CHINA
Troops break up protest
Media reports and eyewitnesses say paramilitary troops and riot police have defused a large-scale, five-day protest by thousands of farmers who were upset about being moved off their land. State media yesterday called the protest that began last Friday one of the largest to roil the country this year. Reports say about 2,000 farmers blocked a road in the county seat of Suijiang to protest what they say was inadequate compensation for being relocated for a dam. At times, protesters surrounded and scuffled with police officials trying to persuade them to leave. About 400 paramilitary troops, tactical unit police and militia members confronted the protesters on Tuesday after warning them to leave the day before. The protesters then dispersed.
NEW ZEALAND
Quake victims unidentifiable
Some victims of Christchurch’s deadly earthquake more than a month ago may never be identified and their remains may be buried in a mass grave, the country’s chief coroner said yesterday. Police have named 169 victims of the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that hit the southern city on Feb. 22, but say they have yet to identify partial remains of others and the final death toll may be 180. Chief coroner Judge Neil McLean told National Radio on Thursday that in some cases the remains were so damaged or small that identification even by DNA analysis might not be possible. McLean said he would meet with victims’ families and embassy staff representing international victims in Christchurch today to discuss the progress of the identification effort and what should be done with remains that cannot be identified. All of the victims still to be identified were from the Canterbury Television building that completely collapsed in the quake. Students from Japan, China and other countries were among those buried in the building, which housed an English language school.
AUSTRALIA
Plane crash kills four
Two members of a prominent farming family were fighting for their lives yesterday after a light plane “fell out of the sky” and killed the other four people on board. The six-seat, single-engine Piper Cherokee crashed in relatively good weather late on Wednesday near a trailer park in northern New South Wales state. Among the dead was Digby Boland, 77, his wife Robyn, 77, daughter Michelle, 47, and the pilot, Phillip Jones, 63. Also on board were the son of the elderly couple, Guy, 42, and his daughter Hannah, 12, who miraculously survived and were being treated in hospital, police said. Local reports said the Boland family were well known in the area, with the clan first arriving in the district in 1889.
INDIA
Actor sentenced for rape
Award-winning Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja was sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday for raping his maid, his lawyer said, in a case that shocked the world’s largest film industry. Ahuja was granted bail in October 2009 and ordered by the court to leave Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, three months after he was arrested on charges of rape, criminal intimidation and wrongful confinement of his maid, who is now 20 years old. The 37-year-old actor will appeal against the sentence in the Mumbai High Court, lawyer Srikant Shivade said. The trial court was closed to reporters. Ahuja won a slew of awards for his 2003 debut in the critically acclaimed Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. He has maintained his innocence throughout the trial.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Hitler house’ causes stir
An unassuming house in Wales has become an unlikely Web star after Internet users decided that it looks a lot like Adolf Hitler’s face. The semi-detached home in the city of Swansea has a tan-colored, four-window facade that stared out from British tabloid newspapers on Wednesday following heavy distribution on social networking sites. Its resemblance to Hitler’s face is debatable. The lintel above its door vaguely echoes the Nazi dictator’s trademark toothbrush mustache, with the black sloping roof reminiscent of his side-parted hair.
RUSSIA
Message found after 24 years
A 13-year-old Russian boy found a message in a bottle on a beach and was reunited with its German author, who wrote the note 24 years ago, tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on Wednesday. Daniil Korotkikh found the beer bottle last month when walking on the beach near Kaliningrad and his father translated the note inside, which was dated Sep. 7, 1987, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported. “When I was walking along, I spotted a bottle in the dunes and saw that there was a note inside,” Korotkikh told Russian television channel NTV. “Only a few people are lucky enough to find a letter in a bottle.” The letter was signed by five-year-old Frank Uesbeck, who enclosed his address in Coesfeld in western Germany. Russian journalists tracked down Uesbeck, now 29, a married bank worker, who said he barely remembered sending the bottle with the note, which was written by his father and he signed in shaky letters. “I was shocked,” Uesbeck told NTV television. His parents still live at the address shown in the letter and his father showed a photograph of Frank holding the bottle, which they threw into the sea while travelling to Denmark. “It’s just incredible. Can it really be possible that the letter is still readable after so many years in the water?” Uesbeck said in an interview translated into Russian. Korotkikh and Uesbeck were shown speaking via a video link and the Russian schoolboy showed off the letter, which he has framed.
