■HONG KONG
Parasite genomes mapped
Scientists have mapped out the genomes of two parasites that cause snail fever, a disease that afflicts 210 million rural people worldwide and for which there is still no vaccine. Only one drug exists to fight the disease, which is also known as schistomiasis. Experts hope that by laying out the genetic structure of the parasites, new drugs can be designed to fight them. The Schistosoma mansoni is found in sub-Saharan Africa, parts of the Middle East, Brazil, Venezuela and some Caribbean islands. Some 280,000 people die from snail fever in Africa alone each year. The age-old disease leaves people so weak they are unable to work. Victims suffer fever, abdominal pain, cough, diarrhea, fatigue and distended bellies in advanced stages of the illness. People and cattle are ideal hosts of these parasites and those who are infected shed the parasites in their stools, which in turn infect freshwater snails in paddy fields and lakes. The snails then shed larvae, called cercariae, that infect mammals by tunneling through the tiny pores on their skin.
PHOTO : REUTERS
■SOUTH KOREA
Former leader on respirator
Former president and Nobel laureate Kim Dae-jung has been placed on a respirator in hospital, a medical official said yesterday. “The president is on a breathing machine but he is not in a life-threatening condition. Vital signs are all normal,” the official at Seoul’s Severance Hospital said. Kim, 83, was taken to a hospital on Monday for a medical check-up after suffering from cold symptoms and a fever, said an aide quoted by Yonhap news agency. On Wednesday he was diagnosed with pneumonia and moved to an intensive care unit.
■CHINA
Dog nurses red panda cubs
Two red panda cubs abandoned by their mother at birth are thriving at a zoo thanks to milk and loving care from an unlikely surrogate mother — a dog, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The cubs, born on June 25, were abandoned immediately by their mother after giving birth in front of a crowd of visitors at the Taiyuan Zoo in Shanxi Province. The dog wet nurse, belonging to a farmer from a nearby suburb, was selected from two other candidates that had recently given birth. The dog is now raising the two panda cubs like its own pups, sometimes even refusing to feed its own pup, a zoo official said.
■PAKISTAN
UN official shot dead
A UN official working in a camp for displaced civilians in Peshawar was shot dead during a failed kidnapping attempt yesterday, UN and Pakistani officials said. The wounded Pakistani, who works for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), was rushed to a hospital, where he later died, the officials said. “A national staff of UNHCR at the Kutcha Gari camp has been a victim of a kidnapping attempt that turned into a shooting,” UN spokesman Janos Tisovszky said by telephone. “He was shot in the chest several times and he was rushed to hospital.” Another UN spokeswoman, Stephanie Bunker, said the official later died.
■EGYPT
City to honor ‘veil martyr’
The hometown of a pregnant Egyptian woman stabbed to death in a German courtroom is to honor the “veil martyr” with a street in her name, Egypt’s official MENA news agency reported on Wednesday. Alexandria governor Adel Labib “agreed to give the name of martyr Marwa al-Sherbini” to a street in the city, MENA quoted Labib as saying. Sherbini, 31, died in a courtroom in Dresden after being stabbed at least 18 times in front of her son and husband, allegedly by a Russian-born German man. Dresden is also mulling ways to honor her after the killing sparked anger in the Muslim world, including possibly also naming a street after her. Sherbini became known as the “veil martyr” as she was wearing a headscarf when she was attacked for apparently racist motives.
■FRANCE
Sunday opening gets boost
Legislators have approved a divisive bill that allows more stores to stay open — and more people to work — on Sundays. The law was adopted on Wednesday by a vote of 282 to 238 in France’s lower house of parliament. One of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s key reform pledges, the bill’s proponents say expanding Sunday opening hours will give the French economy a much-needed jolt as the nation wrestles with recession. But France’s leftist opposition calls it an affront to labor protections, and traditionalists decry it as an attack on the time-honored day of rest.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Would-be bomber convicted
A white supremacist who wanted to fight a racist war against the “non-British” was convicted by a London court on Wednesday of plotting acts of terrorism and being on the brink of carrying out bomb attacks. Neil Lewington, 44, was carrying the components for two homemade bombs. He was arrested by chance last October after he got drunk and urinated in public, leading police to search his bag. Lewington was arrested at Lowestoft railway station on his way to visit a woman he had met on the Internet.
