■INDIA
Colleges ban jeans
Colleges in the state of Uttar Pradesh said on Wednesday that female students would be banned from wearing jeans and other Western clothes to halt sexual harassment by male classmates. “Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college,” Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls’ college in the city of Kanpur said. “This is the only way to stop crime against women.” A growing number of colleges in Uttar Pradesh have decided to outlaw jeans, shorts, tight blouses and miniskirts on campus in an attempt to crack down on sexual harassment. But many of the students, who are aged between 17 and 20, said the new rules punished innocent females rather than tackling the men who treated women badly.
■CHINA
Shenzhen mayor fired
The mayor of Shenzhen has been fired for “serious discipline violations,” the state news agency said yesterday. A one-sentence report by the Xinhua news agency did not immediately say what violations Xu Zongheng (許宗衡) allegedly committed. Xinhua reported earlier this week that Xu had been questioned in connection with a corruption probe centered on tycoon Wong Kwong-yu (黃光裕), founder of China’s largest electronics retailing chain, Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings. Xu is one of several officials caught up in the probe into allegations Wong committed financial crimes including manipulating the price of his company’s stock.
■JAPAN
Hello Kitty goes tartan
Hello Kitty, the Japanese-made global icon of cuteness, will mark her 35th birthday this year by going back to her British roots with a new tartan collection, her makers said on Wednesday. Sanrio Co will launch the checkered pink series — featuring handbags, trinkets, a shawl and a Kitty version of a teddy bear — in September in Japan ahead of her official birthday on Nov. 1. The British embassy in Tokyo on Wednesday threw an early party for the feline who, according to the Kitty legend, lives in suburban London.
■GUAM
Fire breaks out in cockpit
A mid-air fire forced an Australian budget airliner to make an emergency landing yesterday, just days after 228 people died in an accident involving the same type of plane. Jetstar flight JQ20 was about four hours into its journey from Osaka to the Gold Coast when the blaze broke out in the cockpit, prompting the captain to douse the flames with a fire extinguisher before diverting to Guam. “The captain saw a small flame on the right-hand window and used a fire extinguisher to extinguish the flame,” said Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan, praising the pilot’s quick reaction.
■CHINA
Dig searches for warriors
China plans to excavate more of the life-size terracotta warriors at the ancient tomb of the country’s first emperor, a newspaper said on Wednesday. Archeologists hope to uncover more figures of officers to add to the 1,000-plus statues already excavated, the China Daily newspaper said on Wednesday. The new dig is the third undertaken since the tomb was first uncovered in 1974 outside the city of Xi’an and will focus on an area lying within the tomb’s main pit that holds the main warrior force. In all, the tomb’s three pits are thought to hold 8,000 life-sized figures, including those of archers, infantry soldiers, horse-drawn chariots, officers and acrobats.
■IRELAND
Abuse victims join protest
Survivors of rape and ritual beatings at Catholic-run schools marched silently to parliament on Wednesday, carrying children’s shoes and wearing white ribbons symbolizing their lost youth. Disclosures of floggings, slave labor and gang rape in the now defunct system of industrial and reform schools have shamed people, particularly older ones who did not confront what a report last month described as endemic abuse. “It was as if you were inside prison and when you come out you don’t talk about it,” said Marina Permaul, 66, who was brought up “military style” by nuns in the western county of Galway. Local news reports said about 7,000 people took part in the march, including hundreds of victims of abuse. Organizers of the march, held to coincide with a parliamentary debate on the report, have expressed anger that the debate has been postponed to allow parliament to deal with a motion of no confidence in the government. The inquiry criticized religious authorities for covering up the crimes and the Department of Education for colluding in the silence. It noted children were also preyed upon by foster parents, volunteer workers and employers.
■UNITED STATES
US family big in Prague
How did an American family’s Christmas card photo end up in the Czech Republic, splashed across a huge storefront advertisement? Danielle Smith said on Wednesday that the photo taken of her family last year got sent to family and friends and was posted on her blog and a few social networking sites. The photo showed her and her husband Jeff holding their two young children. About 10 days ago, one of Smith’s college friends was driving through Prague when he spotted their huge smiling faces in the window of a store specializing in European food. He snapped a few pictures and sent them to a flabbergasted Smith. “It’s a life-size picture in a grocery store window in Prague — my Christmas card photo,” said Smith, 36, who lives in the St Louis suburb of O’Fallon. Mario Bertuccio, who owns the Grazie store in Prague, said the photo was from the Internet. Details were sparse, but he said he thought it was computer-generated. When told it was a real photo — of a real family — he said he started taking steps to remove it. “We’ll be happy to write an e-mail with our apology,” Bertuccio said.
