JAPAN
Comedian returns home
After sailing and running around the planet for the past two years, comedian Kanpei Hazama, 61, set foot on native soil again yesterday, proclaiming that “the Earth really is round.” Thousands of well-wishers greeted the television personality as he sailed from China to dock at the southwestern Fukuoka harbor in cold rain, completing the last maritime stage of his “Earth Marathon.” “Thank you!” Hazama told his fans, wiping tears away with his sleeve, before hugging his wife and grandchildren and saying: “I’ve made it!” The final leg will see Hazama run another 620km to finish his epic journey at a concert at Osaka castle on Jan. 21. The comedian set off in December 2008, first sailing across the Pacific then running across North America, sailing across the Atlantic, and putting on his running shoes again to traverse the Eurasian continent. A year ago in Turkey he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, forcing him to temporarily suspend the journey, but after receiving medical treatment in the US he was back on the road in June.
CHINA
Uighur sentenced to death
A news report says a 19-year-old Uighur woman has been handed a suspended death sentence for taking part in deadly ethnic riots in western China in 2009. It says she is the second woman to receive the death penalty for the unrest. US-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia says Pezilet Ekber was working as a saleswoman at a shop in Urumqi when the July 5, 2009, riots broke out. The report cites a letter from a classmate of the woman as saying Ekber was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. Such punishments are usually commuted to life in prison.
PAKISTAN
No push for vote: opposition
The main opposition group will not push for a no--confidence vote against Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani because to demand such a vote would exacerbate instability, the party said yesterday. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) believes a vote would “damage the whole country,” party chairman Raja Zafar-ul-Haq said. The PML-N’s decision means Gilani’s fragile government could survive after a key partner withdrew on Sunday.
AFGHANISTAN
Bomb kills police officer
A bomb exploded in central Kabul early yesterday, killing one police officer and wounding three other people, a government official said, on the one-year anniversary of the country’s Constitution. The blast, a rarity in Kabul, served as a grim reminder of the insurgents’ ability to strike at will across the country.
ARGENTINA
Tunneling thieves rob bank
Thieves dug a 30m-long ventilated and lit tunnel from a neighboring building into a bank and emptied the contents of up to 140 safety deposit boxes, officials said on Monday. Authorities said three thieves entered a Banco Provincia branch in the Buenos Aires District of Belgrano on New Year’s Eve when it was closed and spent the weekend opening and emptying between 130 and 140 of the branch’s 1,408 boxes. The robbery was not discovered until the bank opened on Monday. Bank executives were unable to say how much the thieves stole because clients are not obliged to tell authorities what was in their safety deposit boxes.
UNITED STATES
Murderer receives windfall
A man imprisoned for killing his mother-in-law can look forward to a life of ease thanks to a tidy inheritance — from his victim, a report said on Monday. Brandon Palladino, a 24-year-old heroin addict, is doing 25 years minus time served after killing his in-law during an attempted jewelry theft, the New York Post reported. However, in a twist of fate, he stands to enjoy at least US$250,000 in assets that the victim left to Palladino’s wife, who has also since died, leaving everything to her imprisoned husband.
GUATEMALA
Transport workers targeted
Bus drivers paid US$1.5 million in extortion money to organized crime rings last year, according to a police report out on Monday. Over the course of last year police arrested more than 500 criminals and charged them with trying to extort money from business owners and workers. Some of those charged were members of the notorious Mara 18 street gang, according to Donald Gonzalez, a spokesman with the national civil police.Public transport workers appear to be at particular risk. Human rights groups said that between January and November, 119 drivers and 51 transport aides were shot dead.
BRAZIL
Release sought for fugitive
Lawyers for an Italian fugitive sentenced in his home country to life in 1993 for a series of murders in the 1970s when he was a member of a radical left-wing group, asked the high court on Monday to order him freed after former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva refused to extradite him, sources close to the case said. Cesare Battisti’s lawyer, Renata Saraiva, said that with the high court on a vacation recess, the justice on call can decide on his own to authorize the release, or consult with the other justices. His lawyers argued that he has been detained in Brazil since 2007, and since Lula decided he should not be extradited to Italy, should now be released.
BRAZIL
Rouseff chats with UN head
President Dilma Rousseff and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke by telephone on Monday about the UN Security Council — a body on which Brazil has long tried to secure a permanent seat. “The UN secretary general called the president to congratulate her on her inauguration, and they spoke for 15 minutes about current events, especially the Security Council,” Rousseff’s advisor on international affairs, Marco Aurelio Garcia, told reporters. Garcia pointed out that Brazil is a temporary member of the council and would hold its rotating presidency next month. Rousseff and Ban also discussed Brazil’s participation in the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, with the president saying her country would continue to contribute to the earthquake-devastated Caribbean nation.
‘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