■CHINA
Beijing denies spy claims
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) yesterday rejected accusations Beijing was spying on exiled dissident groups, after a man was jailed in Sweden for collecting information about Uighur expatriates on Beijing’s behalf. “This kind of accusation is totally groundless and has ulterior motives,” Qin said. Babur Maihesuti, a 62-year-old Uighur who had been living in Sweden for 13 years as a political refugee, was sentenced by a Stockholm court to 16 months in prison on Monday. The court found that from January 2008 to last June, he had collected personal information about exiled Uighurs, including details on their health, travel and political involvement, and passed it on to a Chinese diplomat and a journalist.
■AUSTRALIA
Arrest made in tot’s death
Indian taxi driver Gursewak Dhillon was remanded in custody yesterday over the killing of Indian toddler Gurshan Singh. Dhillon, 23, was charged with manslaughter by criminal negligence. Police have alleged that Dhillon, one of six adults who shared a Melbourne home with the Singh family, dumped the boy’s body near the city’s airport last Thursday. Police have accused him of placing the alive but unconscious child in the trunk of his car and driving around for three hours before disposing of the body.
■NEW ZEALAND
‘Ghostly’ vials sell online
Two glass vials said to contain the ghosts of an old man and a young girl have been sold online for nearly US$2,000. The sale for NZ$2,830 was confirmed yesterday after auction Web site Trademe ruled out a phantom bidder who had pushed the price up to NZ$5,000. Avie Woodbury, from Christchurch, said she put the bottled spirits up for sale after an exorcist from a spiritualist church captured two ghosts in her home and put them in vials of “holy water.” The spirits — said to be of an old man named Les Graham who died in the house during the 1920s and a powerful and disruptive “little girl” — allegedly turned up in the house following an experiment with a Ouija board. Woodbury said the ghosts had prevented her from eating or sleeping. “I would get things like the jug boiling itself … and items going missing then turning up in weird places,” she said. “The dog was mental, he wouldn’t go into certain rooms and my brother’s daughter … said she spoke to a little girl. We have had no activity since they were bottled on July 15, 2009.”
■AUSTRALIA
Report slams ‘visa factories’
Some colleges catering to foreigners operated more as visa factories than education providers, the author of a government review of the US$15.5 billion industry said yesterday. While the vast majority of students were satisfied with the education they received, unscrupulous operators had entered the market, it said. “We have permanent residency factories,” review author Bruce Baird said. “They probably represent 20 percent of the vocational sector.”
■SOUTH KOREA
Medals said to boost morale
Kim Yu-na’s stunning win at last month’s Winter Olympic will not only boost the career of the figure skater, it should help add about US$18 billion to the national economy, Samsung Economic Research Institute economist Lee Dong-hun said. He broke down the financial benefits into such areas as greater brand recognition for firms and a boost for exports and domestic demand, as well as indirect effects, including a boost to public morale.
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