■INDONESIA
Big baby born
A woman has given birth to a baby weighing 8.7kg, news reports said yesterday. The baby boy born on Monday by Cesarian section in North Sumatra province was in good health, Erwanto, a doctor who treated the newborn, told the news portal Detik.com. Local media said the baby was the heaviest newborn ever recorded in the country. The previous record was 6.9kg. “The baby does not need an intravenous or ventilator, and his heart is normal,” the doctor, who goes by one name, was quoted as saying. The mother, who weighed 110kg after the delivery, was in good condition too, he said. Another doctor, Binsar Sitanggang, said the baby had a big appetite. “He cries for feeding almost every minute,” he said. “He cries very loudly, unlike other babies.” Doctors said the baby grew too large because the mother has diabetes, which caused him to receive too much glucose.
■NEW ZEALAND
Stabbing student sentenced
A South Korean student was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in prison after a court was told he stabbed a college teacher in the back during a lesson because he had made “culturally insensitive” comments. The teacher spoke of Tae Won Chung’s likely conscription into the army and the possibility of North Korea launching an attack on his country, the court heard yesterday. The comments left Chung, 17, “festering with anger,” the Auckland District Court was told, and he took a knife to college the next day where he stabbed Japanese teacher David Warren, 49, in front of 20 classmates as he wrote on a whiteboard. Chung was sentenced after pleading guilty to a charge of injuring Warren with intent, news reports said. He was also ordered to pay the teacher, who told the court his spine was injured in the attack, NZ$10,000 (US$7,200) in compensation.
■INDIA
Chimney kills workers
Rescuers used heavy cranes and saws to free more than a dozen people still trapped in the rubble of a large chimney that collapsed at a power plant under construction in the center of the country, killing at least 14 people, police said yesterday. R.K. Vij, inspector-general of police, revised the death toll to 14 from the figure of 20 that was given earlier by police, and said another seven people were hospitalized. All 14 bodies have been recovered. Vij said at least 20 workers were still trapped in the rubble at the construction site in Korba, nearly 960km southeast of New Delhi. The 75m chimney came crashing down in the plant’s cafeteria as construction workers had tea, said Vishwa Ranjan, the director-general of police in Chhattisgarh state, where the accident occurred.
■NORTH KOREA
Leader angry with son
“Friction” has developed between leader Kim Jong-il and his youngest son, who has been touted as most likely to take over the isolated communist state, a Japanese news report said on Wednesday. An angry Kim Jong-il has even ordered state news agencies to temper praise of Kim Jong-un and talk of any succession, Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) said on its Internet news site. Around July, Kim Jong-un “made moves over personnel matters of the military without consulting his father and angered” leader Kim Jong-il, the national network said, citing several unnamed South Korean sources. The chill in relations between the pair, coupled with Kim Jong-il’s apparently improving health, could affect any succession, the report said. Speculation began in earnest after Kim Jong-il, now 67, suffered a stroke around August last year.
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