AUSTRALIA
Darwin book returned
A first-edition Charles Darwin book returned to its origins last week, 122 years late, when it was handed back to the library to which it belongs. Insectivorous Plants was borrowed from the Camden School of Arts lending library on the outskirts of Sydney sometime in 1889, but it was only returned to the library earlier this month. The book had been in the collection of retired veterinarian Ron Hyne for about 50 years, and it was among items he donated to the University of Sydney last month. Hyne said he was not sure how he acquired the book.
CHINA
Train speed ‘exaggerated’
A report says the Ministry of Railways has exaggerated how fast the new high-speed railway between Beijing and Shanghai is meant to run. The financial magazine Caijing cites a former top engineer at the ministry, Zhou Yimin, as saying the trains’ maximum speed should be 300kph, instead of the targeted 350kph. Zhou added that China lacks its own core technology. A ministry spokesman dismissed the comments, saying Zhou retired too early to know the current situation.
HONG KONG
Tycoon to give baby bonus
Henderson Land Development chairman Lee Shau-kee (李兆基) will give out US$2 million in bonuses to his 1,500 staff after his actress daughter-in-law gave birth to his sixth grandchild last week, company spokeswoman Bonnie Ngan said. “We will receive the money [HK$10,000, or US$1,285, each] at the end of this month,” Ngan said. Last October Lee also handed out HK$10,000 in staff bonuses when his eldest son, Peter, a bachelor, gave him triplet grandsons through a surrogate mother.
RUSSIA
Young crash survivor dies
A young survivor of the recent air crash in the northwestern Karelia region died of multiple injuries, bringing the death toll in the tragedy to 45, a health ministry spokeswoman said yesterday. Anton Terekhin and his teenage sister Anastasia were among eight people who survived the Tuesday air crash, which instantly killed 44, including their mother. In conflicting reports, officials said earlier that the boy was nine, while the regional health ministry said he could be 10. His 14-year-old sister, who was transferred to Moscow for treatment along with other survivors, is in stable condition, Ministry of Health spokeswoman Elena Kokovurova said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Picasso’s lovers top auction
Portraits of three different lovers of 20th-century master Pablo Picasso fetched the three highest prices at a London auction at Christie’s on Tuesday, the first in a key series of art sales over the coming weeks. Top lot on the night at the impressionist and modern art evening sale was a depiction of Dora Maar, who became Picasso’s lover and muse at the expense of Marie-Therese Walter. The 1939 work, which had been unseen in public since 1967, sold for £18 million (US$29.1 million), several times the pre-sale estimate of £4 million to £8 million. The second-highest price paid on the night was for Jeune fille endormie, a 1935 portrait of Walter that went under the hammer for £13.5 million. The painting, valued at £9 million to £12 million, was given to the University of Sydney last year by an anonymous donor on the condition that it was sold and that the proceeds went to the university to fund scientific research. In third place was Buste de Francoise (1946), which fetched £10.7 million. Francoise Gilot was an artist and author who became Picasso’s lover in the 1940s and with whom he had two of his children, Christie’s said.
RUSSIA
Journalist stabbed to death
A journalist working for a regional television company in the north has been stabbed to death, investigators said yesterday. The body of Anatoly Bitkov, the 37-year-old chief editor of Kolyma Pluys regional television company, was found at his apartment in the city of Magadan earlier yesterday, regional investigators said. Bitkov most likely died from multiple stab wounds to his neck and body, investigators said in a statement. They added that the journalist’s murder was probably not connected to his professional activities, although all possible motives would be checked. Journalists in the country, particularly those working in the volatile North Caucasus, have repeatedly become targets of attacks.
UNITED KINGDOM
Lenient sentencing dropped
Britain is to drop plans that would have allowed criminals to serve only half their sentences if they pleaded guilty at an early stage, media reported on Tuesday. The policy — which would have saved millions of pounds for a government striving to slash its deficit — had come under fire from the ruling coalition’s main party and from victims’ groups, particularly over fears it could apply to rapists. Media reports said confirmation the plan was being dropped was expected later on Tuesday. Justice Secretary Ken Clarke set out plans at the end of last year to slash the prison population by 3,000 in England and Wales and hand out tougher non-custodial sentences as part of efforts to make 20 percent cuts in his budget.
UNITED STATES
Film critic defends tweet
Film critic Roger Ebert on Tuesday defended an admonition against drunk driving he posted on Twitter in response to the death of Jackass star Ryan Dunn, who was photographed drinking before his car crash, but the influential Chicago Sun-Times movie critic, who has come under fire from Jackass star Bam Margera and online commentators, also expressed regret that his Twitter one-liner, which was posted on Monday, was considered cruel. Dunn died on Monday and Ebert tweeted: “Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive.” Dunn, 34, a bearded daredevil who co-starred in the Jackass movie franchise featuring pranks and stunts, was killed along with his passenger Zachary Hartwell when the car Dunn was driving careened off a highway in Pennsylvania and burst into flames, police said. Dunn posted a photo to Twitter shortly before the crash, which seemed to show him drinking with friends. Ebert wrote an online blog post on Tuesday to explain and defend the tweet that some had considered insensitive. The critic began by offering his sympathy to the family and friends of Dunn and Hartwell. “I also regret that my tweet about the event was considered cruel,” Ebert said. “It was not intended as cruel. It was intended as true.”
UNITED STATES
Prison visitors to cover up
Skimpily dressed visitors to New York’s main jail complex can only see inmates if they cover up with an oversized, baggy, green T-shirt as part of a new dress code. The new rules at Rikers Island aim to maintain a “family friendly” environment at the jail. The city’s Department of Corrections has purchased 750 T-shirts in an easy-to-track shade of bright green. The shirts, all size XXL, are meant to be shapeless on all but the heaviest frames. “If a visitor is dressed provocatively, it could potentially spark a chain of events among inmates,” said Sharman Stein, a spokeswoman for the department. Prison officials hope to reduce the possibility of inmates making comments about other inmates’ visitors’ appearance — be they derogatory or too appreciative — that could lead to flared tempers and even violence. The rules also deal with the opposite concern — too much clothing which might be used to conceal contraband.
UNITED STATES
Mom charged with murder
Prosecutors say a New York woman beat her five-year-old son to death because he broke the television while playing a Nintendo Wii video game. Kim Crawford was charged with murder and manslaughter in Bronx Criminal Court on Tuesday. She was ordered held without bond. Prosecutors say she admitted hitting the boy hard in the back and stomach over the broken TV. Police found her son, Jamar Johnson, unconscious and not breathing at their Bronx home on Friday. An autopsy revealed internal abdominal injuries.
UNITED STATES
Cops make microwave arrest
Sacramento police arrested a 29-year-old mother on Tuesday after an investigation found her baby likely died from burns suffered in a microwave oven. Ka Yang was being held without bail on suspicion of murder and assault resulting in the death of a child. She was arrested three months after her otherwise healthy six-week-old daughter, Mirabelle Thao-Lo, was found dead in the family home on March 17. Police described the child as suffering “extensive thermal injuries.” Officer Laura Peck said the arrest took so long because investigators had to pinpoint the cause of death by looking for other cases involving similar injuries.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not