JAPAN
Man barbecued and curried
Three men who barbecued and curried the remains of their victim were being held by authorities, police and reports said yesterday. The trio used a hammer to dismember Kazuyuki Kobayashi, before grilling parts of his body and getting rid of it in a rural part of the country, a police spokesman said. Broadcaster TV Asahi said two of the men had confessed to killing Kobayashi and stewing some of his flesh in a curry, in an effort to hide the smell. Tasuku Shimaoka, 34, Keita Yoshida, 30, and Koji Kawamura, 40, were arrested last week on charges of dismembering Kobayashi, who had been missing for around three years, the police spokesman said. It is common for police to arrest suspects on lesser charges initially in order to extend the time they are allowed to keep them in custody. Media reported Kobayashi’s body had been stored in a warehouse refrigerator in Tokyo before being taken to Niigata. Local reports said there was some kind of money trouble among the men.
UNITED STATES
Kissinger slams candidates
Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger is sharply criticizing both US presidential candidates for appealing to US suspicions of China in their campaigns. Kissinger said on Wednesday the candidates have used “extremely deplorable” language, labeling China a cheat. Last week both campaigns issued ads promising to get tough over alleged Chinese trade violations often blamed for major US job losses. Kissinger was the architect of US re-engagement with Beijing 40 years ago. He still advocates better relations between the superpowers. Kissinger has endorsed Mitt Romney, but made clear on Wednesday he opposed the candidate’s promise to designate China a currency manipulator, saying virtually all China experts oppose it.
INDONESIA
Rare tiger dies in transport
A rare Sumatran tiger has died after his transport to an Indonesian park was aborted and he was put on a second flight because plane passengers complained about the smell, an official said. The eight-year-old big cat was being sent with other animals on a commercial flight on Tuesday from Banda Aceh in the northern tip of Sumatra island to a conservation center on Java island. However, during a scheduled stopover in Medan, Sumatra, the national carrier Garuda Indonesia decided to unload the animals and fly them back to Banda Aceh, citing passengers’ complaints about unpleasant odors, provincial conservation agency chief Afan Absory said yesterday.
SUDAN
UN calls for deaths probe
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Wednesday for Sudan to conduct a full investigation into an attack that killed four peacekeepers in Darfur, his spokesman said. Martin Nesirky said Ban was “appalled and deeply saddened” by the ambush on Tuesday of a patrol by UN-African Union peacekeepers in El Geneina, West Darfur. Four Nigerian peacekeepers were killed and eight others were wounded. The peacekeeping force, which numbers 23,500, has been deployed in Darfur since 2007 in an attempt to end hostilities between rebels and the Sudanese government. Later on Wednesday, the 15-member UN Security Council also condemned the ambush. It called on the government of Sudan to “swiftly investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice,” while reiterating its support for the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur.
UNITED KINGDOM
Scot and his dialect die
In a remote fishing town on the tip of Scotland’s Black Isle, the last native speaker of the Cromarty dialect has died, taking with him another little piece of the English linguistic mosaic. Scottish academics said on Wednesday that Bobby Hogg, who passed away last week at age 92, was the last person fluent in the dialect once common in the seaside town of Cromarty, about 280km north of Scottish capital Edinburgh. The Biblically influenced speech — complete with “thee” and “thou” — is one of many fading dialects which have been snuffed out across the British Isles.
CANADA
Police seize stolen syrup
Police have seized more than 600 barrels of maple syrup in New Brunswick as part of an investigation into the theft of millions worth of syrup in Quebec and are transporting it back to Quebec under police protection, officials said. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers reported large quantities of syrup missing last month during a routine inventory, finding empty barrels at a site of the province’s global strategic reserve at St-Louis-de-Blandford. Quebec provincial police sergeant Christine Coulombe said on Wednesday police executed a search warrant in Kedjwick, New Brunswick, last week, but could not provide more information as the investigation was ongoing. The shipment of the pancake-topper was making its way back to Quebec in a heavily guarded convoy of 16 trailer-loads on Wednesday. Quebec is a maple syrup superpower, producing 80 percent of the world’s maple syrup and the warehouse involved stocked more than US$30 million worth of the sticky substance.
UNITED STATES
Iran ordered to pay for 9/11
A judge formally ordered Iran, al-Qaeda and several other defendants on Wednesday to pay US$6 billion compensation to the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, in a largely symbolic ruling. Although Iran denies any connection to 9/11, it was included in the list of alleged culprits by the US District Court in New York, along with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Afghanistan’s Taliban guerrillas and al-Qaeda, which took credit for the massive terror attack. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is also named. However, the money, awarded for economic, personal and punitive damages for a total of US$6,048,513,805, is unlikely to be recovered. Iran is in a tense standoff with the US over multiple issues, especially its nuclear industry and alleged plan to build an atomic weapon. Iranian-backed Hezbollah has no relations with the US.
CYPRUS
President: no bailout
The president says he will no heed calls by the country’s potential creditors to privatize profitable state-owned enterprises that provide a steady source of revenue for the government. President Dimitris Christofias told Greece’s state TV channel NET on Wednesday that he would neither sign a bailout agreement with the so-called troika — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF — that would altogether scrap end-of-year bonus salaries and inflation-based pay rises because that would “paralyze” the domestic consumer market. Christofias said that his left-wing government has readied counterproposals that will achieve the level of spending cuts that the troika wants to see. The eurozone country sought financial aid in June to prop up its Greece-exposed banks.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the