AUSTRALIA
Lifeguards like ‘uncool’ cap
Surf lifeguards yesterday voted to retain their signature red and yellow patrol cap after coming under pressure to dump the headwear because it was “uncool.” Surf Life Saving Australia surveyed its members after two New South Wales clubs raised concerns that the cap was turning off younger members. However, a national survey showed only 5 percent of members wanted to get rid of what many consider a much-loved fixture. The red and yellow quartered patrol cap has been part of Australia’s Surf Life Saving movement since it was introduced in the 1930s as a means of identifying lifeguards on the beach. It became mandatory in the 1980s.
JAPAN
Parents demand protection
Parents living near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant issued an “emergency petition” yesterday, demanding that the government do more to protect their children from radiation exposure. A coalition of six citizens’ and environmental groups called for the evacuation of children and pregnant women from radiation hotspots, stricter monitoring and the early closure of schools for summer holidays. They voiced concern that authorities had focused on testing for radiation in the environment and not on people’s internal exposure through inhaling or ingesting radioactive isotopes through dust, food and drinks.
NORTH KOREA
Police readying for riots
Pyongyang has created a special police squad and bought large amounts of riot gear from China in apparent preparation for any disturbances similar to those in the Middle East, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said yesterday. It said the North had bought tear gas, helmets and shields through merchants in Shenyang, China, in recent months. The development indicates concern at a possible uprisings similar to the ones sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, the agency quoted a source as saying in a dispatch from Beijing. The North has also created a special nationwide police anti-riot force, Yonhap said. Seoul’s intelligence chief said in March that the North had stepped up its efforts to block information on protests in the Arab world for fear of disturbances among its own people.
CHINA
Pork prices soar
The price of pork hit a new high this month due to rising costs and short supply, state media said yesterday, amid persistent concerns about soaring inflation. Pork cost 27.67 yuan (US$4.30) a kilo last week, surpassing the previous peak of 26 yuan set in 2008, the China Daily reported, citing Feng Yonghui, an analyst with Soozhu.com, an online pig market monitoring service. The cost of live pigs also surged to 18.57 yuan a kilo at the end of last week, beating the previous record high of 17.20 yuan reached in April 2008, he said. “The price will keep rising till the end of the year,” Zhu Baoliang, an economist with the State Information Center, a government think tank, was quoted by the newspaper as saying. The price of corn, which accounts for around 60 percent of pig feed, hit a record high in March, sending pig and pork prices soaring in the following months, Feng said.
SOUTH KOREA
Military crash kills two
A military training plane crashed yesterday, killing the instructor and trainee aboard, an air force spokesman said. The single-engine Ilyushin Il-103 propeller-driven plane hit a rice paddy in Cheongwon County, about 120km south of Seoul, the spokesman said. An investigation is under way.
UNITED KINGDOM
Man charged in angler death
A man has been charged with murder after an angler drowned in a canal during a fishing competition in Cheshire, northern England. The body of Harry Morris, 57, was pulled from the water at Sankey Valley park in Warrington on Saturday morning after police were called. Officers said there had been an altercation between two men. Anthony Ogburne, 40, from Warrington, has been charged with murder and is due to appear before magistrates.
ITALY
Berlusconi friend arrested
Lele Mora, a television impresario caught up in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sex scandals, was arrested on suspicion of fraudulent bankruptcy on Monday, police said. Mora, a well-known agent of models and television personalities, was arrested by police acting on a warrant from magistrates investigating him. Mora was accused of the fraudulent bankruptcy of his talent management company in June last year. Mora is already a defendant in a trial in which Berlusconi is accused of paying for sex with an underage prostitute. In that case, Mora is accused of abetting prostitution. Investigators say he helped arrange some of the parties with aspiring show girls and models that took place at Berlusconi’s villa near Milan.
UNITED KINGDOM
Jamaican cuts own throat
A Jamaican man cut his throat in front of horrified passengers as he was being deported at Gatwick airport on Sunday. The detainee, who has not been named, cut himself “below the chin” using what is understood to be part of a razor blade, as the Virgin flight to Kingston taxied on the runway. The precise nature of his injury is unclear, but he was taken to hospital where he was treated before being returned to immigration custody.
