CHINA
Village boss nabbed for arson
Police detained a village leader in Hebei Province after he burned government offices to the ground in a protest against corruption, leaving two people seriously injured, a rights group said. Gao Jinhe, head of Beitai Village, confronted local authorities in Chengde City on Sunday over “corruption and abuse of power,” the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said. After getting into a row with officials, he poured flammable liquid into the complex and set it alight, starting a blaze that destroyed more than 20 offices, the rights group said in a statement released late on Monday. Two men suffered serious burns and were in critical condition in hospital.
VIETNAM
Native warship launched
State media say the nation has launched its first domestically made warship equipped with artillery and missile systems. Online newspaper VnExpress says the ship took a military-run company two years to build. It was delivered to the navy on Monday. The report did not describe the ship’s size, but said it has modern artillery and missile systems and an operational range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600km). It quoted Rear Admiral Pham Ngoc Minh as saying the ship will be used to patrol the country’s territorial waters. Most of the nation’s military hardware is from Russia or the former Soviet Union.
SOUTH KOREA
Smugglers put gold up bums
Customs officials say they have arrested eight men over a scheme to allegedly smuggle gold out of the country by hiding it in their rectums. The Korea Customs Service said on Monday the men allegedly transformed US$260,000 in gold bars into small beads and smuggled them in their rectums to Japan two times in 2010 to avoid import taxes. Seoul says Japanese custom officials caught the men on their second attempt and sent them home after imposing fines. Later, one of the suspects allegedly orchestrated an unsuccessful bid to smuggle gold bars from Mongolia to Hong Kong using a similar method.
AUSTRALIA
Mooner’s charges dropped
Police have downgraded charges against a man who mooned Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip as they drove past tens of thousands of well-wishers during a visit to Brisbane. Police told Brisbane Magistrates Court yesterday that they have dropped a charge of willful exposure against 22-year-old Sydney barman Liam Lloyd Warriner for baring his buttocks to the 85-year-old British monarch and her 90-year-old husband in October last year. The charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison. Defense attorney John-Paul Mould told Magistrate Brian Hine that Warriner will plead guilty to a lesser charge of creating a public nuisance and will appear for sentencing on Feb. 14.
NEPAL
Butcher police busted
A group of police officers are being investigated for operating a butcher’s shop from their station and slaughtering goats when they should have been fighting crime, the force said yesterday. The officers in the station on the outskirts of Kathmandu are accused of taking livestock from members of the public and killing and carving up the animals to be sold. Junior police officers in Kathmandu earn just 9,000 rupees (US$110) a month and often top up their salaries with second jobs.
IRAN
Tehran to send drone model
State radio yesterday said Tehran would give Washington a model of the US surveillance drone it captured. The the toy model of the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone would be sent to the White House in response to a formal request from Washington last month asking Iran to return the aircraft that went down over Iran last month, it said. The model would be 1/80th the size of the original aircraft, it said, adding that it would also be sold on the local market for about 70,000 rials (about US$4).
ROMANIA
PM warns protesters
Prime Minister Emil Boc warned anti-austerity protesters gathering for a fifth day on Monday that violence would not be tolerated after 59 people were injured in clashes between demonstrators and riot police over the weekend. The country’s worst unrest for more than a decade has seen riot police using tear gas against protesters throwing bricks, smashing windows and setting fire to newspaper stands and dumpsters in central Bucharest since it began on Thursday. Thousands of demonstrators gathered peacefully in Bucharest and other cities on Monday afternoon, demanding Boc and his close political ally, President Traian Basescu, resign.
YEMEN
Poll delay seen: minister
Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi yesterday said a planned Feb. 21 presidential election may have to be delayed, an announcement that would raise fears for a UN-backed transition plan designed to end months of unrest in the impoverished country. The comments — the first suggestion that the vote might be held up — will likely anger activists and opposition groups keen to see a quick transfer of power after months of unrest. The election was part of a deal brokered by Gulf countries and supported by Washington and Riyadh to ease President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power after nearly a year of protests against his 33-year rule.
