■CHINA
Police chief suspended
A police chief has been suspended after saying that a subordinate who died after binge drinking at an official banquet was killed in the line of duty — a designation that would have made the man’s family eligible for greater compensation. Xie Feiyong, director of the traffic bureau in Shenzhen, took Chen Lusheng and other off-duty officers to a banquet with local officials where Chen vomited after rounds of toasts, passed out and suffocated, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. Xie was suspended indefinitely this week after he called for Chen to be designated a martyr — someone who died in the line of duty — so that his relatives would be eligible for more compensation, Xinhua said. Chen’s family would be eligible for up to 650,000 yuan (US$95,000) in compensation under that designation, though the family is reportedly pressuring the government for at least 4.8 million yuan, the China Daily reported on Monday.
■SOUTH KOREA
Rape victim sues Seoul
A child rape victim and her family have sued the government, alleging negligence by state prosecutors aggravated her mental trauma. The case of the eight-year-old girl, who suffered permanent injuries in the attack, has already sparked a national outcry over the 12-year sentence given her attacker. The Korean Bar Association said rapist Cho Du-sun, 57, was recorded on video shortly after his arrest and this should have been used as crucial identification evidence, but prosecutors presented it to the court only on the eve of an appeal sentencing. As a result, the girl was forced to undergo a detailed cross-examination and had to repeat her testimony four times because prosecutors had trouble handling a video recorder.
■NAURU
Ties forged with Abkhazia
The tiny, destitute Pacific island nation of Nauru on Tuesday became the fourth country to formally establish diplomatic relations with Abkhazia, effectively recognizing its sovereignty. The announcement comes 15 months after Russia began lobbying its allies to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two separatist territories at the center of its war with Georgia last year. In talks with Russian officials, Nauru requested US$50 million for “urgent social and economic projects,” Russia’s Kommersant daily said, citing unnamed Russian diplomats.
■BANGLADESH
Packed ferry hits bridge
At least 1,000 people were rescued in southern Bangladesh after a packed ferry hit a bridge in dense fog late on Tuesday and started taking on water, an official said. The boat’s hull developed a crack and took in water after hitting a column of a bridge on the Sandhya river at Shikarpur in southern Barisal district.
■AUSTRALIA
Activists flee whaling fleet
Militant anti-whaling activists said they were dodging a Japanese surveillance ship in icebergs near Antarctica yesterday following their first skirmish with whalers for the season. Paul Watson, who is leading a campaign to harass the whaling hunt, said a heavily armed ship loaded with security guards had been tailing them since they left Western Australia on Dec. 7. When they attempted to approach the ship, Shonan Maru No. 2, from behind an iceberg on Monday, Watson said the Japanese opened fire with two water cannons and tailed them in a two-hour high-speed pursuit. Watson said the ship was still tailing them yesterday.
■EUROPEAN UNION
Court protects press sources
Five media companies won a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on Tuesday recognizing the right of journalists to protect anonymous sources. Four British daily newspapers — the Financial Times, the Independent, the Guardian and the Times — and Reuters news agency appealed to Strasbourg after British courts ordered them to hand over documents to Belgian firm Interbrew. The documents would have allowed Interbrew to identify the source of a leak to the press about a planned takeover bid for South African Breweries. In its judgment, the court stressed the “chilling effect” of journalists being seen to help in the identification of anonymous sources.
■GERMANY
Dope-dealing granny jailed
A 81-year-old woman was jailed for five years on Tuesday after admitting dealing heroin. Christa Koehler, who is confined to a wheelchair, admitted selling eight bags of around 50g each. She began dealing in the Nuremberg area after her son was arrested and caught by police with heroin and 16,400 euros (US$24,000) in cash.
■NEW ZEALAND
Teen flasher hit by car
A teenager who was flashing her breasts at passing cars has been found guilty of disorderly behavior for the prank, which ended with her in a hospital after a distracted driver ran into her. Cherelle May Dudfield, 18, pleaded guilty to the charge when she appeared in Invercargill District Court, the Southland Times newspaper reported yesterday. Dudfield, egged on by her friends, was flashing passing motorists from a traffic island in the middle of a four-lane road in Invercargill on Sept. 27. The alcohol-fueled prank went awry when one of the vehicles crashed into her, police said.
■MEXICO
Cartel violence rages on
Ongoing violence between drug cartels has killed at least 50 people in the north in recent days, as the governor’s house and a police station came under bomb attack on Tuesday in central Michoacan state, officials said. The attack with fragmentary bombs on the police station in Michoacan capital Morelia left a pregnant mother and her three-year-old daughter gravely injured, while nobody was hurt in the attack on the governor’s mansion, police said.
■GERMANY
Transport truck attacked
The authorities said thieves posing as police officers made off with 1 million euros (US$1.45 million) in gold and jewelry. News agency DAPD reported that four thieves in a dark BMW with a police light and a red VW van with Nuremberg plates pulled the transport truck over on Tuesday morning near the southern city of Ludwigsburg. The thieves wore black pants and jackets with “police” on them and told the driver and his passenger they were customs officials confiscating the shipment. Police say the men didn’t know they were being scammed until after they were all on the highway again and the thieves stopped, tied them up and left them behind on the side of the road.
■EGYPT
Ancient paintings returned
An airport official said the wall paintings that caused a feud between his country and the Louvre Museum have returned home. Ahmed al-Rawi of the customs authority said that the ancient artwork arrived to Cairo on a flight from Paris on Tuesday evening and were handed over to antiquities authorities. Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass cut ties with the Louvre in October, saying the museum had refused to return the fragments, which he said had been illegally chipped from a 3,200-year-old tomb’s walls.
■UNITED STATES
Book 99 years overdue
The book returned to the New Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts this week wasn’t overdue by a week, a month or even a year. It was nearly a century overdue and the fine came to US$361.35. Facts I Ought to Know about the Government of My Country was supposed to have been returned by May 10, 1910. Stanley Dudek told the Standard Times newspaper he came across the book while going through things that had belonged to his mother, who died about 10 years ago. He decided that returning the book to the city was the right thing to do. The overdue book fine was a penny a day in 1910. Dudek wasn’t asked to pay it.
■UNITED STATES
Preacher dies at 91
Oral Roberts, who helped pioneer TV evangelism in the 1950s and used the power of the new medium — and his message of God’s healing power — to build a multimillion-dollar ministry and a university that bears his name, died on Tuesday. He was 91. Roberts died of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, California. The evangelist was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday.
■UNITED STATES
Same-sex marriage mulled
The Washington City Council voted on Tuesday to approve same-sex marriage, putting the capital on course to become the sixth state or region to allow gay marriage. The legislation, which passed by an 11-2 vote, will go to the desk of Mayor Adrian Fenty, who has promised to sign the bill. All local legislation in the capital, home to 590,000 people and formally known as the District of Columbia, must undergo a mandatory 30-day review period by Congress before it can become law.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in