JAPAN
Oysters’ ‘language’ studied
Scientists have begun studying the “language” of oysters in an effort to find out what they are saying about their environment. Researchers are monitoring the opening and closing of the molluscs in response to changes in seawater, such as reduced oxygen or red tide, a suffocating algal bloom, that can lead to mass die-offs. Using a device they have nicknamed the “kai-lingual,” a play on the Japanese word kai or shellfish, scientists from Kagawa University want to see if they can decode oyster movements that might warn of possible problems. The “kai-lingual” uses a series of sensors and magnets to send information on the opening and closing of shells in response to environmental changes. “With kai-lingual, we can hear the ‘screams,’ like: ‘We are in pain because of insufficient oxygen,’” Kagawa University Seto Inland Sea Regional Research Center director Tsuneo Honjo said.
AUSTRALIA
Croc may have killed man
Police say a man who died during a spearfishing dive may have been attacked by a crocodile. Queensland state police say search crews found the man’s body yesterday, one day after he vanished in waters off the remote Cape York region in the northeast. His name was not released. Police say the condition of the man’s body indicated he may have been attacked by a marine animal, and said that the waters off northern Queensland were well-known crocodile habitats. Officials will conduct an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death.
INDONESIA
Nuke test ban ratified
The country said it had ratified a global treaty banning nuclear test explosions. Negotiated in the 1990s, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty specified that the 44 countries with nuclear power or research reactors at the time needed to give formal approval before it could take effect. With the endorsement yesterday by the country’s parliament, the treaty is now only awaiting ratification from the US, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan. Lawmaker Mahfudz Siddiq urged the remaining countries — especially the US and Israel — to get off the bench and sign.
JAPAN
Antarctica whale hunt starts
The country’s whaling fleet left port yesterday for its annual hunt in Antarctica, press pictures showed, with security measures beefed up amid simmering international protests. Three ships, led by the 720 tonne Yushin Maru, set sail from Shimonoseki on the west coast on a mission officially said to be for “scientific research,” according to local media reports. In February, the country cut short its hunt by one month after bagging only one-fifth of its planned catch, blaming interference from the US-based environmental group Sea Shepherd. The fleet aims to catch about 900 minke and fin whales this season.
JAPAN
Olympian charged with rape
Police say two-time Olympic judo gold medalist Masato Uchishiba has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault. Uchishiba, 33, was arrested yesterday, triggering a criminal investigation, according to an officer in the National Police Agency’s public relations department who declined to give his name. In September, Uchishiba was fired as a judo coach by Kyushu University of Nursing and Social Welfare amid allegations that he gave a female student an alcoholic drink at a hotel and sexually harassed her. He has denied claims of sexual harassment.
UNITED STATES
Obama defends diplomat
President Barack Obama’s administration said it has full confidence in the ambassador to Belgium, despite comments he made about anti-Semitism that prompted angry responses from Jewish groups and Republicans. Howard Gutman, who is Jewish and whose father survived the Holocaust, told a European Jewish gathering last week that some hatred of Jews reflected hostility toward Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. He said it was different from traditional anti-Semitism. Department of State spokesman Mark Toner said on Monday that Gutman would remain in his post.
SYRIA
Bodies taken to hospitals
More than 60 bodies were taken to several hospitals in Homs on Monday, activists in the city said. Circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear, but activists and residents in several neighborhoods reported a spate of kidnappings since Sunday, a tactic used in recent sectarian killings in the city, which has been the hotbed of armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-Assad militiamen kidnapped and killed at least 34 people from anti-Assad districts on Monday.
IRAQ
Bombs kill Shiite pilgrims
A series of bombs tore through crowds of Shiite pilgrims celebrating a major ritual on Monday, killing at least 32 people, mostly women and children, and wounding scores more, police and witnesses said. The attacks, at the height of Ashura, which commemorates the death of Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Imam Hussein and defines Shiite Islam, underscored the nation’s fragile security as the last US troops withdraw from the country by the end of the year. In the first attack, a car bomb blasted the end of one procession in Hilla, killing 16, wounding 45 others and leaving bloody pools, shoes and torn clothes scattered across the street, police and witnesses said.
