AUSTRALIA
Bus boss hands out bonuses
A bus operator has stunned his employees by handing out A$15 million (US$16 million) in thank you bonuses, with workers saying yesterday they were overwhelmed by his generosity. Ken Grenda, 79, sold his family-run company after 66 years and decided to put a chunk of the profits into the pockets of his employees for their hard work and loyalty. Many of his 1,800 workers thought their banks had made an error when they discovered thousands of dollars in their accounts, the Herald Sun reported. They received an average A$8,500, although some got bonuses as high as A$100,000. Vernon Franklin, a driver at the company, said he was blown away by the gesture. “I was overwhelmed with the generosity of Mr Grenda,” he told Channel Nine. “I think we are losing a great man.”
CHINA
Wukan begins poll process
Villagers whose rebellion against local officials last year grabbed the headlines initiated a key process yesterday that will see them hold their first-ever open, democratic elections. Residents in Wukan, Guangdong Province, won rare concessions after they faced off with authorities for more than a week in December in a row over land and graft, including pledges to hold free village polls. China allows villagers across the country to vote for a committee to represent them, but Wukan residents said their leaders had never before allowed these polls to go ahead in an open fashion. However, yesterday they were due to openly select an independent election committee that would supervise their first democratic poll next month.
JAPAN
Defense official probed
The government said it is looking into whether a Defense Ministry official broke the law by urging his staff to vote in a mayoral election this month. Ro Manabe, director of the Okinawa Defense Bureau, last month called a meeting of employees about the election in Ginowan, the site of a US military base at the center of a dispute between local residents and the government, lawmaker Seiken Akamine said in parliament on Tuesday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said yesterday an investigation so far has found no indication that Manabe broke any laws.
MALAYSIA
Three facing death penalty
Two Germans and a Moroccan are facing the death penalty on charges of smuggling more than 10kg of methamphetamine. A district court near Kuala Lumpur International Airport charged the three men on Jan. 13 with drug trafficking, a customs official who declined to be named said. Airport officials arrested the men arriving from Istanbul on Jan. 1.
ZIMBABWE
Baboons looting trucks
Troops of bag-snatching, truck-looting baboons are causing chaos at a border post between Zimbabwe and Zambia in daily raids for food, NewsDay reported on Tuesday. “Baboons are an issue that must be dealt with here because they destroy travelers’ goods,” Zimbabwe Revenue Authority station manager Tichaona Phiri said. “Sometimes they bite or clap people on their faces if they try to defend their property, and they can snatch ladies’ handbags and even destroy cars as they search for food.” They also tear up sacks of maize on trucks moving through the border. “These baboons can smell maize on trucks and considering their huge numbers, it is very difficult to control them, but the problem is that they behave like human beings and are very good tricksters,” he said.
UNITED STATES
Birth control pills recalled
Pfizer Inc said on Tuesday it was recalling about 1 million packets of birth control pills in the US because they may not contain enough contraceptive to prevent pregnancy. Pfizer said the birth control pills posed no health threat to women, but it urged consumers affected by the recall to “begin using a non-hormonal form of contraception immediately.” The drugmaker said the issue involved 14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol tablets. It said an investigation had found that some blister packs of the oral contraceptive might contain an inexact count of inert or active ingredients in the tablets.
UNITED STATES
Muslims seek clemency
A US Muslim group has appealed to Iran’s top leader to show clemency for an ex-US military translator with dual citizenship condemned to death on accusations of being a CIA spy. A letter on Tuesday from the Council on American-Islamic Relations asks Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to spare the life of Amir Hekmati. The 28-year-old ex-Marine was born in Arizona and attended high school in Michigan. His Iran-born father is a professor at Mott Community College in Flint and says his son is not a spy. The council’s Michigan director Dawud Walid’s letter says his group hopes Hekmati receives “the same mercy and compassion” that Iran has shown other US citizens “charged with similar offenses.”
UNITED STATES
Protesters get staying orders
Eleven people who were arrested during the weekend’s turbulent Occupy Oakland protests have been ordered to stay away from the plaza outside Oakland City Hall that serves as the movement’s main staging area. Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said two judges granted her office’s request for the stay-away orders during the demonstrators’ arraignments on Tuesday. The four protesters facing felony charges were directed to keep away from both Frank Ogawa Plaza and the Oakland Convention Center, while the seven charged with misdemeanors may not go within 100m of the plaza.
MEXICO
Child rescued from school
Municipal police say a seven-year-old was locked inside a classroom by his teacher as punishment for supposed misbehavior and left alone for six hours until he was rescued by officers at about midnight. The boy was found under the teacher’s desk, covering himself with one of her sweaters for warmth. Police say the boy’s family started looking for him on Monday after he didn’t return home from school on time. One of the boy’s friends said he had been punished by the teacher, so police were eventually called to the school and found the boy. Education officials say the mother has filed a criminal complaint and the case is under investigation.
UNITED STATES
Volcano forms lava dome
The warning level for a remote Alaskan volcano has been raised after a new lava dome began forming. The dome indicates the mountain could explode and send up an ash cloud that could threaten aircraft. The Alaska Volcano Observatory on Tuesday elevated the alert status for Cleveland Volcano. The observatory says the dome was about 40m in diameter on Monday. Cleveland is a 1,730m peak on an uninhabited island 1,513km southwest of Anchorage.
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