■JAPAN
Nuclear plants emits smoke
Smoke rose yesterday from the world’s biggest nuclear power plant, which was hit by a deadly earthquake two years ago, but the operator said nobody was injured and there was no radiation leak. Kashiwazaki city was rocked by a 6.8-magnitude earthquake in July 2007. The epicenter was just 16km from the plant, where a fire started and a small amount of radiation leaked out. Local residents have voiced fears over the safety of the plant following a string of fires there as well as concerns raised by some geologists that an off-shore tectonic fault line could trigger stronger earthquakes in the future.
■VANUATU
Leaders expels two parties
Prime Minister Edward Natapei has expelled two parties from his coalition government, firing eight ministers and replacing them with members from an opposition party. The prime minister expelled the National United Party and Vanuatu Republican Party from his government late on Tuesday, embracing instead the Opposition Alliance that holds 16 of the 52 seats in the island nation’s parliament.
■INDONESIA
Reporters deported
Officials have deported two foreign journalists covering a Greenpeace demonstration against forest destruction on the western island of Sumatra — bringing to 15 the number of people kicked out of the country over the protest. Kumkum Dasgupta, an editor for the Hindustan Times, and Raimondo Bultrini, an Italian reporter from the L’Espresso weekly newspaper, were questioned for hours after visiting a Greenpeace camp near land owned by PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper, one of the biggest paper companies in the country.
■CHINA
Last D-Day veteran dies
The last surviving veteran from the D-Day landings of Allied troops in northern France has died at the age of 91, state media reported on Wednesday. Huang Tingxin (黃廷鑫) died on Nov. 11 in his home in Zhejiang Province, Xinhua news agency said. The cause of his death was not given, but Huang had suffered from Parkinson’s disease in recent years, it said. The former navy veteran, who was trained at Qingdao Naval Academy, served on the British escort carrier HMS Searcher when it took part in the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, it said.
■HONG KONG
Ritual sex trucker charged
A truck driver who convinced a model to have sex with him by claiming it was a ritual that would change her luck, said he had done the same thing with several other women, a court report said yesterday. Au Yeung Kwok-fu, a self-proclaimed Taoist master, told the court he had performed the same ritual with six or seven women to “change their fate” over the last 10 years. The 55-year-old driver appeared in court on Wednesday in the ongoing trial. He has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of unlawful sex by false pretense between April and December 2007, claiming the sex was part of a spiritual ritual. The charges relate to a 19-year-old model who sought help from Au Yeung because she was struggling to get her career off the ground.
■HONG KONG
Chinese ‘Buffett’ accused
A student nicknamed the Chinese Warren Buffett has been accused of blackmailing a Catholic priest with intimate images, a court report said yesterday. Economics student Cheung Ka-wo, 27, appeared in court facing charges of attempting to extort HK$6.3 million (US$813,000) from the priest by threatening to reveal intimate photographs showing their past relationship. Cheung, 27, was nicknamed after the successful US investor Buffett by the local press after he made more than HK$1 million in two days of derivatives trading. He is alleged to have conspired with Dora Kay Li to commit the offenses that occurred in April and May this year, a report in the Hong Kong Standard said.
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