JAPAN
Cash for islands flooding in
The Tokyo city government said yesterday members of the public had pledged almost ¥1 billion (US$12.5 million) to its drive to buy a group of uninhabited islands at the center of a row with China. About ¥864 million has already been sent to a bank account Tokyo’s metropolitan authorities opened less than a month ago to accept citizen donations, according to the city’s latest tally. Separately, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said he has had an offer of ¥100 million from an entrepreneur, although the money has not yet reached the city’s coffers. Ishihara reignited a long-simmering maritime territorial dispute last month when he vowed to buy a group of islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japan. The islands are also claimed by Taiwan, where they are known as the Diaoyutais (釣魚台). The uninhabited islands sit around 2,000km from Tokyo in rich fishing grounds that may harbor lucrative energy resources.
SOUTH KOREA
First chemical castration
South Korea plans to chemically castrate a sex offender convicted of repeated crimes against children, the country’s first use of the punishment, officials said yesterday. The 45-year-old man is to get an injection today that lowers testosterone-suppressing hormones and aims to inhibit sexual impulses, Justice Ministry officials said on condition of anonymity citing department rules. South Korea passed a law in 2010 allowing judges or a Justice Ministry panel the option of ordering chemical castration after a series of violent sexual assaults on children sparked public outrage. The man to be castrated this week was convicted four times between 1984 and 2002 of raping or sexually molesting girls under the ages of 13, the ministry said in a separate statement. A psychiatric test has concluded the man is a pedophile and needs medication, the officials said. He will be released from prison in July under the condition that he receive injections every three months for three years, according to the ministry.
CHINA
Beijing wages war on flies
Beijing’s public toilets must not exceed two flies, according to new standards imposed by zealous officials striving to clean up China’s notoriously filthy bathrooms. The unusual rule applies to lavatories in parks, railway stations, airports, hospitals, malls and supermarkets in the capital, the Beijing News said on Wednesday. More conventional demands from the municipal committee in charge of the image of the city include an order that there is no accumulation of urine or water in the capital’s public toilets and that bins are not overflowing. It is not clear if failing washrooms will be punished and if so, how.
INDIA
Child killer confesses
A man was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly raping and murdering a four-year-old girl whose body was thrown from a building in the western state of Goa, police said. A married 22-year-old laborer from eastern Bihar state was held after the body of the girl was found in a pit on a construction site on Tuesday, Police Inspector Santosh Desai said. The child, from Mumbai, was staying at her grandparents’ home when she went missing on Sunday. “He lured the girl with an offer of giving her a chocolate and took her to the building nearby,” Desai said. The accused confessed to killing the girl after raping her as he feared she would tell her grandparents, the policeman added.
RUSSIA
Medvedev meets cowboys
Just back from a trip to the US, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday encountered another US phenomenon: the cowboy. Medvedev met some US cattle wranglers in Bryansk, who were training Russians to develop the local beef industry. Medvedev was quick to tweet a picture of the unexpected meeting, introducing the snapshot of an American in a stable in a broad-brimmed black hat as a “Real Bryansk cowboy.” Medvedev chatted in English to two Americans dressed in boots, jeans and checkered shirts from Idaho and Oregon, the state RIA news agency reported. He patted their horses and asked about their progress with the Russian language. The cowboys joked that the first phrases they learned in Russian were those needed for herding cattle — “open the gate” and “close the gate.”
RUSSIA
Woman kicks man to death
An inebriated 22-year-old woman from Udmurtiya kicked a man to death on the eve of her wedding because he owed her money, investigators said on Wednesday. The woman, identified only as Yekaterina M, and her fiance were celebrating their upcoming marriage when a 45-year-old acquaintance called on the couple, regional investigators said. “The man owed the girl some money, but was in no hurry to pay her back,” they said in a statement. “A drunk Katya created a scene and began kicking the debtor right in front of her house,” said the statement, referring to the young woman by her diminutive name. “Her drunk fiance calmly watched the execution.” The man’s body was discovered the next morning. The couple went to the registry office to marry, but the bride was arrested at her wedding banquet.
