CHINA
Dust shrouds Lhasa
The country’s pollution reached new heights yesterday as the Tibetan capital of Lhasa was shrouded in a cloud of dust that halted flights and rendered one of its most-recognizable landmarks nearly invisible. Lhasa, which at 3,700m above sea level is one of the highest cities in the world, was named by the Ministry of Environmental Protection last month as one of 10 cities with the country’s best air quality. However, yesterday the picturesque city was enveloped in a thick cloud of pollution that the Hong Kong-based ifeng.com news Web site said was caused by dust that had blown in from north of the Tibetan Plateau. Visibility in some areas was reduced to 5km, flights were grounded and the city’s air quality index exceeded 500, the highest level, the report said. Photos posted online by ifeng.com showed the world-famous Potala Palace, a sprawling Buddhist complex and UNESCO World Heritage Site that previously served as the winter palace of the Dalai Lama, nearly invisible from a few kilometers away.
AUSTRALIA
Woman finds semen in water
A woman is suing a deli after drinking bottled water that allegedly contained semen, lawyers said yesterday, with claims that DNA showed it matched the owner of the business. Alicia Cooper has filed a writ of summons in the District Court of Western Australia against the owner, who no longer runs the business, according to media reports that were confirmed by Slater and Gordon, the legal firm representing Cooper. Among its accusations the writ states the owner knowingly placed the sperm in the bottled water and allowed its sale. “Instantly I knew something was not right, I just knew,” Cooper, who is seeking damages and medical expenses for the stress and depression suffered from drinking the water, told Fairfax Media. After Cooper lodged a complaint about the water with the health department in the city of Stirling, a sample was collected for testing and the results revealed it contained spermatozoa, the Fairfax report said. A DNA sample was taken from the owner and testing confirmed his sample was a profile match for the sperm in the water.
JAPAN
Body found at US base
A human body decomposed “beyond recognition” has been found at a US military camp on the island of Okinawa, military and police officials said yesterday. The corpse was discovered on Wednesday inside a former housing area at Camp Foster, but the identity of the person, including their gender and approximate date of death, were unknown, a spokeswoman for the base said. The US Naval Criminal Investigative Service is leading a probe into the case, she added. The body was badly decomposed, but was presumed to be that of an adult, an official at Okinawa prefectural police headquarters said. It was found by Japanese workers contracted to dismantle buildings and survey the grounds in the housing area.
SOUTH SUDAN
UN choppers to evacuate staff
The UN sent four helicopters to evacuate staff from one of its bases in the country’s Jonglei State where three UN peacekeepers were killed on Thursday in violence gripping the world’s newest nation. Fighting has spread since the attack on Sunday last week outside an army barracks in the capital, Juba, with the violence leaving as many as 500 people dead, while at least 20,000 have sought shelter at UN compounds, according to the government and UN. The government lost control of Bor, the capital of Jonglei State, on Wednesday to a group linked to former vice president Riek Machar, who is being hunted by security forces for staging a failed coup this week. Machar denies that accusation. The violence has heightened ethnic tensions, with Machar’s Nuer group pitted against the Dinka people of President Salva Kiir.
UNITED STATES
Crack prison sentences cut
President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentences of eight people convicted of crack cocaine offenses on Thursday, saying they were punished under an unfair legal disparity that overwhelmingly hurt impoverished black communities. All of the inmates had been imprisoned for at least 15 years, including six who were sentenced to life behind bars. Most will be released by April 17. The prisoners would likely have received lighter jail terms if they had been sentenced under a law Obama signed three years ago that reduced sentencing disparities that once treated crack cocaine offenses more harshly than powder cocaine ones. Obama said the six men and two women were jailed under an “unfair system” in which someone arrested with one gram of crack cocaine received the same sentencing as someone arrested with 100 grams of powdered cocaine, a ratio that was mitigated by the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act.
GERMANY
Stolen cars have Tajik link
Officials say stolen cars may have ended up with people close to the family of the Tajik president. Berlin regional justice minister Thomas Heilmann’s office confirmed a report on Thursday by daily Bild that he alerted the Foreign Ministry to the issue in May after Tajikistan ignored requests for legal assistance. Heilmann wrote that some cars are in the hands of “people with business and family ties to the Tajik president’s family.” The Foreign Ministry said there had been talks with Tajikistan on fighting organized crime, but would not Bild’s report that the Tajik ambassador was summoned.
JAPAN
Second man gunned down
Police said the head of a fishermen’s union was shot dead yesterday, the second fatal shooting in as many days in a nation unaccustomed to gun crime. Tadayoshi Ueno, 70, was found lying in the street in the southern city of Kitakyushu after residents nearby heard what was believed to be the sound of gunfire. Police said he was confirmed dead at hospital, with reports suggesting he had been shot multiple times. Ueno, whose family runs a civil engineering company, was previously fired at in front of his house in 1997, but escaped unhurt, Jiji Press news agency said. However, his brother was shot dead the following year, a crime for which mobsters were arrested, with investigators saying they had targeted him because he refused to give favors in public works projects, Jiji said. Yesterday’s shooting came the day after the president of a well-known dumpling restaurant chain was shot dead in Kyoto.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of