GREECE
Athens loses at World Court
The World Court ruled on Monday that Athens was wrong to block Macedonia’s bid to join NATO in 2008 because of a long-running dispute over the fledgling country’s use of the name “Macedonia.” In a 15-1 ruling, the court found that Athens’ veto breached a 1995 deal under which the country had agreed not to block Macedonia’s membership in international organizations if it used the name “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” while the matter was submitted to UN mediation. The court found that the ruling itself “constitutes appropriate satisfaction” for The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, presiding Judge Hisashi Owada said, reading the written decision.
SOUTH AFRICA
Ex-top cop begins sentence
The country’s former police chief and former president of Interpol, Jackie Selebi, on Monday left hospital to begin his 15-year jail sentence for corruption, the national prosecution’s spokesman said. The disgraced former police chief collapsed on Friday upon hearing news that he had lost his appeal against his graft conviction. The former top cop was convicted last year of accepting cash and gifts, including from convicted drug trafficker Glenn Agliotti, amounting to more than 1.2 million rand (US$148,000) in bribes over a five-year period.
Agencies
UNITED STATES
Bail after penis attack
A 69-year-old woman who allegedly tried to cut off her husband’s penis with a pair of scissors has been released on bail, while California prosecutors mull whether to bring charges, lawyers said on Monday. Virginia Valdez posted US$100,000 bail and was freed from jail on Sunday, a day after being arrested following the alleged assault on her 62-year-old husband. A Palm Springs Police Department spokeswoman said Valdez was taken into custody on Saturday, after officers were called to the couple’s home in response to a complaint by her husband.
TRINIDAD
Alleged plotters released
Seventeen persons detained in relation to an alleged plot to assassinate Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and three Cabinet ministers were released on Monday because of “insufficient evidence.” The men were arrested under state of emergency detention orders rather than for conspiracy to murder and most were apprehended on Nov. 25. However, police on Monday said they could not substantiate Persad-Bissessar’s claim of “an evil, devious act of treason.” The state of emergency, which was declared on Aug. 21 to “achieve a number of things in relation to crime reduction,” was set to end at midnight on Monday. Opposition leader Keith Rowley and various trade union leaders had expressed doubts about the alleged assassination plot.
CANADA
Brawl gets executives fired
Two executives of BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion (RIM), whose drunken rowdiness forced an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing to be diverted to Vancouver, are no longer with the company. George Campbell, 45, and Paul Alexander Wilson, 38, pleaded guilty to mischief last week and were ordered to pay almost C$72,000 (US$70,650) to Air Canada in restitution. They received suspended sentences and probation. Another passenger said Campbell and Wilson were fighting with the flight attendants and it took the entire crew to subdue the men, who were eventually handcuffed to seats.
MEXICO
Hundreds of labs destroyed
The army has arrested more than 11,500 people linked to drug trafficking so far this year, while 192 illegal drug labs were destroyed, officials said on Monday. In an annual report, the defense ministry provided details of operations by the army mobilized since 2006 under President Felipe Calderon’s war on drug traffickers. It said authorities had destroyed 14,798 hectares of opium poppies and seized 1,575 tonnes of marijuana and nearly six tonnes of cocaine. About 15,000 vehicles, 53 airplanes, 35 boats, 1,306 cellphones and 30,000 firearms were taken as well.
UNITED STATES
Death sentence quashed
A court on Monday quashed convictions and death sentences handed down in 1997 to a gang boss known as the “Big Evil” and his partner in crime, because of a technical error at the original trial. The California Supreme Court ruled that the original judge incorrectly discharged a jury member from the trial over the South Los Angeles gangland killing of two rivals. Cleamon “Big Evil” Johnson, 44, and co-defendant Michael “Fat Rat” Allen, 39, were convicted of first-degree murder in the August 1991 deaths of Donald Ray Loggins and Payton Beroit. Police have attributed more than 20 murders to Johnson and he has admitted murdering 13 people himself, according to the FBI.
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