AUSTRIA
Sanader to be extradited
A lawyer says former Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader has withdrawn his objection to being extradited from to Croatia on suspicions of corruption while in office. A court approved Sanader’s extradition to his homeland last month, but Sanader’s lawyer had appealed, arguing that he could not get a fair trial in Croatia. Police detained Sanader on Dec. 10 after Croatian authorities issued an international arrest warrant, and he has been jailed in Salzburg ever since. Sanader — who maintains his innocence — was prime minister for six years until resigning nearly two years ago.
UNITED KINGDOM
Violin sells for £9.8m
A rare Stradivarius violin that once belonged to the granddaughter of English poet Lord Byron sold for a record £9.8 million (US$15.9 million) at auction on Monday in a charity sale for Japanese disaster relief. The 1721 violin was bought by an anonymous bidder for about four times the previous auction record for a Stradivari violin, said Tarisio, an online auction house for fine instruments. Proceeds from the sale will go to aid Japan after the recent natural disasters through the Nippon Foundation’s Northeastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. The “Lady Blunt” was offered for sale by the Nippon Music Foundation, owners of some of the world’s finest Stradivari and Guarneri instruments. Tarisio said interest among bidders was “massive.” The instrument was owned for 30 years by Lady Anne Blunt, Byron’s granddaughter. It is one of about 600 violins, violas and cellos by the famed Italian maker Antonio Stradivari still in existence, and among the finest examples.
UNITED STATES
Fonda weds for third time
Easy Rider actor Peter Fonda was married to Margaret “Parky” DeVogelaere over the weekend in Hawaii, his representative said on Monday. DeVogelaere is the actor’s third wife. His previous marriage, to Portia Rebecca Crockett, lasted 36 years, but ended in divorce earlier this year. The 71-year-old actor and son of the late Henry Fonda is best known for playing free-wheeling biker Wyatt in the classic 1969 film Easy Rider. He also was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the 1997 movie Ulee’s Gold and recently appeared in TV drama CSI: NY.
CANADA
Marijuana support ordered
Nova Scotia’s Community Services Department is pondering its next step after being ordered by an appeals board to help a needy couple improve their marijuana garden. The couple, whose names have not been made public, have permission to grow up to 25 marijuana plants for medical purposes, a Canadian Broadcast Corp report said. The woman was injured in a car accident, and her husband suffers from glaucoma. However, the couple, who get income assistance from the government, can only afford to grow six plants — and sometimes run low on supplies. The Income Assistance Appeals Board ruled recently that the provincial Community Services Department should pay a one-time cost of US$2,500 to set up the full marijuana growing operation and US$400 a year for supplies. Department spokeswoman Kristen Tynes said on Monday the department had referred the decision to its legal counsel to determine the next step to take.
UNITED STATES
Dunn killed in car accident
Ryan Dunn, co-star of the Jackass movie franchise, died on Monday when a sports car he was driving careened off a highway in Philadelphia and burst into flames, police said. Dunn was driving his 2007 Porsche, which police found “fully engulfed in flames” in a wooded area in outer Philadelphia, police in the West Goshen Township said. An unidentified passenger also died in the crash. The daredevil personality, 34, part of the crew in the top-grossing Jackass movie franchise that specialized in risky pranks and gross-out stunts, lived in nearby West Chester, Pennsylvania, police said. A police statement said a “preliminary investigation revealed that speed may have been a contributing factor to the accident.”
UNITED STATES
Cost of death penalty high
The full burden of the death penalty in California has been laid bare by new research, which says each of the 13 prisoners executed over the past three decades has cost more than US$300 million. The study by two senior legal figures includes costs incurred at both state and federal level in keeping 714 death row inmates incarcerated, as well as steering them through the tortuous judicial process all the way to the death chamber. The average length of time between conviction and execution in California now stands at more than a quarter of a century — double the national average. The report’s authors — Arthur Alarcon, a senior judge, and Loyola law school professor Paula Mitchell — do not make any judgement for or against the death penalty. They simply ask whether the system makes sense and whether Californian voters are getting what they wanted. The answer is a resounding no, according to the authors. Since 1978, California and the US government have together spent about US$4 billion on the state’s death row, yet only 13 prisoners have been executed — an average of US$308 million for each one.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in