HONG KONG
Official says poultry is safe
The health secretary says there is no increased risk from imported poultry after the territory confirmed its first case of human bird flu in seven years. Secretary for Food and Health York Chow’s (周一嶽) comments come amid concern that the case involving a woman hospitalized after returning from China threatens public health in the territory. Chow said yesterday that he had been assured by Chinese government officials that poultry imports were safe.
INDIA
Reality TV faces crackdown
Regulators have ordered television channels not to broadcast reality shows before 11pm over fears about their increasingly adult content, reports in New Delhi said yesterday. Two hugely popular programs — Bigg Boss, the local version of Big Brother, and Rakhi ka Insaaf — will be hit by the ruling from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the Indian Express said. The fourth series of Bigg Boss attracted headlines this week with the arrival of scantily-clad Hollywood actress and model Pamela Anderson. Kissing and abusive language have also caused regular scandals on the show. Rakhi ka Insaaf (Rakhi’s Justice), in which opinionated Bollywood dancer Rakhi Sawant tackles people’s personal problems, hit controversy recently when a former participant committed suicide. His family blamed the show’s host, saying he fell into depression after Sawant called him impotent while she tried to sort out his marital difficulties.
JAPAN
Yakuza crime boss arrested
The No. 2 crime boss in Japan’s biggest yakuza group was arrested yesterday for alleged extortion as police intensify a crackdown on organized crime, police and media reports said. About 140 police officers took part in the arrest of Kiyoshi Takayama, 63, of the Yamaguchi-gumi, in a pre-dawn raid on his residence in Kobe, western Japan, on suspicion of extortion, Jiji Press reported. Takayama is the highest-ranking gangster of the syndicate after boss Kenichi Shinoda, who is in prison for illegal weapons possession. Police suspect Takayama jointly extorted ¥40 million (US$480,000) in protection money with other Yamaguchi-gumi members between 2005 and 2006.
NEW ZEALAND
Officials found vine fund
Wellington announced a multimillion-dollar fund yesterday to pay for efforts to contain a virulent vine disease threatening the NZ$1.5 billion (US$1.2 billion) kiwifruit industry. Agriculture Minister David Carter said the NZ$50 million fund, jointly paid for by the government and industry, would finance an “urgent aggressive containment strategy” against the disease PSA.PSA, previously unknown in the country, was found in a North Island orchard earlier this month and has since infected dozens more properties and spread to the South Island.
INDONESIA
Jakarta to protest torture
Jakarta’s women’s affairs minister will fly to Saudi Arabia today to check on the investigation into the brutal torture of an Indonesian maid, the foreign minister said. Linda Agum Gumelar will lead an inter-ministerial team to ensure justice for Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, 23, whose shocking injuries highlighted the abuse of female migrant workers in the Middle East. Gumelar will visit Sumiati in a hospital in the Saudi city of Medina where she has been recuperating since Nov. 8 from injures including deep cuts to her lips and face allegedly inflicted with scissors.
UNITED KINGDOM
British army angry at cuts
Recent cuts in military spending have have “badly damaged the confidence and morale” of the armed forces, according to a Ministry of Defence (MOD) document, the Telegraph reported yesterday. The paper, prepared by military officers and senior officials, condemned last month’s defense review, the Telegraph said. They said it for having been carried out too quickly to take account of expert advice and to consult with allies, the paper reported. “By general consensus, internal communication of the final decision was badly handled,” the document said, the Telegraph reported. A ministry spokesman said the document had not been “authorized, requested or seen by an MOD minister.” Senior lawmakers were scheduled to question Prime Minister David Cameron about the Strategic Defense and Security Review yesterday.
RUSSIA
Putin seeks puppy name
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has invited Russians to help him come up with a name for his new puppy, which he received as a gift from his Bulgarian counterpart over the weekend. “Anyone who wishes to can send their suggestion of a male name for the prime minister’s new dog to his site,” a government statement said on its official Web site. The three-month-old puppy will have to share the canine spotlight with Putin’s beloved black Labrador, Connie, who is 11.
UNITED KINGDOM
Alleged ‘big diner’ nabbed
An unemployed man has been charged with wining and dining at a series of London’s top restaurants, running up massive bills and then disappearing without paying, police said on Wednesday. Latvian Janis Nords, 27, is accused of carrying out the scam on three occasions between Oct. 14 and Nov. 15. He is accused of running off after amassing a £349 (US$555) bill at the Glass House restaurant in Richmond and a £965 bill at the Connaught Hotel. The largest unpaid bill was at L’Oranger French restaurant, where he was accused of failing to pay for £1,021 worth of food and drink.
