■HONG KONG
Homemade bomb explodes
Three teenagers were arrested after a 13-year-old boy was injured when a homemade bomb exploded, a media report said yesterday. The three, including the injured boy, were held by police for possessing explosives favored by terrorists, the South China Morning Post said. Police suspect the classmates of a Kowloon Tong district school learned how to make the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) powder on the Internet. The same powder was used in the London terrorist blasts in July 2005 and TATP was one of the explosives used by US “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, the report said. The teenager sustained injuries to his face, an eye and two fingers after igniting a fuse attached to two plastic bottles containing the explosive shortly after midnight yesterday.
■SOUTH KOREA
Education spending up
The country spent nearly US$30 billion on education last year, more than in any previous year, despite the deepening economic downturn, official figures showed yesterday. The increase, due largely to a rise in spending on private teaching including English-language learning, showed the country was reluctant to cut back on education despite a dramatic economic slowdown. Household spending on education reached an all-time high of 39.8 trillion won (US$29.5 billion) last year, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier, Yonhap news agency said, citing Bank of Korea figures.
■MALAYSIA
‘Clenched fist’ banned
The socialist party, which recently won a decade-long battle for recognition, faces a new hurdle after authorities rejected its “clenched fist” symbol as too violent. The Socialist Party of Malaysia has used the symbol — an iconic image for the political left around the world — since 1998 when it first applied for registration. “The Election Commission has rejected our fist symbol. In a letter in February they said the symbol is morally not suitable and demonstrates violence,” party secretary-general S. Arutchelvan said. “Now we can’t stand for an election since the logo is not approved. We are angry. The ban comes as a surprise to us,” he said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Facebook helps government
The government’s welfare agency has confirmed it examines Internet social network sites like Facebook to catch benefit fraudsters, a newspaper reported yesterday. Mother Lauren Kaney, 22, of Mount Maunganui, was convicted in court last week of getting three times the weekly benefit she was entitled to, after claiming she lived on her own with her two-year-old-son. In fact, her Bebo and Facebook pages revealed she was living with the boy’s father, the Herald on Sunday reported. Kaney admitted receiving NZ$17,500 (US$10,000) more than her entitlement and was sentenced to four months’ home detention and 200 hours of community service.
■SRI LANKA
Dozens of rebels killed
Government troops killed at least 46 rebels during weekend battles in the northeast of the island where they have cornered the Tamil Tiger guerrillas, the defense ministry said yesterday. The Tiger fighters were shot dead in two days of fighting in and around the town of Puthukkudiriruppu, the ministry said in a statement. Military officials said the rebels have been pushed back into a narrow strip of jungle coastline and will be wiped out by next month.
■EGYPT
Police free student blogger
Police have released a pro-Palestinian student and blogger who had been arrested outside his home early last month, a human rights group said on Saturday. Diaeddin Gad was released on Friday after spending almost seven weeks in jail, said Gamal Eid, executive director for the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. Eid accused police of beating Gad in detention. Gad, 22, who was arrested on Feb. 6, ran the soutgadeb.blogspot.com blog, which criticized Egypt’s policies during Israel’s 22-day war on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December and January.
■TURKEY
Local elections draw voters
Voters went to the polls yesterday in municipal elections likely to give Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party a fresh mandate to press on with political and economic reforms in the EU candidate. Voters were choosing mayors and municipal and provincial assemblies, but the polls was seen more as a referendum on the popular Erdogan, whose Islamist-rooted AK Party has won three straight elections since it first crushed the secularist opposition in 2002. Most opinion polls show the AK Party winning with ease with about 40 percent of the vote despite record unemployment and a worsening economy.