ITALY
Size won’t matter soon
It won’t be size that matters anymore for soldiers and policeman, but their strength, according to a draft law soon to be adopted by parliament, the Corriere della Sera said on Wednesday. A pair of Sardinian MPs have asked the government to change the admission criteria for the security services. At present, male recruits have to be at least 165cm, while their female colleagues have to be 161cm or taller. “I’ve been receiving letters for ages from young people who complain they have had to give up on the dream of wearing the uniform for a matter of one or two centimeters,” lawmaker Salvatore Cicu said. Others are worried. “Smaller soldiers are all well for going to war against the Chinese, but what shame against the Russians and the Americans,” lawmaker Giacomo Chiappori said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Stuck bandits sentenced
Authorities said on Wednesday that three bandits were foiled when their attempt to pry open a stolen cash box ran up against a new security system that slathered the bills with glue. Baffour Amponsah, 25, Brian Ocaya, 28, and Daniel Collins, 28, were part of a gang that ambushed a cash delivery man working for security company G4S in London on Jan. 16 last year. The group stole his cash box, but ran into trouble when they retreated to a parking lot to open it. Gavin Windsor, a G4S director, said the company’s cash boxes had recently been fitted with a new security system that coats the bills with glue — along with dye and a colorless, traceable liquid known as “smart water” — if it is tampered with. Police said in a statement that the gang was spotted by a witness less than an hour after the robbery as they struggled with the glued-up bills. The three received sentences of four years to six years and 10 months in prison.
UNITED STATES
Fraudster to repay victims
A New York bride who faked having terminal cancer to swindle well-wishers into funding her dream wedding and honeymoon to the Caribbean was on Wednesday ordered to repay more than US$13,000 to her victims, prosecutors said. Jessica Vega, 25, pleaded guilty last month to fraud and forgery charges for deceiving people in the Hudson Valley area of New York into thinking she had only a few months to live, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said. Moved by her tale, individuals and businesses donated thousands of dollars to pay for her wedding in May 2010 and her honeymoon in Aruba. Her scheme unraveled after her husband, Michael O’Connell, contacted the Times Herald-Record in Orange County to say his bride had faked her illness. He was not charged, and the couple have since divorced, although the Times Herald-Record reported he was there to pick her up from jail on Wednesday. Besides repaying US$13,368 to her victims, Vega was sentenced to time already served in jail, 300 hours of community service and five years probation. She spent eight weeks in jail before her release on Wednesday.
UNITED STATES
Unabomber updates alumni
Harvard University alumni attending their 50th class reunion this week are getting updates on classmates — including Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Kaczynski graduated in 1962 and is locked up in the federal Supermax prison in Colorado for killing three people and injuring 23 during a nationwide bombing spree between 1978 and 1995. In an alumni directory, he lists his occupation as “prisoner” and says his awards are “Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998.” Harvard’s alumni association said all class members, including Kaczynski, were invited to submit entries for the class report, distributed for reunion activities during commencement week, but it said it regrets including his references to his convictions.
UNITED STATES
Man stabs two at TV station
A man wielding a knife has broken into a Kansas TV station and stabbed two sales employees. WIBW-TV reported the suspect got into the station on Wednesday morning. He was eventually tackled and held down by several employees until police arrived. The suspect and the two men he is accused of stabbing were taken to a hospital for treatment. None of their injuries were considered serious. The station reported the man spoke to the news director on a lobby telephone, saying the Department of Veterans Affairs was mishandling his case. After the news director said that the man needed to discuss the issue with the department, the man threw a lamp through the glass front doors. The station said the man then ran through the halls as employees fled.
PERU
Bats give children rabies
Seven children have died from rabies in the country over the past two months after being bitten by bats, an official said on Wednesday. The children, aged 11 months to 14, hailed from a remote region about 1,160km southeast of the capital, Lima, Health Ministry official Ana Maria Navarro said. “According to the symptoms and medical reports, it appears the seven indigenous children died of rabies,” she said. To prevent further fatalities, vaccination teams have been rushed to the affected Camana community of 720 people, which can only be reached by river.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in