INDIA
Hotel, valet blamed in crash
A valet at a five-star hotel in New Dehli caused US$335,000 worth of damage to a Lamborghini Gallardo after crashing it into a concrete wall in front of horrified guests, a newspaper reported yesterday. A photograph published in the Times of India showed the severely crumpled front end of the white supercar with its hood forced up. “The car had been parked by valets a number of times before,” driver Nipun Miglani told the paper, saying he had borrowed the car from a friend and driven to Le Meridien hotel on Thursday last week. He has filed a police case against the hotel and the valet. CCTV footage shows the valet bringing the car from the parking area to the front of the hotel, briefly getting out and then climbing behind the wheel again. The car then lurches forward, sending another valet diving for cover before piling head-on into the wall.
JAPAN
Story labeled ‘misreporting’
The government yesterday denied as “sheer misreporting” a front-page newspaper story that North Korea had provided a list of about 30 Japanese survivors living there, including known victims of state-sponsored kidnapping. The Nikkei Shimbun said the North produced the list at a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday last week to discuss plans to resume investigations into the fate of Japanese citizens abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. “I’m aware of the report, but nothing like that happened during the meeting or during a recess,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference. “It’s sheer misreporting.” The Nikkei, citing sources, said Tokyo had matched about two-thirds of the names on the list with domestic records of missing people.
MACAU
Beijing brushes off poll plan
China has dismissed as meaningless a proposed referendum on democracy in the territory similar to the one held recently in Hong Kong. “An administrative region has no authority to establish a system of referendum or organize any activity relating to a referendum,” China’s Liaison Office, which oversees affairs in the territory, said in a statement posted on local media Web sites on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Ryuichi Sakamoto ill
Composer and anti-nuclear activist Ryuichi Sakamoto, 62, has been diagnosed with throat cancer, his record company said yesterday. He shot to fame in the late 1970s with the techno-pop group Yellow Magic Orchestra. “I was diagnosed with cancer of the upper throat in June and will undergo immediate treatment,” Sakamoto said in a statement. “I deeply apologize to my fans and everyone involved in my current projects for having to make this unavoidable decision. I will be sure to fully recover and then return.”
JAPAN
Poo show makes a splash
A museum show dedicated to toilets and excreting that features a giant toilet slide is making a splash in Tokyo. Museum-goers — wearing poo-shaped hats — can slide down a chute into a lavatory standing 5m high as part of the “Journey of Poo” at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. The aim of the show, which also includes a chorus of singing toilets, is to educate visitors about sewerage, health and waste. One toilet asks what would happen if the world’s loos refused to do their jobs, encouraging youngsters to say “thank you” after flushing. Visitors can also make their own poop models from plasticene.
UNITED STATES
Texas gunman kills six
A gunman killed four children and two adults during a domestic dispute in Texas on Wednesday before being taken into custody, officials said. ABC News said the children were that of the gunman himself in the Houston-area rampage. After the shooting at a home where the children were staying, the shooter led police on a chase ending in a three-hour standoff in a cul-de-sac, where he eventually surrendered, it said. ABC News said the slain children were boys aged 13 and four and two girls aged nine and seven. The shooting happened in Spring, outside Houston, Harris County Constable Ron Hickman said. One of the children died after arriving at hospital. The two slain adults were men, Hickman said. Before being taken to hospital, the gunman’s wounded 15-year-old daughter was able to tell police where the suspect was headed.
IRAQ
Nuclear theft was ‘low grade’
The UN atomic agency yesterday said it believed nuclear material Iraq said had been seized by insurgents was “low grade” and did not pose a significant security risk. Iraq told the UN in a letter on Tuesday that “terrorist groups” had seized nearly 40kg of nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country’s north. It appealed for help to “stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad.” The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “is aware of the notification from Iraq and is in contact to seek further details,” IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said. “On the basis of the initial information, we believe the material involved is low grade and would not present a significant safety, security or nuclear proliferation risk.”
UNITED STATES
Bieber put on probation
Justin Bieber must pay US$80,900 in damages and serve two years on probation after pleading no contest on Wednesday to a misdemeanor vandalism charge for throwing eggs at a neighbor’s home. Bieber was also ordered to complete five days of community service and a 12-week anger management program, and to stay away from the victim and his family for two years. The 20-year-old Grammy-nominated singer was not present for the arraignment in California.
UNITED STATES
Jazz fans devoted to the end
At the Woodlawn Cemetery in New York, so many jazz enthusiasts want to be buried near the graves of such greats as Miles Davis and Duke Ellington that the cemetery is developing new plots to meet the demand. The cemetery is building about 2,275 new burial plots between the grave of Latin music star Celia Cruz and “Jazz Corner,” the area where musicians Davis, Ellington, Lionel Hampton and Illinois Jacquet are buried. Earlier this year, the cemetery opened up 70 burial plots behind Davis’ grave and almost all of them have already been sold.
UNITED STATES
Cops demand penis photos
A Virgina teenager is fighting efforts by police who want to take photographs of him in a sexually aroused state to try to prove a sexting case against him. Prosecutors told a judge they need photographs of the 17-year-old’s erect penis to compare against photographs he is accused of sending to his 15-year-old girlfriend at the time. The teen has been charged with possessing and manufacturing child pornography related to images of himself he is accused of creating. Police have been pursuing the case since January when the girlfriend’s mother discovered the explicit content.
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
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