■PHILIPPINES
Protesters want term limits
Thousands of people led by left-wing and church groups turned out for a rally yesterday to protest moves to rewrite the Constitution that they said were a ploy to prolong President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s stay in power. Arroyo’s term is set to end with elections next May, but her allies in the House of Representatives initiated moves last week to open the Constitution to amendments, raising charges that term limits may be scrapped. Arroyo’s spokesmen deny that she plans to stay beyond her mandate.
■THAILAND
Germany bans Thaksin
Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is no longer welcome in Germany and will be arrested if he returns there, a foreign ministry official said in Bangkok yesterday. The Foreign Ministry was notified about the ban in an official letter from the German embassy last week, ministry spokesman Chavanont Intarakomalyasut said. Thaksin has been living in exile since being ousted by a military coup in 2006. Berlin placed Thaksin on a “national exemption” list in December but he was received a one-year Bonn residency permit on Dec. 29. Berlin ordered Bonn to revoke the resident permit on May 28.
■JAPAN
Tadpoles rain down
Residents in the small coastal town of Nanao say tadpoles are dropping out of the sky. An office clerk said he first heard a dull thud in a parking lot last week and then saw about 100 dead tadpoles splattered on car windshields and the ground. Other residents have reported the same phenomena. “People speculate that a waterspout picked them up and dropped them from the air,” an official at a local weather observatory said. “But from a meteorological point of view, I have to say it is most unlikely.”
■CHINA
US mayor quarantined
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has been quarantined in Shanghai since Sunday after a fellow passenger on his flight to China fell ill with a suspected case of swine flu. Nagin missed several meetings in the city as well as his flight to Australia on Tuesday night, his spokesman James Ross said. “Mayor Nagin, his wife and executive protection staff are all doing very well. They are feeling fine and they have no symptoms of illness,” Ross said. Nagin was scheduled to give a speech on climate change at the University of Sydney today.
■SRI LANKA
Canadian MP detained
Canadian Member of Parliament Bob Rae was detained on arrival at Bandaranaike International airport yesterday and could be deported for allegedly supporting the Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said. Rae, an outspoken critic of the Sri Lankan military’s offensive against the rebels, was barred from passing through immigration, a foreign ministry official said. “We have not deported him yet,” an official said.
■HONG KONG
Asian airports are tops
Seoul’s Incheon International topped a global poll of airports released yesterday, one of seven in the Asia-Pacific region to make the top 10. The poll by consultancy group Skytrax covered 190 airports and asked more than 8 million people from nearly 100 countries to rank them in dozens of categories, including check-in, arrival and transfer. Hong Kong International Airport ranked second, Singapore’s Changi Airport was third, Kansai in Osaka was sixth, Kuala Lumpur was seventh, Centrair Nagoya came ninth and Auckland took 10th spot.
■RUSSIA
Gunmen kill judge
Officials say a top judge in the North Caucasus was killed by gunmen who attacked her as she was dropping her children off at school. Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry says Aza Gazgireeva died at a hospital in the regional center, Nazran, hours later. The ministry says three other people were wounded in the attack yesterday just opposite a kindergarten. The brazen killing was the latest evidence of the spiraling violence in the North Caucasus, where Chechnya is located. In nearby Dagestan, gunmen battled police forces overnight after attacking a police building with guns and mortars.