UNITED STATES
Babies try lip-reading
New research suggests babies don’t learn to talk just from hearing sounds — they’re lip-readers, too. It happens during that magical stage when a baby’s babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first “mama” or “dada.” Florida scientists discovered that starting at about six months old, babies begin shifting from the intent eye gaze of early infancy to studying mouths when people talk to them. Once they master the lip movements, they apparently shift back to look you in the eye again. The research offers more evidence that quality face-time with your tot is very important for speech development — more than, say, turning on the latest baby DVD. It appears in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
UNITED STATES
No more Steve Jobs doll
The company that began advertising for an incredibly lifelike Steve Jobs doll won’t sell the figurines after all because of pressure from family and Apple Inc lawyers. In Icons had planned to offer the 30cm lifelike figure dressed in Jobs’ trademark black mock turtleneck, rimless glasses and jeans. However, the San Jose Mercury News reported that the company posted a statement on its Web site on Sunday saying it had received “immense pressure” to drop the plan and made the decision out of its “heartfelt sensitivity to the feelings of the Jobs family.” The iconic Apple co-founder died Oct. 5 of complications from pancreatic cancer.
CANADA
Alleged spy arrested
Police said on Monday they have charged a navy intelligence officer with espionage. Jeffrey Paul Delisle, 40, appeared in Halifax provincial court on Monday on two charges related to communicating information to a foreign entity. Police did not reveal any details about what information is alleged to have been disclosed or to whom it was disclosed. The Department of Defense said Delisle reportedly worked at a naval communications and intelligence center in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that was a multinational base with access to secret data from NATO countries.
UNITED STATES
Kidnapper loses lawsuit
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man who held a Kansas couple hostage, then sued them for breach of contract for turning him in. Jesse Dimmick contended he had a legally binding oral contract with Jared and Lindsay Rowley that they would hide him from police in return for money. Dimmick was a fugitive facing a murder charge when he burst into the Rowleys’ home in September 2009 and confronted them at knife point. The Rowleys escaped when he fell asleep. Dimmick was later convicted of kidnapping and other charges and the Rowleys sued him for damages. Dimmick then counter-sued, seeking compensation for hospital bills and pain and suffering.
UNITED STATES
Headphones pose hazard
The number of pedestrians who have been killed or badly injured in the country while wearing headphones has tripled in six years, according to a study published yesterday. The annual tally rose from 16 in 2004 to 47 last year, bringing the total of cases to 116 over this period, the authors said. The research, published in the British journal Injury Prevention, was headed by Richard Lichenstein of the University of Maryland Hospital for Children in Baltimore. The paper warns of “inattentional blindness” when wearing headphones, meaning a distraction that lowers the resources the brain devotes to external stimuli.
MEXICO
Policemen to go on trial
Two police officers who took part in an armed crackdown on a student protest in the south last month will go on trial for killing two students, local prosecutors said on Monday. Both officers were filmed, in plain clothes, aiming guns at the protesters during the Dec. 12 protest in Guerrero State, in pictures that appeared in the media. The Guerrero State prosecutor will put the two state investigative officers on trial for the “suspected murder of the two students,” a statement said.
CANADA
Hutu’s deportation delayed
A Rwandan accused of helping to incite the 1994 genocide was denied bail on Monday while Ottawa considered a request to stay his deportation so the UN can probe a claim that he faces persecution at home. Leon Mugesera — who made an infamous speech in 1992 that is alleged to have played a major role in inciting the 1994 genocide in which radical ethnic Hutus killed as many as 800,000 Tutsis — was scheduled to be deported on Thursday last week. However, eleventh-hour appeals to two Canadian courts and the UN Committee Against Torture earned him a reprieve until Friday. An immigration tribunal on Monday denied his request to be released from custody while Ottawa considers the UN’s request to delay his extradition for six months, saying he posed a “flight risk.”
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
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