SOUTH AFRICA
Rhino regains vision
An orphaned rhinoceros blinded by poachers who hit it on the head in the same attack that killed its mother has regained its vision after cataract surgery, its owners said on Monday. Roccy the rhino underwent the surgery on Jan. 3 in the University of Pretoria’s veterinary hospital and has now returned to his native Elandela game reserve in the country’s northeast. “His character has changed. He’s now less dependent on humans,” owner Rocco Gioia said. “He’s now more and more acting like a rhino.” After the attack by poachers in June, the reserve’s owners created a foundation to save Roccy, then three months old. They also acquired Clova, a young female rhino that was also orphaned by poachers. Roccy has been spending much of his time with her since regaining his sight, Gioia said.
BRAZIL
Bathers attacked by piranhas
Carnivorous fish attacked bathers in a river in the south, leaving about 20 of them with bite wounds on their hands and feet, a news Web site said on Monday, citing lifeguards. The unusual attack occurred on Sunday when a school of palometas, a species of piranha, surprised hundreds of tourists bathing at a beach in Toropi, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Lifeguards told the G1 Web site that 20 of the bathers suffered cuts on their hands and feet, and that they were treated at the scene. Firefighters said low water levels in the river, resulting in scarce food sources, may have prompted the feeding frenzy.
FRANCE
Paris hotels post boom year
The number of nights spent in Paris hotels hit a record last year, the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau said on Monday, with a big jump in visits from China. In total, visitors spent 36.9 million nights in the City of Light last year, a 3.1 percent increase from 2010. Business visitors and tourists from new markets contributed significantly to the success, the office said. Average occupancy rates in Paris reached 79.5 percent, up 2.3 percent from 2010, and average income per room, a key industry benchmark, rose 10.3 percent, it said. French visitors accounted for 37 percent of hotel nights last year, but the bureau forecast that visits from nationals would drop this year because of the poor economic outlook. International visitors were mostly from the US (3.6 million nights), the UK (2.4 million) and Italy (1.8 million). Nights spent in Parisian hotels last year by Chinese visitors jumped by 21.6 percent to 407,000.
AFGHANISTAN
Destroyed Korans protested
About 200 people demonstrated outside the main US military base yesterday after a report that foreign troops had improperly disposed of a large number of Korans and other religious materials. General John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, offered his “sincere apologies” for the actions in an apparent bid to prevent anti-Western anger from spreading across Afghanistan. “When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities,” he said. “This was not intentional in any way.” The protests, which authorities described as largely peaceful, took place outside Bagram airfield, an hour’s drive north of the capital, Kabul. It also houses a prison for Afghans detained by US forces. The center has sewn resentment among Afghans because of reports of torture and ill-treatment of suspected Taliban prisoners.
JAPAN
Rotting corpses found
The bodies of an elderly couple and their son have been found in an apartment in Saitama City about two months after their deaths, police said yesterday, amid reports they died of starvation. “[The] bodies of two men and one woman were found” in the apartment north of Tokyo late on Monday, a local police official said. “They are believed to be a couple in their 60s and their son in his 30s, but we are yet to identify them officially,” he said. Their rotting corpses were reportedly found by their landlord when he visited them because they were six months behind on their rent. The electricity and gas supply had been cut off and they were believed to have been living only on water, the private TBS broadcaster said. There was no food in the apartment and police found only a few yen there, TBS added.
INDIA
Report decries rail deaths
Almost 15,000 people are killed every year crossing the nation’s rail tracks in what a government report has described as an annual “massacre” due to poor safety standards. Pedestrians guilty of “unlawful trespassing” walk across the tracks at many unofficial crossing points, the report said, adding that about 6,000 of the deaths occur in the congested and frenetic city of Mumbai alone. “No civilized society can accept such massacre on their railway system,” the report said, adding that efforts to improve safety needed to be put on a “war footing” to tackle the death toll. The fatalities equate to 41 people a day on the country’s rail network, which carries 18 million people daily and is still the main form of long-distance travel.
SINGAPORE
Bowler caught in ‘dog kill’
A former world champion 10-pin bowler has been engulfed in an online furor over reports he knocked down a dog with his Porsche and failed to help the animal, which later died. Photos of the pregnant dog lying on the street after it was struck in the hit-and-run incident on Sunday received widespread attention. The Porsche Boxster’s license plate — apparently dislodged from the impact — was left on the road next the animal. Media reports and an animal rights group identified the driver as Singapore national bowler Remy Ong (王雷明), 33, who won the singles title at the World Championships in South Korea in 2006. Reports said that Ong, a dog owner himself, had admitted hitting the stray and apologized. The online criticism centered on Ong not stopping to help the injured dog. “Its not just about killing the dog, it’s also about him failing to stop and render assistance when the accident happened,” Tan Chee Kheong wrote on broadcaster Channel NewsAsia’s Facebook page. “It’s not just about compassion, it’s also about moral[ity] and responsibility.”
JAPAN
Reactor shutting down
The government on Monday began a process that would see another nuclear reactor go offline, leaving just two of 54 in operation. Kansai Electric Power Co (KEPCO), the largest utility firm after Tokyo Electric Power Co, began lowering power generation in unit No. 3 at the Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, a KEPCO spokeswoman said. Power companies, including KEPCO, which provides electricity to the major western cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, have not been able to resume reactors after inspection due to the safety concerns of local residents in the wake of last year’s meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant following an earthquake and tsunami.
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