■SOUTH KOREA
Euthanasia case approved
The Seoul High Court yesterday confirmed a lower court verdict allowing ending life-prolonging measures for a 76-year-old coma patient, making it the first time mercy killing has been formally permitted in the country. In November, a court ruled in favor of ending life-prolonging measures for the woman at the request of her family but without the patient’s consent. The woman, identified only by her family name, Kim, fell into a coma last year following cerebral damage, Yonhap news agency reported.
■HONG KONG
Third body washes ashore
The badly decomposed remains of a third suspected immigrant have washed up in Hong Kong, police said yesterday. Marine police officers pulled the man from the sea on Monday, hours after the discovery of another body on a beach in the northeast of the territory. Police had received a report from a fisherman earlier on Monday of another body found on a beach. On Saturday the body of a man with a mainland identity card was found washed ashore, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper.
■SOUTH KOREA
Cash tops Valentine’s list
Cash is the unromantic but preferred Valentine’s Day gift this year as the economic downturn bites, a report said yesterday. In contrast to other societies, women traditionally give single men gifts to mark Feb. 14. The Korea Herald, citing a survey by a local matchmaking company, said 27 percent of 256 men who were interviewed opted for cash while 13 percent chose travel-related presents. Twelve percent wanted a wallet, rather than something to fill it with, but only 7 percent desired chocolate — the most popular gift in previous years.
■SOUTH KOREA
Guru jailed for sex crimes
A South Korean cult leader who told followers to have sex with him to purge their sins was yesterday jailed for 10 years. Jeong Myeong-seok — whose JMS sect stands for both “Jesus Morning Star” and his initials — was convicted of raping or sexually assaulting four women between 2001 and 2006. An appeals court added four years to a lower court’s sentence of six years. The court was crowded with about 70 of Jeong’s followers, some sighing and others shedding tears at the sentence, media reports said. Jeong, now in his early 60s, fled South Korea in 1999, one day after rape allegations against him were broadcast on national television. He was formally charged in absentia with rape in 2001. The cult leader was arrested in Hong Kong in 2003 for visa violations but later fled an extradition hearing. China extradited him to Seoul in February last year.
■GERMANY
Circus zebras on the run
These fugitives were wearing stripes even before they were caught. Police in the city of Augsburg said they had to chase four circus zebras through the streets after they escaped from their handlers. Police spokesman Robert Goeppel said one of the escapees gave itself up to by passers-by as it wandered the city streets. The other three were eventually corralled in a paddock on the outskirts of town. Goeppel says there were no injuries, either to humans or zebras, during Monday’s chase.
■NETHERLANDS
Super deal on gasoline
Nighttime was the right time to get tanked on Friday in the town of Genderen. An unmanned gas station began offering customers gas for 1 euro cent (US$0.13) per liter — a discount of more than 99 percent — due to a glitch that occurred at about midnight. “Most people were home in bed, so it could have been worse,” Piet-Hein Bogaers, director of the company that operates the station, Vollenhoven Olie BV, said on Monday. As word of the deal spread, business boomed at the station, 100km southeast of Amsterdam. Bogaers said that, by the time the mistake was fixed on Saturday morning, customers were lined up to buy gas. Many had even called to alert the company.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Smell key to chip success
Scientists said they may have found out why the great chip smells so irresistible: a complex blend of scents that includes butterscotch, cocoa, cheese and flowers. The aroma has been unpicked by food scientists at Leeds University. “Whether oven-cooked or fried, the humble chip doesn’t smell of just chips — the aroma is much more complex and probably explains why chips are everyone’s favorite,” said Graham Clayton, who led the research for National Chip Week that started on Monday. “Aromas including butterscotch, cocoa, onion, cheese and would you believe … ironing boards, all combine to help make chips one of Britain’s iconic dishes,” he said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Top drug adviser apologizes
The top drug adviser apologized on Monday for saying that taking the drug ecstasy was no more dangerous than horse riding, after coming under sharp criticism by the interior minister. Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Home Office’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, issued a statement apologizing to “those who may have been offended” by his article setting out his view of the drug’s risks. “I would like to apologize to those who have lost friends and family due to ecstasy use,” he said. “I would like to assure those who have read my article that I had no intention of trivializing the dangers of ecstasy.”
■BAHRAIN
Groups decry censorship
A crackdown on Web sites the government deems indecent or socially explosive has triggered calls for reforms by rights activists and bloggers, who say the ban tarnishes the kingdom’s reputation for openness. “Instead of tackling the social issues people discuss online, the government blocks Web sites. But that does not change the reality,” said Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. “Hundreds of Web sites are blocked now, and many are related to politics, human rights issues or are Shia community forums.” Culture and Information Minister Sheikha Mai bint Mohammed al-Khalifa issued a decree last month advising local Internet service providers to block access to Web sites it considers pornographic or incite violence and religious hatred.
■MEXICO
Phone users to be monitored
A national register of mobile phone users is to be established that will include fingerprinting all customers in an effort to catch criminals who use the devices to extort money and negotiate kidnapping ransoms. Under a new law published on Monday, mobile phone companies will have a year to build up a database of their clients, complete with fingerprints. The idea would be to match calls and messages to the phones’ owners. Hundreds of people are kidnapped in Mexico every year and the number of victims is rising sharply as drug gangs, under pressure from an army crackdown, seek new income. Most of the nation’s 80 million mobile phones are prepaid handsets with a given number of minutes of use that can be bought in stores without any identification. The phones can be topped up with more minutes via vendors on street corners.
■UNITED STATES
Vaginal gel offers AIDS hope
An experimental vaginal gel has yielded promising results in preventing HIV infection in women, according to clinical trials conducted in Africa and the US, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Monday. The microbicide PRO 2000 made by Indevus Pharmaceuticals Inc proved safe and 30 percent effective in preventing AIDS infection, the NIH said. Thirty-three percent effectiveness would have been considered statistically significant, it said. The involved more than 3,099 women in six African cities and one in the US.
■CANADA
Bankruptcy figures soar
The number of consumers and businesses going bankrupt soared nearly 47 percent in December. The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy said on Monday that 8,299 individuals and businesses went bankrupt in December, up from 5,659 for December 2007, a jump of 46.7 percent. The latest numbers are a staggering sign of how quickly the Canadian economy has slowed. The financial crisis and the global sell-off of commodities have hit the country hard.
■UNITED STATES
Smoking curbs clear hurdle
Lawmakers in Virginia — where the world’s largest cigarette factory churns out Marlboros — passed curbs on smoking in restaurants. Monday’s 59-39 vote in the House of Delegates approved a watered-down bill that allows smoking only in private clubs, outdoor cafes, designated smoking rooms and establishments that are off-limits to minors. The bill already exempted private clubs and outdoor patios. On Monday, it was further diluted by Republican amendments that would allow smoking in any establishment off-limits to minors and in any restaurant rented for a private, invitation-only event.
■CANADA
Duck death firm charged
Environmental authorities on Monday charged Syncrude in the death of 500 ducks that landed in its oil sands sewage ponds in Alberta. The waterfowl died last April after being coated with toxic oil residue from a mine left behind in the ponds by Syncrude Canada Limited, the world’s largest producer of synthetic crude oil from oil sands. Officials allege Syncrude did not use noise makers designed to scare birds from the contaminated ponds and did not immediately report the ducks’ demise, as required by law. “This was the single largest reported incident of oiled birds in the oilsands region,” Environment Canada said in a statement. The Alberta government called it “an environmental tragedy.”
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