■INDONESIA
Debt-swap goes to nature
Jakarta committed to the conservation of its dwindling tropical forests in a multimillion dollar debt-swap deal signed on Tuesday with the US government, the US embassy said. Jakarta’s payments to Washington will be reduced by US$30 million over the next eight years under the US Tropical Forest Conservation Act, the embassy said in a statement. The Indonesian government will donate the money it saves to the charities Conservation International and the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation, which will deposit the money into a local forest conservation fund.
■CHINA
Drinking water threatened
The fifth-largest freshwater lake in China is at risk of a massive algae outbreak that could jeopardize drinking water for millions of people, reflecting systemic pollution in China as it rushes to modernize. Satellite photos show that about 30km2 of Chaohu lake in eastern Anhui Province are already covered in algae, the Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. The waters of Chaohu often turn slimy in the summer as algae fed by sewage, farm and factory runoff bloom, leaving it toxic and undrinkable. The lake is flanked by two industrial cities that together house some 5 million people and whose industrial and residential waste is tipped directly into the very body of water that provides their drinking water. China has a national goal of restoring its severely polluted lakes by 2030.
■INDIA
No emission caps: minister
New Delhi will not sign up to targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions but will instead focus on fighting poverty and boosting economic growth, the environment minister said on Tuesday. India is one of the world’s biggest emitters alongside China, the US and Russia, and the second most populous nation. But India’s per capita emissions lag far behind rich countries and it feels the developed world should take the lead on tackling climate change. “India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and over-riding priorities,” a statement on behalf of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said. A legally binding emission reduction target endangers India’s energy conservation, food security and transport, he said.
■PAKISTAN
Bhutto inquiry begins
A UN commission appointed to investigate the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto began work yesterday, a spokesman said. The panel, which has a six-month mandate, is being led by the Chilean ambassador to the US, Heraldo Munoz, and includes an Indonesian ex-attorney general and an Irish former police official. Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed on Dec. 27, 2007, in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad.
■THAILAND
Police car yields cash
Police discovered about 10 million baht (US$290,000 dollars) in cash hidden in the doors of a car belonging to an alleged drug trafficker that had been impounded and driven by officers for the past two years, media reports said yesterday. Department of Special Investigation chief Thawee Sodsong told a press conference on Tuesday that police in Udon Thani Province had recently found 9,998,000 baht packed inside the back doors of a Toyota Fortuner.
■DENMARK
Art dealer convicted of fraud
The Copenhagen City Court has convicted an art connoisseur of defrauding a 92-year-old woman by telling her a painting she owned was worth only 200,000 kroner (US$37,800), then selling it for 25 times that amount. The court, which sentenced Svend Erik Olsen to eight months in prison, says her bought the 1906 oil canvas by French painter Andre Derain in 2004 by telling the woman it was just a copy of the original. He then resold the painting a month later for 5 million kroner to a French art gallery that had certified it was genuine. The landscape was eventually sold by Sotheby’s for US$6.8 million.
■EUROPEAN UNION
‘Ugly’ veggie ban dropped
A two-decade ban on wonky fruit and vegetables ended yesterday after standards that keep misshapen mushrooms and curvy cucumbers out of supermarkets were dropped. The EU said dropping rules that only allow beautiful-looking produce to hit shop shelves would reduce waste and allow farmers to sell more of their crop. British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s called for the rule changes last year after it was prevented from launching a Halloween range of twisted vegetables. Ugly versions of the 10 most popular fruit and vegetables — including apples, citrus fruit and tomatoes — will have to be labeled as nonstandard.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Britons hunt for bad pence
A specialist firm has offered to buy faulty 20 pence pieces for £50 (US$82), sending Britons scrambling in search of one of the approximately 50,000 undated coins. However, other coin dealers have advised people to hold on to them because they may be worth as much as £300 within the next decade. The London Mint Office made its offer for 20 pence pieces that had been cast with a new tails design, but with the old head design, resulting in a batch of coins with no date on them. The letters “F.D.” have been printed where the date “2008” should have been. A coin with mismatched sides is known as a “mule” and they are extremely rare. The last time one appeared in circulation was during the reign of Charles II more than 300 years ago. The Royal Mint says the coins are legal tender, but has not commented on their current or potential value.
■ZIMBABWE
China offers US$950m loan
The government has won US$950 million in credit lines from China, the largest loan secured by the unity government since it was formed in February, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Monday. “While I was away, government through Finance Minister Tendai Biti also secured lines of credit from China totaling US$950 million,” said Tsvangirai, who returned to Harare at the weekend from a three-week tour to Europe and the US. He said the tour was an “overwhelming success” in re-engaging with foreign donors.
■SPAIN
Man ordered hit to save job
Police have arrested a man whom they suspect hired a contract killer to murder his boss in a desperate bid to avoid being laid off, El Pais reported on Tuesday. The head of audiovisual services at the Barcelona International Convention Center contracted a Colombian man who shot and killed the center’s director on Feb. 9, police said. The suspect, through his sister, contracted a team of six Colombians who planned and carried out the killing, El Pais reported. Police have also detained the sister and six Colombians.
■UNITED STATES
Ex-CIA agent charged
A former CIA station chief charged with raping an unconscious Algerian woman last year surrendered to federal agents on Tuesday. Andrew Warren, 41, was fired from the CIA earlier this year, agency spokesman George Little said. A grand jury issued a one-count indictment against Warren on June 18 that was unsealed on Tuesday. If convicted he faces up to life in prison, the Department of Justice said. Two Algerian women came forward separately last year to say they had been sexually assaulted by Warren while at his home in Algiers, papers filed in federal court in January by a State Department investigator showed.
■UNITED STATES
Cash, sex for lost puppy?
Los Angeles County prosecutors alleged that a convicted sex offender tried to extort a teenager by demanding cash or sex for the return of her lost dog. Deputy District Attorney Jan Perlstein said 27-year-old Alfredo Dempkey was scheduled for arraignment on Tuesday afternoon on a count of attempted extortion. Prosecutors said the Lancaster resident found the dog on Friday and used information on its tags to contact the owner. A meeting was arranged at a fast-food restaurant, where Dempkey was arrested. The dog was returned to its owner.
■ARGENTINA
H1N1 death toll rises
Authorities in the capital and Buenos Aires Province declared health emergencies and extended school vacations on Tuesday as the nation’s swine flu death toll surged to 35. Together the areas comprise almost half of the population and they joined four other provinces that have already declared health emergencies in a country that in Latin America is topped only by Mexico in number of swine flu deaths. Health authorities have warned that while the swine flu peak has passed in Mexico, the Southern Hemisphere is at risk as it heads deeper into its winter flu season.
■UNITED STATES
‘Bad writer’ wins prize
A shambling sentence about screaming seafarers on the sturdy whaler Ellie May stood shoulders above the rest in an annual bad writing contest. David McKenzie, 55, of Federal Way, Washington State, won the grand prize in San Jose State University’s annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this: “Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin’ off Nantucket Sound from the nor’ east and the dogs are howlin’ for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the Ellie May, a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin’ and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.” The contest, a parody of prose, invites entrants to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels.
■CHILE
Pensions boosted for moms
The government yesterday launched a new pension system aimed at boosting retirement funds for mothers, correcting a “historic discrimination” for millions of women who put careers on hold to raise their children. This year, a bonus of 286,000 pesos (US$530) will be awarded to 13,000 mothers who reach retirement age by yesterday, at a total cost of some US$13.4 million. Next year, 42,000 will receive the pension bonuses. Official calculations showed that under the new plan, a mother of two who is 30 years old today could, at retirement age 60, see her pension boosted by an additional US$7,000.
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