been passed. Lithuania has previously been criticized by international human rights organizations for not respecting rights of sexual minorities.



■GERMANY

Potato truck crushes car

A farmer in Germany has learned a harsh lesson about the dangers of smoking. While he ducked inside a convenience store to buy cigarettes, his parked tractor and its load of 25 tonnes of potatoes rolled down a hill — and over a parked car. Police say the emergency brake came loose while the 44-year-old was in the store and the tractor and its two trailers rolled 30m before slamming into the parked car and crushing it against a wall. Police in the western village of Viersen said on Wednesday that the car was a “total loss.” The tractor was unscathed.



■FRANCE

Court indicts airline

A judge has ordered Continental Airlines and five people to stand trial for manslaughter in connection with the 2000 crash of a Concorde jet that killed 113 people. The prosecutor in the Paris suburb of Pontoise says two of the people to be tried are employees of the US carrier. Two others were employed by Aerospatiale, the maker of the Concorde. The fifth is with the French civilian aviation authority. The prosecutor announced the order in a statement on Wednesday. The Air France Concorde crashed after takeoff from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport in July 2000. The crash killed all 109 people on board and four on the ground. Investigators blamed a titanium strip left on the runway by a Continental Airlines DC-10.



■KENYA

Probe to oust minister

A government report into the controversial sale of a luxury Nairobi hotel has recommended that the finance minister and central bank governor step down to allow a full investigation into the “fraudulent” transaction. The report, from a five-member team led by Attorney General Amos Wako, follows a no-confidence vote by Kenya’s parliament late on Wednesday against Finance Minister Amos Kimunya. The report recommended Kimunya and Central Bank Governor Njuguna Ndung’u step down over a deal that was “false, fraudulent and designed to deceive,” according to a version read on Wednesday by an aide to the team.



■CHAD

Troops kill Islamists

Chadian soldiers have killed more than 60 followers of a Muslim spiritual leader planning a holy war, reports said today. The BBC quoted Chadian Security Minister Ahmat Mahamat Bachir as saying the death toll was regrettable but necessary to control the actions of “extremists.” At least 50 others were wounded in the battle on Tuesday, which saw the followers of spiritual leader Ahmat Israel Bichara fight back with swords, spears and bows.

■MEXICO

Top cop faces trial over raid

A judge has ordered a top Mexico City police official to stand trial on homicide charges after a botched raid at nightclub triggered a stampede that killed 12 people. Prosecutors say Guillermo Zayas failed to properly oversee the raid, which was looking for drug and alcohol violations. Police blocked the club’s exit, causing patrons to pile up in a deadly crush that killed nine customers and three police. The Wednesday ruling orders Zayas to stand trial on 12 counts of intentional homicide. He faces up to 50 years in prison and is not eligible for release on bail. Zayas’s defense lawyer says the charges are politically motivated and insists his client is innocent.



■MEXICO

Four decapitated in drug war

The severed heads of four men were found dumped on a street in the northern city of Culiacan on Wednesday with a message accusing a drug gang kingpin of treachery, police said. The men’s bodies were wrapped in plastic sheets and a blanket, with their heads stuffed into white plastic bags. An obscenity-laden note scrawled onto a piece of cardboard invited Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel — “to see what his stupid acts had caused.” Guzman, who is considered Mexico’s most-wanted man, is battling a rival gang led by his one-time ally Arturo Beltran Leyva, whose hitmen reportedly killed one of Guzman’s sons in May.



■UNITED STATES

Braille coin prototype made

The prototype of the first US coin with readable Braille characters was shown in Texas on Wednesday. Government officials and an advocate for the blind unveiled the 2009 Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar at the National Federation of the Blind annual convention in Dallas. The Braille code for the word Braille — or Brl — is inscribed on the back of the coin, above a depiction of a school-age boy with a walking stick reading a Braille book. The front of the coin depicts Louis Braille with the word “Liberty” above it. The coin will be available next spring, the 200th anniversary of Louis Braille’s birth.



■UNITED STATES

Wiretapping lawsuit tossed

A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday tossed out a lawsuit by a Saudi Arabia-based Islamic organization that accused the Bush administration of illegally wiretapping its telephones without warrants. The now-defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation says the government accidentally sent it a top-secret document while considering whether to label the group a terrorist organization. The group says the document appeared to be a log of telephone calls between organization officers and their attorneys. The judge ruled the group couldn’t use the document to prove its case.



■UNITED STATES

Bomb threat disrupts LAX

A man was detained on Wednesday after allegedly making a bomb threat to police at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), prompting authorities to ground several flights and halt traffic into the area. No explosives were found on the man or his backpack, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. Scott Juhun Lee, 27, was booked for investigation of making a false bomb threat and held on US$20,000 bail. Authorities say he walked up to an officer, dropped a backpack at his feet outside the international terminal and made threats. “He said, ‘I’m a terrorist, I’ve got a bomb in the bag and I’m going to blow it up now,”’ airport police Sergeant Jim Holcomb said.


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