■UNITED KINGDOM
MI5 faces new torture probe
The attorney general will be asked to investigate two more cases of alleged complicity by the MI5 security service in torture of men detained in Pakistan. Lawyers representing Rangzieb Ahmed and Salahuddin Amin are to ask Lady Scotland to consider possible criminal wrongdoing. The move comes after Scotland called in the Metropolitan Police to investigate allegations that MI5 colluded in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, who was held for almost seven years in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and finally Guantanamo Bay. Ahmed, 33, from Rochdale, and Amin, 34, from Luton, were interrogated by MI5 officers while being held by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). Three fingernails had been extracted from Ahmed’s left hand by the time he was deported to the UK in September 2007, after 13 months in Pakistani custody. Amin was held for 10 months. He says that before being questioned by two MI5 officers he was beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill. Ahmed was convicted of being a member of al-Qaeda and directing a terrorist group, while Amin was convicted of conspiring to cause explosions. Both are serving life terms.
■UNITED KINGDOM
William wants action
William, who is training to become a full-time military helicopter pilot, wants to fight in Afghanistan, the News of the World said yesterday, citing the royal. The paper said the prince unwittingly spoke to their reporter in a nightclub. “I’d love to do what Harry did out in Afghanistan,” William was reported as saying. “That’s why we train — because we want to be out there on the front line. I’m a bit jealous of him to be honest. Hopefully I’ll get my turn,” the paper quoted William as saying. Prince Harry served with the British Army in Afghanistan for 77 days until a reporting embargo broke down in February last year. The News of the World said William spoke to their reporter during a 1940s wartime theme party in a London nightclub. A spokesman for the prince said: “Prince William doesn’t talk about his private life to strangers. William does not recall this conversation taking place.”
■BRAZIL
Thousands protest abortion
About 4,000 people took to the streets on Saturday in peaceful protest “against abortion and for life” in front of the Se Cathedral, seat of the archdiocese of Sao Paulo. The crowd stood in silence for several hours in Cathedral Square in the country’s largest city starting at 10am while waving Brazilian flags and wearing t-shirts promoting their cause. Abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or if the woman’s health is in danger. But a million women still seek clandestine abortions in operations that kill thousands each year, officials said. The abortion debate reached a new high earlier this month when archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho excommunicated the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion after allegedly being raped by her stepfather. The excommunication was promptly denounced by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil.
■MEXICO
Chihuahua police chief quits
The police chief of the state hit hardest by drug violence has resigned after a group of armed men released a suspected cocaine smuggler from police custody, officials said on Saturday. Javier Torres, the top officer in the northern border state of Chihuahua, said in his resignation letter he did not want to be a burden to the police force. A dozen men armed with automatic rifles raided a Chihuahua City hospital where Crispin Borunda, a suspected drug smuggler, had been transferred from a local prison for treatment of a heart ailment, police said.
■UNITED STATES
Triathletes run heart risk
Warning to weekend warriors: Swim-bike-run triathlons pose at least twice the risk of sudden death as marathons do, the first study of these competitions has found. Each year several hundred thousand Americans try a triathlon, said Kevin Harris, a cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Statistics show that for every 1 million triathlon participants, there will be 15 deaths, much higher than for marathon participants, with a rate of four to eight deaths per 1 million. Almost all occurred during the swim portion, usually the first event.
■UNITED STATES
‘Dumbest criminal’ arrested
A retired police chief says he was robbed by “probably the dumbest criminal in Pennsylvania” at a police officers’ convention attended by 300 narcotics officers. John Comparetto said that as he came out of a stall on Friday in the men’s room, a man pointed a gun at his face and demanded money. Comparetto gave up his money and cellphone. But when the man fled, Comparetto and some colleagues chased him. They arrested 19-year-old Jerome Marquis Blanchett of Harrisburg as he was trying to leave in a taxi.
■ARGENTINA
UK dismisses Falkland talks
Britain on Saturday dismissed a fresh Argentine demand for sovereignty talks over the disputed Falkland Islands, saying the issue was not up for discussion. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Saturday demanded the talks when she met British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the sidelines of a pre-G20 summit in the Chile. Her call came a day after Brown said publicly he would not discuss the issue. An official said the two leaders did agree on the need for further discussions on the issue of commercial flights between the islands and mainland Argentina, which have been blocked for 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
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
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