ITALY
Naples garbage crisis grows
Garbage piles are accumulating in the streets of Naples after the closure of a local landfill. “There are now 3,000 tons in the streets of Naples,” said Paolo Giacomelli, a public sanitation official for Naples city council. The town of Terzigno near Naples has banned the transit of garbage trucks to a nearby open landfill, Cava Sari, following a series of protests by residents and a report showing the dump was contaminating water supplies. Gaetano Pecorella, the head of a parliamentary commission investigating the problem, said on Tuesday: “We risk an environmental catastrophe.” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday that he will travel to Naples soon to deal with the crisis.
IRELAND
TV hoax riles politicians
A prankster posing as a TV reporter nearly precipitated a crisis inside the coalition government on Wednesday. As members of the Dail filed into parliament in Dublin, someone holding an RTE microphone asked them what they thought about the resignation of Health Minister Mary Harney. Rumors then started to spread that Harney had resigned due to personal reasons and was leaving politics. Her departure would have reduced the coalition’s majority to just two inside the Dail. The “reporter” was reportedly working for the RTE comedy show Republic of Telly, which often plays hoaxes on the Irish public.
UNITED STATES
Dance leads to standoff
Authorities say a man enraged over Sarah Palin’s daughter’s dance routine on a reality TV show blasted his television with a shotgun, leading to an overnight standoff with police. A Dane County Sheriff’s detective says in court documents that Steven Cowan, of the rural town of Vermont, Wisconsin, felt 20-year-old Bristol Palin was not a good dancer and was only on Dancing with the Stars because of her famous mother, the Republican former vice presidential candidate. The documents say Cowan, 67, loaded his shotgun and blasted the TV, before turning the gun on his wife, who escaped. Tactical officers surrounded the home and managed to talk Cowan out on Tuesday morning. Cowan was charged second-degree reckless endangerment and could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if convicted. Authorities say he has bipolar disorder.
UNITED STATES
Zoo replaces longest snake
A US zoo says a new resident has big snake-skin shoes to fill. Weeks after announcing the death of the longest snake in captivity, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio said on Wednesday it has acquired the python’s smaller daughter. The 7.5m, 18-year-old snake named Fluffy died on Oct. 27 of an apparent tumor. The zoo’s new snake is 12 years old and 2m shorter than her mother. The zoo said in a statement that the daughter arrived on Tuesday from the same private breeder who sold Fluffy to the zoo in 2007.
MEXICO
Conservation center opened
The nation’s most celebrated winter visitor, the Monarch butterfly, has a new conservation center aimed at boosting its dwindling numbers. The black and orange insect has been hit hard by deforestation around its winter nesting grounds in Michoacan State. Environmentalists say that last winter, only about one-fourth as many butterflies migrated to Mexico from the US and Canada as in the previous year. President Felipe Calderon said on Wednesday that logging is a major threat to the butterflies, which are a big tourist draw and a boon for the local economy. He spoke at a ceremony inaugurating the center in Angangueo.
ARGENTINA
Girl’s rescue cheers nation
People across the nation cheered when rescuers pulled a three-year-old girl from a deep water well late on Tuesday after a lengthy ordeal mostly broadcast live on television. “It was a miracle,” President Cristina Kirchner said of the rescue on Wednesday after visiting young Vanessa Mamani, who was recovering in hospital at Florencio Varela, 25km south of Buenos Aires. “She got out and screamed as if she had just been born,” Kirchner told reporters. Mamani was under medical observation, but was only suffering “from a state of shock and at present is doing fine,” hospital director Arnaldo Medina told reporters. The girl fell down a 30m deep well used by farmers that was hidden by bushes in a field in Pilares, near Florencio Varela.
AZERBAIJAN
Ahmadinejad pans embargo
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says embargoes are ineffectual and the West should drop its aggressive approach if talks on Tehran’s nuclear program are to be successful. Ahmadinejad said yesterday at a Caspian Sea summit in Azerbaijan that Iran is ready to return to six-party talks on its atomic energy program. Talks between Iran and Russia, the US, the UK, France, China and Germany are scheduled to restart on Dec. 5, but a venue is still to be determined.
‘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