JAPAN
Convict escapes in shorts
A man serving 23 years for the attempted murder of a police officer was on the run yesterday after escaping from a penitentiary in Hiroshima clad only in white underwear, the nation’s first jailbreak in more than two decades. Li Guolin (李國林) was exercising in a prison yard when he stripped off his convict’s uniform and used scaffolding erected by builders to climb over a 5m perimeter fence on Wednesday, Kyodo news agency said, citing officials. The Mainichi Shimbun said it was the country’s first escape since 1990, when a youth fled a juvenile detention center. Police were stationed outside schools in Hiroshima amid a security alert. “We are really sorry,” Kyodo quoted a prison official as saying.
CHINA
Real-time air data released
Beijing yesterday began publishing real-time air quality data on the Internet, bowing to a vocal online campaign for greater government transparency over pollution in the capital. The move followed the announcement that Beijing would change the way it measures air quality this month to include the smaller particles experts say are most harmful to health. It is the latest example of the challenge authorities face as the nation’s online population increasingly uses the Internet to press its demands. Beijingers have used China’s hugely popular microblogging sites to express strong criticism of the city government’s data, which frequently rates the air quality as good, even when there is thick smog. The controversy has been compounded by US embassy statistics on air quality published online and on Twitter that measure the small particles, known as PM2.5, and often register dangerous pollution levels.
CHINA
Activist to be questioned
A prominent rights activist released from prison last year says that police in Beijing have summoned him for questioning after searching his home and seizing two computers on Wednesday. The police interrogation of Hu Jia (胡佳) comes after he used his Twitter account to complain about the denial of visitors to jailed rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng (高智晟). Hu also has appealed online to authorities holding Gao to let his family visit him. Hu said he was summoned yesterday morning.
AUSTRALIA
Military rocked by scandal
The military was rocked yesterday by a new sex scandal, including allegations of assault, child porn, rape and drug-dealing within its ranks. Documents obtained by Channel Seven News under the Freedom of Information Act detail what it called “ongoing, often major, breaches of discipline in Australia’s armed forces.” It said more than 100 incidents had been reported last year, from weapons mishaps to sexual assault, especially in the navy, where allegations of misconduct on four warships are being investigated. Among them, alleged sexual assaults on HMAS Newcastle and HMAS Diamantina have been referred to police. The documents, referred to as the “Hot Issues Brief,” detailed a female sailor aboard HMAS Success claiming she had been indecently assaulted during a port visit to Singapore by a male shipmate. Seven months later, a senior officer on the same vessel was reported to police for video--taping sexual encounters he had with junior sailors. On HMAS Toowoomba, a female sailor complained of indecent assault, bullying, and harassment, including a so-called “Beer Bounty” being placed on her: free beer for the first sailor to have sex with her.
ITALY
Priest rings bells in protest
A Catholic priest disgusted by the effects of unfettered capitalism said on Wednesday that he has decided to ring his church’s bells at stock market closing time every day in protest. “This is a protest against the fact that there are no rules for the markets,” Father Giovanni Kirschner, a parish priest in Povegliano near the city of Treviso in northeast Italy, told reporters in a phone interview. Kirschner said he rings the bells at exactly 5:31pm every weekday — the time the Milan stock exchange ends its trading session. “There are a lot of business owners here who have trouble with financing. We are asking ourselves why these trends hit ordinary people,” he said. Kirschner is even organizing a series of seminars in his town of 5,000 people on issues like ethical financing and local business problems.
ISRAEL
Hacker hits back at Saudi
A hacker published details of what he claimed were more than 200 Saudi-owned credit cards online overnight in a revenge attack after a similar move by “Saudi” hackers earlier this month. In a posting titled “FREE Saudi’s Credit Cards!” the hacker listed the names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and numbers of 217 cards, of which more than 160 appeared to have expiry dates that were still valid. The hacker used the nickname “0xOmer” — an almost identical name to that of the Saudi hacker who exposed the Israeli card details — and identified himself as “Omer Cohen from Israel.” However, in a Twitter posting, he refused to expose the cards’ security codes, or CVC numbers, saying the aim was just to “alert.” Last week, a hacker who claimed to be from Saudi Arabia posted details of thousands of Israeli credit cards online in two separate incidents, and reportedly infected those following the hack with a Trojan horse virus.