RUSSIA
Tot thrown down trash chute
Investigators launched a probe on Wednesday after a couple were suspected of throwing their toddler into a trash chute from the sixth floor of an apartment building. The two-year-old survived the fall down the narrow chute and neighbors discovered him on the trash heap of the apartment building in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday after they heard him crying. The boy suffered concussion, a broken leg and several other injuries and was hospitalized in a state of shock, investigators said. “Obviously he could not have got into the trash chute by himself,” the spokesperson for Saint Petersburg investigators said. The boy was in the care of his 42-year-old grandmother, who was found drunk in the sixth-floor apartment she shares with a 34-year-old man, he said.
ISRAEL
Gaza island considered
The nation is considering plans to build an artificial island off the coast of Gaza to house a port and airport and encourage tourism in the area. Yisrael Katz, the minister for transport, said the plan had been under consideration for many months and had been encouraged by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said it would also relieve Israel of the obligation to be the transit point for goods into the enclave. The Gaza Strip has no port and its airport was destroyed. A spokesman for the ministry of transport said the main aim of the plan was to improve the quality of life for Palestinians in Gaza while ensuring Israel’s security.
ETHIOPIA
Jewish protest turns violent
Police on Wednesday injured about 50 people planning to protest outside the Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa to seek resettlement as Jews, a representative of the protesters’ said. The attacks occurred when police stormed into a makeshift synagogue where 500 members of the Association of Ethiopian Jews in Addis Ababa had gathered to plan demonstrations, said Sisay Birhan, the association’s secretary. Israel announced last year that it was resettling 7,800 Ethiopian Jews from the northern city of Gondar, where a thriving community once existed, but has turned down all applications from the group in the capital. Denying accusations they are Jewish imposters, the group’s members say they moved to the capital in the mid-1990s with the hope of fast-tracking their move to the nation.
PANAMA
Cross-dressing official quits
The government on Tuesday accepted the resignation of a diplomat who caused a stir by wearing a lace dress with a banana in his bustline for carnival in Spain. Italo Afu, Panama’s consul in the Spanish Canary Islands, had apologized profusely, saying he did not want “to harm anyone, much less my country.” Photos of Afu celebrating carnival in a pink dress, earrings and the banana were published in Panama’s media and created a scandal in this socially conservative country whose population is 95 percent Christian. Even President Ricardo Martinelli chimed in: “He should not have done it.” However, gay rights activist Ricardo Beteta said the episode shows the “intolerance and homophobia of Panamanian society.” “In this country, being a thief, liar or swindler has no consequences, but being a transvestite, gay or lesbian ... is intolerable,” he said. Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Varela asked on Monday: “Couldn’t he have dressed up like a pirate or a sailor or even Donald Duck?”
UNITED STATES
Tot talk goes viral
A video of a pair of diaper-clad babies seemingly engaged in an animated conversation in a home kitchen was a fast-spreading YouTube sensation on Wednesday. The two-minute snippet of the lively exchange between twin brothers barely old enough to stand has been watched more than 2.2 million times since it was uploaded to the Google-owned video sharing Web site on Valentine’s Day. The then-17-month-old boys laughed, gestured and raised their feet during what appeared to be a baby talk chat so genuine that it inspired viewers to add playful captions suggesting translations. Suggestions included that one brother telling the other “That diaper is so 2010” and getting a retort along the lines of “If you’re so smart, where is your other sock, Einstein?” By Wednesday, child development specialists were citing the video in online discussions of how natural and healthy it is for babies to develop language skills as they mature.
‘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