CHINA
Forced abortion settled
The family of a woman forced to undergo an abortion because she ran afoul of the state’s one child policy has accepted a cash settlement from the government. Feng Jianmei’s (馮建梅) husband, Deng Jiyuan (鄧吉元), yesterday said the family accepted the settlement of 70,600 yuan (US$11,200) because they wanted to return to a normal life. Feng was forced to abort her fetus seven months into her pregnancy because she did not have 40,000 yuan to pay the fine for having a second child. “We are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the sum,” said Deng, from Shaanxi Province. “It has never been about the money. As ordinary people, we can no longer take the pressure from all sides of the society.”
SWITZERLAND
Migrants die of thirst
Fifty-four migrants trying to reach Italy died of thirst when their inflatable boat ruptured in the Mediterranean, according to testimony from the sole survivor, the UN refugee agency said. The rescued man, who drank sea water to survive, was spotted clinging to a jerry can and the remains of the stricken boat off the Tunisian coast on Monday night by fishermen who alerted the coast guard, the UNHCR said. In his account of the 15-day ordeal, the man from Eritrea said 55 people boarded the boat in Tripoli, late last month and reached the Italian coast a day later. However, high winds forced the vessel back out to sea and within a few days the boat had punctured and air started to leak out, he said. The man is being treated in a Tunisian hospital for exposure and dehydration.
JAPAN
Newborn panda dies
A giant panda born at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo last week died of pneumonia yesterday morning. A zookeeper said it found the six-day-old panda lying belly up, without breathing, on its seven-year-old mother’s chest. The male baby, which hadn’t been named yet, died an hour later despite heart massage. It was the first panda born at the zoo since 1988 and was conceived naturally.
JAPAN
Runaway penguin named
A penguin whose escape from an aquarium gained him a following around the world has been formally named after months of being known just by his number. Previously called Humboldt penguin No. 337, the feisty runaway would be named Sazanami, which means “small waves” in Japanese, Tokyo Sea Life Park said on its Web site. “The penguin came back to the aquarium just as waves ebb and flow, which was another reason for the name,” the aquarium said in a statement on Tuesday.
UNITED STATES
Court suicide theory aired
Investigators who believe a defendant killed himself in a Phoenix courtroom shortly after a jury found him guilty of arson say their theory is backed up by evidence that includes a canister labeled as cyanide found in his vehicle. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said on Tuesday that the family of Michael Marin, 53, received a delayed e-mail from him the night after his June 28 death in court, which included information about his will in case things went poorly, Arpaio said. After being convicted of deliberately burning down his US$3.5 million Phoenix mansion, Marin collapsed in court and died. Video from inside the courtroom showed him putting his hands over his eyes after the guilty verdict was read and then covering his mouth with both hands.
UNITED STATES
Climber dies on mountain
The body of a Canadian climber has been recovered from a southwest Colorado mountain after he fell to his death in a rain and hail storm. The La Plata County Sheriff’s Department said a helicopter crew retrieved the body of 45-year-old Martin Pigeon of Quebec on Tuesday. Authorities say Pigeon fell about 70m on the 4,292m Windom Peak on Sunday. He and his climbing partner, Marcoux Yves, also from Quebec, were descending the mountain, but became separated in the storm at about 4pm. When Yves reached their camp, Pigeon was not there. Yves found Pigeon’s body at the base of a cliff at about 8:30pm.
SPAIN
Pig-sticking plan draws ire
Pig-sticking looks set for a comeback thanks to authorities in the Spanish region of Castilla La Mancha, south of Madrid, who are expected to make it legal in the region’s plentiful private hunting estates. The measure has provoked the ire of local environmentalists, who accuse the authorities of turning the clock back to the Middle Ages, when pig-sticking was common in several parts of Europe. The man pushing the new law is Enrique del Aguila, who runs a private hunting estate near Villtobas and describes himself as the Major Lancer of the Pigsticking International Club. He said British visitors to his estate had already taken part in pig-sticking hunts with lances.
UNITED STATES
Colorado wildfire contained
The most destructive wildfire in Colorado history has been fully contained less than three weeks after it broke out. According to a statement from the federal incident management team, the 75 square kilometer Waldo Canyon Fire was completely encircled by containment lines on Tuesday. Officials said residents might still see smoke over the next few days as areas inside the perimeter of the fire continue to burn. The fire killed two people and destroyed nearly 350 houses when it burned into northwest Colorado Springs. The cause is still under investigation.
GUATEMALA
Ogling lawmakers slammed
Demonstrators on Tuesday called for the resignation of two Guatemalan lawmakers photographed at their desks gawking at cellphone images of bikini-clad girls. Instead of sizing up the merits of a bill, Jose Gandara, 67, and Carlos Rafael Fion, 59, were snapped on Thursday ogling models in swimwear. By Tuesday, a few dozen masked and mostly young protesters were calling for them to step down. For the offenders, the issue was overblown. “If I have offended anyone, I publicly apologize, but I have not done anything wrong,” Gandara told reporters.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.