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.
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,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the