CHINA
Zookeeper killed by tiger
A zookeeper was killed by a tiger while cleaning out his cage, officials from Shanghai Zoo said on Wednesday. The nine-year-old tiger mauled the man to death, a message on the zoo’s official microblogging page on Sina Weibo said. The Shanghai Daily said the victim was a 57-year-old man surnamed Zhou, who had been due to retire from the zoo in three years. The man was mauled by the tiger before it had been fed, it added, but quoted a zoo official ruling out hunger being a motive behind the attack. “It is not likely the tiger killed Zhou because of hunger, as tigers in the zoo are fed once every day except Friday to train tigers’ ability to hunt food by imitating the wild environment,” said Tu Rongxiu (涂榮秀), director of the feeding division of the zoo. Zhou had taken care of the tiger for three to four years, the newspaper said, citing Tu.
JAPAN
Dumpling chain boss killed
The boss of a well-known dumpling restaurant chain was shot dead yesterday in Kyoto, a hotbed of the country’s yakuza mobsters, the company and media said. Takayuki Ohigashi, 72, was found bleeding and unconscious in a parking lot in front of the company’s headquarters in Kyoto at about 7am, the Ohsho Food Service company said. He was later confirmed dead at hospital, a spokesman for the company said. “Police will soon set up a special investigative team as we believe it is a murder case,” a local police officer said. Ohigashi was president of the Gyoza no Ohsho “King of Dumplings” chain, operating more than 650 restaurants throughout Japan, as well as a handful abroad. “He is not the type of person who would make enemies or incur resentment from people,” company spokesman Koji Uchida said. “He would come to work early and clean the entrance of the headquarters building himself every morning.”
FRANCE
Man jailed for porn e-mails
A man has been sent to jail and fined for e-mailing pornographic photos of his former girlfriend to her workmates and friends, the woman’s lawyer said on Wednesday. The 53-year-old man, not named in order to protect the woman’s identity, sent out the racy images he had collected of her over the course of their two-decade relationship early last year when she broke up with him, lawyer Arnaud Dupin said. After failing to turn up at the Bordeaux court hearing earlier this month, the man was on Tuesday convicted and sentenced to four months behind bars and another six months suspended for violating the woman’s privacy and for harassment. He was also fined 13,000 euros (US$17,800) for money he had taken from a joint bank account and another 10,000 euros in damages. The woman had attempted suicide, the lawyer said, and only discovered the pictures of her sent to her work colleagues, employers and friends when she was discharged from hospital.
FRANCE
Cube with a view to open
It is not one for people with a fear of heights: A French tourism company has suspended a glass cube with a see-through bottom from a peak in the Alps, offering a breathtaking view a kilometer down. Billed as the tallest attraction in Europe, the structure was three years in the making. It includes five transparent sides made of three layers of tempered glass fixed with metal to a big support structure. Tourists get a stunning view from the Aiguille du Midi mountain of the landscape. “Step into the Void” opens to the public tomorrow.
SPAIN
Baby born on aircraft
A passenger went into labor during a Wizz Air flight from Valencia in Spain to Bucharest and gave birth to a boy inside the aircraft just after it landed in the Romanian capital, the airline said on Wednesday. The woman requested assistance from the crew minutes before it was due to land on Tuesday at Bucharest’s Otopeni airport, the airline said in a statement. “During descent and while taxiing to the terminal, the passenger was assisted on a back row of the aircraft by a crew member and a doctor who was traveling on the same flight,” it said. “Mother and newborn baby were met by the airport ambulance and taken to hospital. We are very proud of our crew who handled the situation with professionalism and care.” Passengers must produce a certificate from a doctor if they are traveling after their 28th week of pregnancy, and cannot travel after their 34th week of pregnancy, the airline said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Druids upset over display
Several dozen modern-day Druids protested at Stonehenge on Wednesday, calling for the reburial of Neolithic remains displayed in an exhibition about the ancient stone circle. King Arthur Pendragon, head of a group called the Loyal Arthurian Warband, compared the display of the bones to a Victorian peep show. A new exhibition center at Stonehenge is intended to give visitors more background on the monument. It was built for a purpose that remains unclear to experts. English Heritage, which oversees Stonehenge, said it had considered using replica bones, but “authenticity is important to tell England’s story.”
UNITED STATES
Agent charged with bribery
A navy investigator faces up to 20 years in prison after admitting sharing secrets with the target of a probe in exchange for prostitutes, cash and luxury travel. John Bertrand Beliveau Jr, 44, a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), pleaded guilty on Tuesday to participating in a massive international fraud and bribery scheme. He admitted regularly searching NCIS databases for details of probes into Malaysian businessman Leonard Glenn Francis to help him dodge investigators. “Instead of doing his job, John Beliveau was leaking confidential details of investigations to the target,” attorney for southern California Laura Duffy said after the plea hearing in San Diego. “This is an audacious violation of law for a decorated federal agent who valued personal pleasure over loyalty to his colleagues, the US Navy and ultimately his own country.” He faces up to five years for conspiracy to commit bribery, and 15 years for bribery, according to Duffy’s office. A sentencing hearing is due on March 7.
UNITED STATES
Postman catches twins
Two 11-month-old brothers are safe after being tossed from the third floor of a burning building into the arms of a New York City postman. Jermaine Shirley caught the twins one at a time. They were not hurt. The Daily News says Shirley was heading to work on Wednesday morning when he smelled smoke in his building in the Bronx Borough. He says he alerted his neighbors and then went outside and heard a neighbor calling for help from a third-floor apartment. He told the newspaper he ran to the back of the building and saw the neighbor on the fire escape with his twins. He told him to drop the babies down to him. The rest of the family made it down the fire escape.
‘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
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
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