RUSSIA
‘Puppet master’ demoted
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave former Kremlin chief of staff Vladislav Surkov responsibility for social policy on Wednesday, a portfolio likely to be viewed as a demotion for a man once seen as the architect of the political system. Surkov, 47, seen as the mastermind of Putin’s ruling system, which combines populism with top-down governance, was removed last month from the presidential administration and appointed deputy prime minister, in what was seen as a step down. On Wednesday, he was given authority over healthcare, education, housing, demographics, tourism, religion and other social issues, according to a document posted on the Cabinet’s Web site. Surkov, branded Moscow’s “puppet master” by Putin’s critics, was one of the main targets of anger at demonstrations last month protesting against fraud in parliamentary elections.
BELGIUM
Diamond traders targeted
Brussels ordered an inquiry on Wednesday linked to a growing controversy over possible tax fraud amid diamond traders in the port city of Antwerp. Justice Minister Annemie Turtelboom called for an investigation into media allegations that members of the prosecutor’s office last month lunched at a temple for Indian diamond traders, who in recent years have elbowed into the business once run by members of the Jewish community. The inquiry, which she said would look at the independence of the judiciary, follows media suspicions of massive tax fraud in the city.
UNITED STATES
Amish in ‘orange’ protest
A group of conservative Amish men in western Kentucky have become scofflaws in their protest against a state law requiring orange safety triangles on their horse-drawn buggies. Nine members of the Swartzentruber order in rural Graves County have refused to pay fines for not using the triangles, and eight of them have spent time in jail. The men believe that the orange triangle is garish and violates their faith’s orders to live simple, plain lives. They prefer using gray reflective tape and lanterns to make their buggies visible to motorists. Kentucky state officials say the orange triangles are the best way to make sure buggies are visible for the safety of everyone on the road.
UNITED STATES
Brangelina visit Obama
President Barack Obama might be powerful and well-known, but the White House got some Hollywood star power on Wednesday: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie stopped by for a chat with the chief executive. The actors were spotted in the Oval Office by photographers waiting outside for the president to take off for a trip to Chicago. The White House confirmed Pitt and Jolie were in town to screen Jolie’s movie about Bosnian war crimes at the Holocaust museum. They dropped by so the president could talk with Jolie about her work on preventing atrocities and combating sexual violence against women.
KOSOVO
Plotter met radicals: official
Sami Osmakac, the man accused by US authorities of plotting to bomb Florida nightclubs and a sheriff’s office, met with radical Islamists during visits to his native Kosovo, a senior official in the country said on Wednesday. International agencies had alerted Kosovo authorities that Osmakac could be linked to Islamist extremists, the official said on condition of anonymity. He said the 25-year old naturalized US citizen discussed “issues in support of radical elements” with the individuals he met, but declined to disclose further details. US authorities say Osmakac planned to use a car bomb and other weapons in an Islamist-inspired attack in Tampa, Florida. He was arrested on Saturday after he allegedly bought disabled explosive devices and firearms from an undercover agent.
UNITED STATES
Ceglia fined US$5,000
A man who is suing for part ownership of Facebook has been fined US$5,000 for failing to fully comply with a court order to give experts access to his e-mail accounts. Paul Ceglia was also ordered to pay Facebook’s court costs in trying to obtain the material, which Facebook said would help expose Ceglia’s case as a fraud. US Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio said Ceglia had delayed the case by failing to produce his e-mail addresses and passwords dating to 2003, while his lawyers unsuccessfully challenged the August order as an invasion of privacy.
PERU
Dutchman admits to murder
Joran van der Sloot on Wednesday pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of a young Peruvian woman he met at a Lima casino who was killed five years to the day after the unsolved disappearance in Aruba of a US teen in which he remains the main suspect. “Yes, I want to plead guilty. I wanted from the first moment to confess sincerely,” he told the panel of three judges that will decide his fate, hoping for a reduced sentence. “I truly am sorry for this act.” Prosecutors are asking for a 30-year prison sentence under charges that carry a 15-year minimum.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was