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.
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
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