■SOUTH KOREA
Roh’s brother sentenced
Former president Roh Moo-hyun’s elder brother was sentenced yesterday to four years in prison for peddling influence in a corporate takeover deal. Roh Gun-pyeong and two accomplices were convicted of accepting some 3 billion won (US$2.4 million) in bribes from a financial firm seeking their help in selling an ailing securities unit to a state-supervised bank in 2006, Seoul Central District Court Judge Kim Tae-hyoung said. Roh is the brother of Roh Moo-hyun, who served as South Korea’s president from 2003 to last year. The brother also was fined some 574 million won (US$450,000), Kim said. The former president is also under investigation in a separate bribery scandal over allegations that he took more than US$6 million from a businessman while in office.
■CHINA
Hysterics cause debate
A popular online video showing a woman going hysterical after her male companion refuses to buy her a car is stirring debate about Shanghai’s females, who are renowned for their demanding ways. In the video, apparently shot on a mobile phone or handheld camera and carried on the widely read www.youku.com, the woman is seen screaming at the man in a Shanghai car showroom.
■CHINA
Pollution sickens 160
More than 160 people have been hospitalized and hundreds of others sickened in the northeast in a suspected case of pollution caused by a chemical plant, local media said yesterday. Staff at a plant operated by the Jilin Chemical Fiber Group in Jilin city, as well as residents living nearby, started complaining of headache, nausea, vomiting and general fatigue late last month, the Beijing Times reported. About 1,000 people reported suffering from the symptoms and 161 of them had to be hospitalized, the paper said. Patients said they suspected they had been affected by emissions from Connell Chemical, a Hong Kong-invested chemical producer near the fiber plant, the report said. Environmental authorities have tested the air near the two chemical companies but have not yet been able to identify any pollutant, it said. However, the city government has ordered Connell Chemical to shut down its aniline plant and inspectors are staying on the spot to track the air quality 24 hours a day, the report said.
■AUSTRALIA
List gaffe prompts apology
The government acknowledged yesterday that it had made an embarrassing blunder by making public a secret list of treaty negotiations with countries around the world. The list of more than 200 bilateral treaties under negotiation or review includes a pending agreement with China to increase uranium exports and a revised defense treaty being hammered out with Indonesian officials. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in a statement yesterday that his department “is in the process of advising each of the relevant countries that the document was released in error” in the parliament on Wednesday. “The minister has and does accept responsibility for this error,” the statement said. The 58-page list is not classified. But its cover page carries a warning that such negotiations are “potentially sensitive” and that the list should not be “placed on the public record.” According to international convention, even the existence of such negotiations should not be revealed without the permission of both countries, it said.
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