JAPAN
Pesticide sickens hundreds
More than 300 people across the nation have fallen ill after eating frozen food products contaminated with pesticide, the Asahi Shimbun and other local media said yesterday. Consumers have reported vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms of food poisoning after eating food produced at a plant run by a subsidiary of the nation’s largest seafood firm, Maruha Nichiro Holdings. The company said last month that some of its frozen food products were tainted with malathion, an agricultural chemical often used to kill aphid in corn and rice fields. The Asahi said the number of people who fell sick “exceeded 300,” while national broadcaster NHK said on Monday that it had counted 359. Maruha Nichiro said the products had not been shipped overseas.
UNITED STATES
Consulate fire arrest made
A Chinese-born man has been arrested over an arson attack on China’s consulate in San Francisco, officials said on Monday. Yan Feng, 39, surrendered to police on Friday and has been charged with criminal offenses, including causing damage to a diplomatic mission, the FBI said. Yan, who is a permanent US resident, told FBI agents that he was driven not by politics, but by “voices he had been hearing,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He called police two days after the New Year’s Day blaze, and said via an interpreter that he had “made the fire,” it said.
CHINA
Smog warning issued
The government warned people in north and central parts of the country to stay indoors yesterday as heavy smog blanketed the region. The level of PM2.5 — fine air particulates that pose the greatest health risk — was as much as 539 micrograms per cubic meter at 11am in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, data from the China National Environmental Monitoring Center showed. That level of smog, the highest on a government scale from one to six, triggers warnings for people to avoid outdoor activities. Levels of PM2.5 hit 612 in Jinan and 332 in Wuhan yesterday, according to the government.
TURKEY
Police removed from posts
About 350 police officers were removed from their posts in Ankara overnight, CNN Turk reported yesterday, in the biggest single reported police shakeup since a corruption probe rocked the government last month. Hundreds of police have been dismissed or reassigned across the country since Dec. 17. About 250 people, mostly from outside Ankara, have been appointed in place of the reassigned officers, who will take up duties in traffic police departments and district police stations.
AUSTRALIA
Asylum seekers rebuffed
The government last month turned a boat carrying asylum seekers back to Indonesia, the first time Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government has implemented a new immigration policy. The 47 asylum seekers were found on Dec. 19 on Rote Island in East Nusa Tenggara Province, where their boat had run aground after being intercepted and turned back by the Australian navy, Indonesia’s Antara news agency quoted police as saying. “I will not comment on a specific incident... But on the policy itself, let me once again put on record that Indonesia rejects Australia’s policy to turn back the boats because such a policy is not actually conducive to a comprehensive solution,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa yesterday told reporters in Jakarta.
UNITED KINGDOM
UUP rejects proposals
Northern Ireland unionists on Monday rejected proposals drawn up by former US diplomat Richard Haass to resolve volatile issues that threaten the peace process, calling them “not viable or acceptable.” Mike Nesbitt, leader of the pro-British Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), on Monday said he had dismissed Haass’ plans after a meeting of the party’s 100-strong ruling executive. Nesbitt called on Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy Martin McGuinness — the unionist and republican at the head of the province’s power-sharing government — to “clear up the obvious mess created by this process.” He said the proposals were “not viable and not acceptable,” but that “neither was the ‘status quo.’”
FRANCE
Money for rapist’s namesake
A Guinea-born man who was wrongly jailed for five months because he had the same name as a convicted child rapist was awarded 45,000 euros (US$61,000) in damages by a court on Monday, his lawyer said. Mohammed Camara not only bore the same name and surname as the rapist, but was born in the same city as him — Guinea’s capital, Conakry — and in the same year, his lawyer Frederic Berna said. Camara was arrested in July 2001 in Brussels following an international arrest warrant for a convicted child rapist who had been sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison. He spent three months behind bars in Brussels and two more months in France after being extradited. He was released on Dec. 31, 2001, after the victims and the convicted rapist’s family said they did not recognize him.
UNITED STATES
Racist toddler-slapper jailed
A man who pleaded guilty to slapping a crying toddler on a flight has been sentenced to eight months in federal prison. Joe Rickey Hundley was sentenced on Monday. He pleaded guilty in October last year after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors. Prosecutors say Hundley used a racial slur to refer to the 19-month-old boy, who is black, and hit him under the eye as the flight descended to the Atlanta airport in February last year. Prosecutors had recommended six months in prison. The judge said he imposed a higher sentence in part because of Hundley’s criminal history, which includes a prior assault.
UNITED STATES
Early humans had bad teeth
Eating nuts and acorns may have helped hunter-gatherers survive 15,000 years ago in northern Africa, but the practice wreaked havoc on their teeth, researchers said on Monday. Fermented carbohydrates in the nuts caused cavities, tooth decay and bad breath, said the study led by British scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings are based on dozens of hole-riddled dental remains of 52 adults found in Morocco’s Taforalt Cave in the 1950s and in more recent excavations that began in 2003.
ARGENTINA
Cocaine cake ‘joke’ backfires
Carrefour Argentina scrambled to reassure customers on Monday after a delicacy from a cake supplier listed “12 grams of cocaine” as an ingredient. The French supermarket chain, which has more than 500 stores across Argentina, said it regretted what it called a “joke in bad taste,” apparently made by a worker at the supplier. Many people joked online that after neighboring Uruguay legalized marijuana, “for Carrefour, cocaine is legal,” as social media user Lilia tweeted.
‘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