■NEPAL
Protest paralyzes capital
Supporters of the deposed royal family brought Kathmandu to a standstill yesterday in protest against the abolition of the monarchy. A general strike was called by the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal (RPP-N), a minor political party, that wants the country to revert to a Hindu monarchy. The royal dynasty was abolished in 2008 after Maoists came to power following a general election and forced the ex-king Gyanendra off the throne. The RPP-N says the public should have been consulted and is demanding a referendum on the decision to abolish the monarchy.
■PAKISTAN
Militants behead Sikh
Taliban militants kidnapped and beheaded a Sikh after relatives failed to pay ransom for his release, an official and a Sikh community member said yesterday. Jaspal Singh was one of three Sikhs abducted in Bara, a town in Khyber district, last month, an administrative official said. His body was found on Sunday in the neighboring tribal district of Orakzai. A senior member of the Sikh community in Peshawar confirmed the beheading and said two other Sikhs were still in captivity. Sikhs and Hindus are tiny communities in Pakistan.
■NEPAL
Short man bids for record
A man who is only 56cm tall has left home in a quest to be recognized as the world’s shortest man. Khagendra Thapa Magar departed on Sunday for Europe to campaign for the Guinness World Record title. He applied for a place in the record book in October, soon after turning 18, but said he has not received any response. Magar’s family say doctors have been unable to explain why Magar is so small. The record is held by He Pingping of China, who is 73cm tall.
■INDIA
Planespotting Brits charged
Two British planespotters detained in New Delhi last week have been charged with illegally intercepting communications between pilots and airport authorities, police said yesterday. Stephen Hampston, 46, and Steven Martin, 55, were held last Monday at a hotel near the international airport after staff raised concerns about their suspicious behavior. “This planespotting that they were doing is illegal in India. They should have applied for permission before doing this. They have been charged for violating the rules,” Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.
■AUSTRALIA
Malaysian dies in attack
A Malaysian consular employee was stabbed to death in a “ferocious attack” outside his Sydney home in a suspected road rage incident, officials said yesterday. The 43-year-old man, who worked as a driver for the Malaysian consul general, was beaten and stabbed in inner-city Leichhardt by two men late on Sunday despite an attempted intervention by a female passer-by. “It was a ferocious attack, there’s no doubt about that,” Detective Inspector Shane Woolbank said. Police said in a statement they were investigating “whether the victim’s car was involved in a traffic incident with a dark-colored sedan.”
■MALAYSIA
Refugees may work: report
The government may allow refugees the right to work in a bid to reduce the labor shortage and deflect criticism of ill-treating them, the Star newspaper reported yesterday. The proposal would mark a major policy shift toward refugees who, as illegal immigrants, have been subject to detention, caning and deportation. Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said authorities would discuss letting employers hire refugees instead of importing foreign workers. The nation depends heavily on foreign labor in such industries as construction, manufacturing and farming.
■INDIA
‘Jesus the boozer’ shocks
Christians in Meghalaya state are outraged after a picture showing Jesus Christ holding a beer can and a cigarette was discovered in primary school textbooks. The image appeared in a handwriting book for children in church-run schools in the Christian-majority state, where it was used to illustrate the letter “I” for the word “Idol.” “We are deeply shocked and hurt at the objectionable portrayal of Jesus Christ in the school book. We condemn the total lack of respect for religions by the publisher,” Shillong diocese Archbishop Dominic Jala said. Police said they were hunting for the owner of the New Delhi-based publisher, Skyline Publications, who faces charges of offending religious sentiment, police superintendent A.R. Mawthoh said.
■CHINA
Quake rumor probed
Police yesterday were hunting for the origin of an earthquake rumor that prompted tens of thousands of terrified people to flee outdoors over the weekend. Word that an earthquake was imminent began spreading by phone, Internet and text message through parts of Shanxi Province on Saturday afternoon. City residents spent the freezing night in the streets or sleeping in their cars, while panicked rural villages used public address systems to broadcast warnings, the Beijing News reported. Officials responded overnight, deploying radio, television and text messages to broadcast a provincial earthquake bureau bulletin telling residents not to believe or spread the earthquake rumor.
■UNITED STATES
‘Endeavour’ touches down
Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of six are back on Earth following a successful space station construction mission. The shuttle touched down on the runway at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center late on Sunday night. Launch director Mike Leinbach said early yesterday that there was a little bit of sadness surrounding the landing, given that there’s just one more flight left for Endeavour. He said shuttle workers fell in love with the machines, “and it’s going to be hard to let them go.” Only four shuttle flights remain.
■UNITED STATES
Church arsonists arrested
Two men who once attended church together were charged on Sunday with intentionally burning down a church in east Texas and are suspected in a string of similar blazes, authorities said. Jason Robert Bourque, 19, and 21-year-old Daniel George McAllister face one count of felony arson for a church fire in rural Smith County near Tyler, about 145km east of Dallas, said Tom Crowley, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
■ISRAEL
West Bank shrines claimed
Authorities are adding two key West Bank holy shrines to their list of national heritage sites, the prime minister said on Sunday, staking a claim that angered Palestinians, who want Israel out of the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing a session of his Cabinet at a heritage site in the Israeli Galilee, said the two sites were late additions to the list, reflecting pressure from settlers and other nationalists to widen the heritage category to include Old Testament sites in the West Bank. One of the sites, in the city of Hebron, has been a flashpoint for decades. Jews call it the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Bible says the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried along with three of their wives. Muslims call it the al-Ibrahimi Mosque, reflecting the fact that Abraham is considered the father of both Judaism and Islam.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez blames critics
President Hugo Chavez accused his adversaries on Sunday of sabotaging the country’s electricity grid as part of a broader plan aimed at bringing about the system’s collapse — and his downfall. Chavez said authorities must be “on the alert” and apprehend anyone who cuts electricity cables connected to the grid. Such sabotage has caused power failures in some regions and exacerbated the effects of severe energy shortages, he said.
■ITALY
Pope against body searches
Airport security chiefs may have thought they had enough to worry about with shoe bombers, underpants bombers and people who forget to put their toothpaste into those little plastic bags. But, if so, they were reckoning without Benedict XVI. At a meeting in the Vatican at the weekend, the pope made an authoritative — if entirely unexpected — incursion into the raging debate over the planned use of airport body scanners. He told an audience from the aerospace industry that, notwithstanding the threat from terrorism, “the primary asset to be safeguarded and treasured is the person, in his or her integrity.” The pope’s words will delight civil liberties campaigners opposed to a device that strips passengers virtually naked. But those involved in airport security will no doubt point out that, when the pope travels — on Alitalia — he and his entourage are waved through security controls.
‘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
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
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