■KENYA
Cop faces murder charges
A police officer faced attempted murder charges on Wednesday for allegedly severing the penis of a suspected fertilizer thief. The officer was off-duty when he was interrogating the suspect, who had been detained by market vendors in Nyamira town, Nyanza provincial police chief Anthony Kibuchi said. “He is said to have taken a knife from his pocket and chopped off the man’s private parts,” Kibuchi said. The suspected thief was taken to hospital where his condition was listed as critical, while the unidentified officer faces trial once an investigation is completed.
■GERMANY
Dog finds grenade
A dog playing fetch found and delivered to its owner a US hand grenade from World War II. Police in the western town of Erkrath said on Monday they were called by the dog’s 40-year-old owner who stopped walking her pooch when she recognized the “rusty” object it was carrying was a weapon. Police summoned a munitions expert Sunday to identify and defuse the grenade. Grenades and bombs left over from World War II are still often found in the country.
■UNITED STATES
Report fingers polluters
The petroleum industry accounted for a quarter of toxic pollutants recorded across North America in 2005 by a government-backed environmental watchdog, an annual report said on Wednesday. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation — created by Canada, the US and Mexico — said 90 percent of toxic pollutants came from just over a dozen industries. Aside from oil and gas extraction, mining, wastewater treatment, electric utilities and chemical manufacturing are named as the principal offenders.
■UNITED STATES
Fire fighters rescue trout
As a lightning-sparked fire charred thousands of hectares in southwestern New Mexico, biologists and firefighters used helicopters and trucks for an unusual evacuation. They captured 250 Gila trout — a threatened species — from a creek in southwestern New Mexico and are moving them to a hatchery in the opposite corner of the state. Ranger Al Koss of the Wilderness Ranger District said on Wednesday that it was a perfect time to move the fish because the fire’s intensity had diminished and the flames were still a couple of kilometers from the South Diamond Creek. Biologists rode to the creek on horseback, then used electroshocking devices to temporarily stun the trout so they could quickly scoop them into a net.
■UNITED STATES
New arrest in dorm killing
A second man has been arrested in connection with a fatal shooting at a Harvard University dormitory, prosecutors said on Wednesday. Blayn Jiggetts, 19, was arrested just before midnight on Tuesday in New York City, said Corey Welford, a spokesman for the District Attorney’s office. Jiggetts was scheduled to be arraigned in Manhattan on Wednesday. He faces charges of first-degree murder, accessory after the fact of murder, carrying a firearm without a license and armed robbery in Massachusetts, Welford said. Cambridge resident Justin Cosby was shot inside an entranceway to Kirkland House dorm on May 18 in what authorities have said was a drug-related robbery attempt. Cosby, 21 was shot in the abdomen and stumbled down the street before collapsing.
■UNITED STATES
Coach arrested for break-in
An elementary school baseball coach in Washington state has been accused of using some of his players to help in a break-in. Prosecutors charged 31-year-old George Spady on Monday with burglary. Court documents allege he took his son, a nephew and another player from the team with him when he broke into a vacant Arlington shop and took overhead lights and other items, the Daily Herald’s Web site said. Police say Spady’s son crawled through a vent on the back side of the store and unlocked the door for his father, who then told the boys to grab things from inside. One boy told his stepfather, who called deputies.
■SYRIA
Hamas to listen to Carter
The Palestinian movement Hamas said it would “listen” to former US president Jimmy Carter and “learn about his efforts to deal with the Palestinian situation,” a Hamas senior official said on Wednesday. “There are emerging changes and a new language used especially after President Obama’s speech in Cairo last week, and Hamas will listen to what Carter [has to say] about Obama’s view and policies towards the resistance in the region,” Ossama Hamdan said. Carter was due in Damascus yesterday.
‘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