■Bangladesh
Man sets sail in jute boat
A Frenchman has set sail in an eco-friendly boat partly made of jute in a bid to promote the natural fibre and highlight the plight of Bangladeshi fisherman. Corentin de Chatelperron said the journey from Bangladesh to France will take around six months. “I am making this journey to highlight the problems facing Bangladeshi fishermen, for whom the sea is becoming increasingly dangerous due to the global warming,” he said on Wednesday. “It will also raise awareness about the natural fibre, jute, which has been facing some tough competition from synthetic fibres.” Chatelperron’s 9m boat is made of 40 percent jute and 60 percent fibre glass.
■Australia
Toads face death by cat food
A plague of poisonous cane toads may finally have met its match — and it comes in a tin of cat food. After years spent trying to exterminate the toads, scientists say just a dollop of Whiskas could stop the warty horde. The cat food attracts carnivorous meat ants, which swarm over and eat baby toads. “We went out and put out a little bit of cat food right beside the area where the baby toads were coming out of the ponds,” University of Sydney professor Rick Shine said. “The ants rapidly discovered the cat food and thought it tasted great. The worker ants then leave trails back to the nest encouraging other ants to come out there and forage in that area, and within a very short period of time we got lots of ants in the same area as the toads are.”
■Indonesia
Pregnant rhino gives hope
Conservationists yesterday hailed a breakthrough in efforts to save the endangered Sumatran rhino after a female called Ratu became pregnant in captivity. Tests on Tuesday revealed that Ratu was carrying a calf after mating with Andalas, one of only three Sumatran rhinos born in captivity in more than a century, experts said. “We were quite pessimistic as Andalas was aggressive and unfriendly towards the female rhinos,” Widodo Ramono of the Indonesian Rhino Foundation said. “He chased and fought Ratu or the other females and suffered quite serious wounds ... But suddenly on Nov. 16, Andalas softened his attitude towards Ratu and he tried to mate with her for the first time, but he didn’t do it properly.” The pair finally got it right on their fourth attempt when Ratu conceived.
■Thailand
Brit to be extradited to UAE
A court agreed yesterday to extradite a Briton to Dubai on embezzlement charges in a case that has possible implications for fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Michael Bryan Smith, 43, was arrested in Bangkok after eight months on the run from charges that he siphoned off the cash from a United Arab Emirates (UAE) property company. “The court has decided to extradite him to the UAE,” a judge at Bangkok criminal court said. “Even though Thailand and the UAE do not have an extradition treaty, the UAE has expressed the willingness to do favors if Thailand asks in future.” The decision has political overtones as Bangkok has long pushed the UAE over the fate of Thaksin, who spends alot of time in Dubai.
■Japan
Child porn busts hit record
Child pornography cases have surged by almost 40 percent to a new record, police said yesterday. Police said they took action in 935 child porn cases last year — the highest number since data was first compiled in 2000, and up 38 percent from the previous year. A total of 411 children fell victim to porn, and cases involving 650 people were sent to prosecutors, the National Police Agency said.
■SOUTH KOREA
Exercise to be scaled down
The US and South Korea will go ahead next month with a major annual military exercise but fewer US troops than last year will take part, officials said yesterday. North Korea denounces the exercise and other annual military drills in the South as a rehearsal for invasion, a claim denied by Seoul and Washington. The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise, slated for March 8 to March 18, will draw 18,000 US troops including 10,000 stationed in South Korea and 8,000 from abroad, said Combined Forces Command spokesman Kim Yong-kyu. Some 26,000 US troops took part in the exercise last year. “An aircraft carrier which came last year will not participate this time,” the spokesman said, adding that the scaling-down of the exercise was governed only by operational considerations.
■CANADA
Social network slammed
The nation’s privacy commissioner accused Google on Wednesday of breaching privacy laws when it launched its new online social network Buzz last week, and demanded compliance. “We have seen a storm of protest and outrage over alleged privacy violations and my office also has questions about how Google Buzz has met the requirements of privacy laws in Canada,” commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said in a statement. Buzz was added last week as a feature on Google’s Gmail. Some Gmail users complained that they were automatically assigned a network of “followers” based on those with whom they communicated with most using Google’s e-mail and online chat services, without notice or consent. The list of “followers” was also included in a widely available online profile. Stoddart said she reminded Google officials that the company must abide by Canadian privacy laws when launching products in Canada.
■CHILE
Astronomers find old stars
European Southern Observatory (ESO) astronomers said on Wednesday they had uncovered the oldest stars in our galactic neighborhood thanks to a massive telescope in Chile. Finding the most primitive stars outside the Milky Way galaxy “is crucial for our understanding of the earliest stars in the universe,” ESO said in a statement. ESO’s Very Large Telescope, which measures 8.2m in diameter and is installed in the Atacama desert, located the stars. According to cosmologists, primitive stars, also called “extremely metal-poor stars,” formed shortly after the Big Bang, around 13.7 billion years ago. These extremely rare stars had been difficult to locate. But a new technique allowed the European astronomers to “uncover the primitive stars hidden among all the other, more common stars,” said Else Starkenburg, lead author of the paper reporting the study.
■CANADA
Terror plot man gets life
A judge sentenced a man to life in prison on Wednesday for his role in a terror plot against Germany and Austria. Said Namouh, a Moroccan who has lived in Quebec since 2003, was found guilty in October of four terrorism-related charges stemming from a plan to bomb targets in Germany and Austria. Namouh, 37, was arrested in 2007 for his alleged role in making threats in an Internet video that warned Germany and Austria would be attacked if they did not pull their troops out of Afghanistan. Namouh was found guilty of one count each of conspiracy to detonate an explosive device, participating in a terrorist act, facilitating an act of terrorism and committing extortion for a terrorist group.
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
‘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