■FRANCE
Picasso notebook stolen
A notebook of 33 pencil drawings by Pablo Picasso has been stolen from the Paris museum that bears the painter’s name, authorities said on Tuesday. The book is reportedly worth several million dollars. The theft took place between Monday and Tuesday morning at the Picasso Museum, France’s Culture Ministry said. The theft was discovered on Tuesday morning, a police official said anonymously, as police are not authorized to discuss cases publicly. The stolen sketchbook, shiny red with the word “Album” inscribed in gold on the front, dated from 1917 to 1924, the Culture Ministry statement said. It measured 16cm by 24cm, the ministry said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Tube strike disrupts millions
A near-total strike on London’s Underground network yesterday brought severe disruption for millions of passengers. Members of the RMT trade union started a 48-hour walkout over pay and conditions on Tuesday evening and will end the action late today. Last-minute talks over union demands of a 5 percent pay rise and a promise of no compulsory redundancies failed late on Tuesday. It is estimated the strike will cost the London economy about £100 million (US$161 million), business group London First said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Cops suspected of abuse
Six police officers have been suspended or placed on restricted duties after allegations of ill-treatment against suspects arrested in an anti-drugs operation last year, police said yesterday. Some newspapers said the alleged ill-treatment included “waterboarding,” a simulated drowning method that has been used by CIA interrogators, but a police source said actions like ducking suspects’ heads in water were closer to the mark. The London Metropolitan Police force launched an investigation after a police employee raised concerns about the conduct of officers based at Enfield. Last month, the case was referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
■GERMANY
Chimp shows who’s boss
The director of the Berlin Zoo made famous by the polar bear cub Knut has had his finger bitten off by a chimpanzee called Pedro. Bernhard Blaszkiewitz, 55, was feeding Pedro walnuts as he showed a visitor round the zoo on Monday when the ape grabbed his hand and bit off his right index finger. “Pedro is the boss of the group so he has to demonstrate a certain dominance in it to prove himself,” zoo spokesman Andre Schuele said on Tuesday. “Under normal circumstances, a chimp would never have the chance to reach a keeper or our director.” Doctors sewed Blaszkiewitz’s finger back on but said it was not clear if the operation would be successful. Schuele said the incident would have no repercussions for the 28-year-old Pedro.
■UNITED STATES
Tiller’s clinic to close
One of the few remaining clinics that provided controversial late-term abortions will close in the wake of its owner’s murder, the slain doctor’s family said on Tuesday. The decision has left counseling centers scrambling to find a place to send women seeking to abort a fetus in the second or third trimester, at a time when providers across the country are fearful they could be the next target. George Tiller, 67, was a lightning rod in the nation’s culture wars over abortion and had already been shot in the arms and seen his Kansas clinic bombed, vandalized and targeted by decades of protests before he was gunned down in the foyer of his church on May 31. Just two other local clinics are believed to provide the procedure, which is legal in many states only when a doctor determines that an abortion is necessary to preserve the health or life of the mother.
■FRANCE
Planetary collision possible
A force known as orbital chaos could cause the solar system to go haywire, leading to a collision between Earth and Venus or Mars, a study released yesterday said. The good news is that the likelihood of such a smash-up is small, around 1 in 2,500. And even if the planets did careen into one another, it would not happen before another 3.5 billion years. Indeed, there is a 99 percent chance that the Sun’s posse of planets will continue to circle in an orderly pattern throughout the expected life span of our life-giving star, another 5 billion years, said the study led by Jacques Laskar, a researcher at the Observatoire de Paris.
■CANADA
Plane toilet catches fire
An American Airlines plane with 206 people on board made an emergency landing in Canada because of a fire in a toilet, a television channel reported. The Boeing 767-300 was flying from New York to Zurich on Tuesday evening when smoke started to pour out of a toilet into the passenger cabin, CTV said. The plane landed safely in Halifax, Nova Scotia. One person was checked over by paramedics but not taken to hospital. A faulty air ventilator is thought to have caused the fire. One of the flight attendants reportedly used a fire extinguisher to put it out.
■UNITED STATES
Factory blast kills two
Two workers died when an explosion tore through a Slim Jim meat products plant in North Carolina on Tuesday, punching holes in the building’s roof and blowing employees off their feet. The explosion critically burned four people and one worker was still unaccounted for on Tuesday night. More than 40 others were taken to hospitals, including three firefighters who needed medical attention after inhaling ammonia gases that left a distinct scent around the sprawling ConAgra Foods Inc plant just south of Raleigh. It was not immediately known where in the plant the blast happened or what caused it.
■UNITED STATES
Trees not welcome
What’s not to like about a tree? Apparently plenty, if you live one New York City neighborhood. The New York Daily News says some residents in the Bronx are fuming over the city’s plans to plant trees on their block. They say the roots will eventually crack the sidewalks — and they’ll be stuck with the repair bills. Opponents also fear that fully grown trees will damage their homes, clog sewer drains and entangle power lines in the borough’s Mott Haven neighborhood. Parks officials did not comment on the residents’ specific concerns. But they said careful thought goes into each tree planting.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At 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
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