CHINA
Former officials expelled
Two former officials from Wukan Village in Guangdong Province were expelled from the Communist Party over charges of corruption and rigged elections, Xinhua news agency reported. The expulsions follow a heated stand-off over land grabs last year in the coastal village, which emerged as a symbol of rural activism after authorities acted to defuse a flashpoint by allowing elections. Former Wukan Communist Party secretary Xue Chang (薛昌) and former village committee head Chen Shunyi (陳舜意) were expelled, Xinhua said on Monday. Xue was ordered to return illegal gains amounting to 189,200 yuan (US$30,000), while Chen must give back more than 86,000 yuan, Xinhua said, quoting Zeng Qinrong (曾慶榮), from the supervision department of southern Guangdong Province. Six other former village officials were also punished and Xinhua said more than 1.06 million yuan had been seized.
CHINA
Paracels tourism mulled
Hainan Province Vice Governor Tan Li (譚力) on Tuesday announced plans for the development of tourism in the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) that are occupied by China but claimed by Vietnam, as well as Taiwan. Such a plan could further raise tensions in the South China Sea. Six nations claim all or part of the area and its scattered island groups, of which the Paracels is one of the largest. A plan to open the Paracels to tourism was announced several years ago, but has been delayed by Beijing over concerns that it could heighten tensions with Vietnam. The nation’s assertiveness over territorial claims has prompted a strong backlash in recent years and since last year diplomats have worked to repair the damage. However, Hainan Province has continued to push for tourism development.
JAPAN
Galaxy cluster found
Japanese astronomers said yesterday they had found a cluster of galaxies 12.72 billion light-years away from Earth, which they said is the most distant ever discovered. Using a powerful telescope based in Hawaii, the team peered back through time to a point 1 billion years after the Big Bang. “This shows a galaxy cluster already existed in the early stages of the universe when it was still less than 1 billion years into its history of 13.7 billion years,” the team of astronomers said in a press release. The discovery was made jointly by researchers from the state-run Graduate University of Advanced Studies and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. The discovery is expected to help scientists understand the structure of the universe and how galaxies developed. The study is to be published in the Astrophysical Journal of the United States. Researchers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope previously announced the discovery of a possible cluster of galaxies about 13.1 billion light-years from Earth, but that has not yet been confirmed, the Japanese researchers said.
NEW ZEALAND
Elephant kills zookeeper
A zookeeper has been killed by an African elephant she was caring for. Police said in a brief statement that officers were called to the Franklin Zoo near Auckland yesterday afternoon following an incident. Police said they would not release further details until the woman’s next of kin had been informed. On its Web site, the zoo lists its sole elephant as Jumbo, also known as Mila. She arrived four years ago after retiring from a circus, and the zoo built a new enclosure for her in 2010.
UNITED KINGDOM
Disney opera planned
A new work by Philip Glass, based on a controversial book about Walt Disney, will have its UK premiere at the English National Opera (ENO) in June next year. The opera — Glass’ 24th — is based on Peter Stephan Jungk’s 2004 novel The Perfect American, a fictionalized account of the final years of Walt Disney’s life, described by Glass as “unimaginable, alarming and truly frightening.” The novel, narrated by a fictional Austrian cartoonist, who in the book worked for the animator, mixes fact and fantasy, including meetings with Andy Warhol and former US president Abraham Lincoln, to discover what are described as Disney’s delusions of immortality and private life. He is depicted as a racist, misogynist and anti-semite. While children over five are welcome at any ENO productions, artistic director John Berry has warned parents that they should expect a more “nightmarish” vision of the man and his creations. British baritone Christopher Purves, who won acclaim as a gleefully wicked Mephistopheles in Terry Gilliam’s The Damnation of Faust, is set to play Walt Disney.
RUSSIA
‘Berlusputin’ play snubbed
Theaters in Saint Petersburg have refused to stage a satirical play about Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Moscow theater responsible for its original production said on Tuesday. “In Saint Petersburg we’ve been prevented from staging the play on Vladimir Putin” entitled Berlusputin, a Russian adaptation of a work by Italian playwright Dario Fo called L’anomalo Bicefalo, Teatr.doc said on its Web site. The play imagines what might happen if half of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s brain was transplanted into the Russian strongman’s head after an accident. One of the theaters, the Gaza House of Culture, termed the play “an undesirable subject,” the ground-breaking Teatr.doc house said. “They don’t want to be associated with a political play,” Teatr.doc artistic director Mikhail Ugarov told Moscow Echo radio.