■POLAND
Chinese workers protest
Chinese workers claiming to have been cheated out of wages by their Polish-Chinese labor agents have pitched a protest camp in front of the Chinese embassy in Warsaw. A protestor who identified himself as Lim said on Wednesday that the group was paid only for a short time after having arrived from China in March to work in construction. “We have no pay in three months. No work from June 24. We are homeless,” he said, adding he and 50 or so other protesting laborers lacked the funds to return to China. Complaining that they have received no help from the Chinese embassy in Warsaw, the protesters have pitched tents using sheets, tarpaulins and cardboard on its front lawn.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Bishop wants holy water ban
A bishop has advised his diocese to ban holy water from churches in a bid to halt the spread of swine flu. The Bishop of Chelmsford has suggested sprucing up hygiene in churches by removing receptacles for water. “Some churches have a stoup for holy water near the entrance to the church door, and people are invited to dip a finger in this, and to make the sign of the cross as a reminder of their baptism. The water contained in stoups can easily become a source of infection and a means of rapidly spreading the virus,” The Right Reverend John Gladwin said. “This practice should be suspended.”
■UNITED STATES
Man owed US$23 quadrillion
A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged more than US$23 quadrillion. Josh Muszynski checked his account online a few hours after the purchase and saw the 17-digit number — a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500. Muszynski told WMUR-TV that he spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to sort out the string of numbers — and the US$15 overdraft fee. The bank corrected the error the next day. Bank of America said the card issuer, Visa, could answer questions. Visa, in turn, referred questions to the bank.
■UNITED STATES
No Pentagon tobacco ban
The Pentagon reassured troops on Wednesday that it won’t ban tobacco products in war zones. Defense officials hadn’t actually planned to eliminate smoking — at least for now. But fear of a ban arose among some troops after the Defense Department received a study recommending the military move toward becoming tobacco-free — perhaps in about 20 years. Press secretary Geoff Morrell pointedly told a news conference that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is not planning to prohibit the use of cigarettes, chewing tobacco or other tobacco products by troops in combat. “He knows that the situation they are confronting is stressful enough as it is,” Morrell said. “I don’t think he is interested in adding to the stress levels by taking away one of the few outlets they may have to relieve stress.” Gates will review the new study to see if there are some things than can be done to work toward the goal of having a smoke-free force some day, Morrell said.
■CANADA
Secret service criticized
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) ignored human rights concerns while questioning Canadian detainee Omar Khadr at the US facility in Guantanamo, Cuba, in 2003, a report published on Wednesday found. The secret service “failed to give proper attention to two important matters: human rights issues and Mr Khadr’s age when the interviews were conducted,” the report by the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) said. The report examined the role played by the CSIS role in the detention of Khadr, now 22 years old, who is accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15. Khadr is the last Western detainee at Guantanamo. “At the time that CSIS interviewed Mr Khadr in 2003 there were widespread allegations of mistreatment and abuse of detainees in US custody in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay [yet the] SIRC did not find any evidence that CSIS took this information into account in deciding to interview Mr Khadr,” the report said.
■UNITED STATES
Teen guilty of killing kitten
A New York City teenager has admitted that she failed to let a kitten out of an oven after a friend put the animal inside and left it to roast to death. After pleading guilty to charges of animal cruelty and attempted burglary on Wednesday, 17-year-old Cheyenne Cherry confronted a row of animal activists outside the courtroom. Cherry stuck out her tongue and told the activists that the kitten named Tiger Lily was “dead.” Authorities say Cherry and a 14-year-old friend ransacked a Bronx apartment before putting the cat in the oven, where it cried and scratched before dying. The 14-year-old was charged with aggravated animal cruelty and burglary in the May 6 incident. Cherry will serve a year in jail under a plea bargain.
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