FRANCE
Man drives into station
A man drove his car down the steps of a Metro station in central Paris on Tuesday, mistaking the entrance for that of a parking garage. “There’s a sign saying ‘Haussmann Parking’ right in front [of the Metro entrance] and ... I made a mistake,” the distraught driver said, adding that the entrance is nearly level with the street. “Luckily, there was no one on the stairs,” said the 26-year-old, who gave his name only as Johan. No one was hurt and the car, a Dacia Duster, also escaped damage. As he was driving slowly, he managed to brake in time to stop the car, leaving the back wheels on street level. A crowd of rubber-neckers formed quickly to snap pictures of the car poised partway down the stairs. Police were quick to give Johan an alcohol test, which he passed.
EGYPT
Comedian’s jail term upheld
A court on Tuesday upheld a conviction against one of the Arab world’s most famous comedians, sentencing him to jail for offending Islam in some of his most popular films. The case against Adel Imam and others like it have raised concerns among some Egyptians that ultraconservative Muslims, who made gains in recent elections, are trying to foist their religious views on the entire country. Imam was sentenced to three months in jail and fined about US$170 for insulting Islam in roles he played in movies such as The Terrorist, in which he acted the role of a wanted terrorist who found refuge with a middle-class, moderate family.
UNITED STATES
Lincoln’s glasses on auction
The opera glasses then-president Abraham Lincoln held when he was fatally shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, are on the auction block. Lincoln carried the opera glasses to a showing of the play Our American Cousin when John Wilkes Booth burst into the president’s theater box and shot him in the head with a pistol at close range. According to Los Angeles-based Nate Sanders Auctions, the black and gold German-manufactured opera glasses were later found in the street by Army Captain James McCamly as he helped to carry Lincoln to the nearby Petersen House, where the president died hours later. “The glasses remained in McCamly’s family for three generations,” the auction house said in a press release. “In 1968, the Ford’s Theatre National Park Collection informed McCamly’s great-grandson that they housed the carrying case into which these glasses fit ‘precisely.’” In 1979, the opera glasses were purchased by Malcolm Forbes Sr, heir of Forbes magazine. They are expected to sell between US$500,000 and US$700,000, the auction house said. The opera glasses are being sold through an Internet auction that ends on Monday.
UNITED STATES
Cow ‘rolls thru’ McDonalds
What did the dairy cow order when she got to the drive-thru window at McDonalds? Nothing — she just wanted a little attention. That’s what Sandy Winn says was the reason her cow, Darcy, wandered from her pen on Friday and ended up at a takeout window of the fast-food restaurant 800m away in Brush, Colorado. Winn tells KUSA-TV that Darcy is a good cow until she’s bored — and then she goes looking for attention. Winn says she didn’t know Darcy had escaped until police called asking if the family owned a dairy cow. She says they told her it was “up at McDonalds,” so she fetched the cow and took her home. Brush police clerk Vivian Llewellyn joked on Tuesday that Darcy “didn’t get her burger.”
BOLIVIA
Injured councilor missing
Searchers are trying to rescue a La Asunta town councilor whose car crashed into a ravine as he was returning home from treatment for injuries he suffered in a bus accident on the same road. Local police said on Tuesday that so far they have not found Eloy Alvarez or a nine-year-old boy who was riding in his car. Both were swept away by the Boopi River on Sunday. The car’s driver died, but another passenger survived. Alvarez was injured in a bus crash on the same winding mountain road on Wednesday last week. Eighteen people died when the bus fell about 300m down a cliff.
UNITED STATES
‘Chinglish’ to hit big screen
Plans are in the works to bring playwright David Henry Hwang’s (黃哲倫) Chinglish to a movie screen. Filmmaker Justin Lin (林詣彬), who has directed several of the Fast and Furious movies, announced on Tuesday that he has acquired film rights to Hwang’s play about an East-meets-West collision. Chinglish tells the story of a businessman from Ohio who goes to China to expand his business, but struggles to be understood and falls in love with a Chinese woman. Hwang, who won a Tony Award as writer of M. Butterfly, will write the Chinglish screenplay and is set to co-produce the film with Bobbi Thompson. Lin, who has also directed the film Better Luck Tomorrow, will direct and co-produce.
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