UNITED STATES
Penis ‘mistakenly amputated’
An Alabama man who went in to a hospital last month for a circumcision awoke after surgery to find his penis had been amputated, his lawyer said on Thursday. Johnny Lee Banks Jr, 56, said in a lawsuit filed in state court earlier this week that no one at the Princeton Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama, had told him why it had been necessary to remove his penis. “My client is devastated,” Banks’ attorney John Graves said. Banks, who is married and does not work due to a disability, did not recall the precise date of the incident, but believed it occurred last month, his attorney said. A spokeswoman for the hospital’s parent company said Banks’ allegations were without merit. “We intend to defend all counts aggressively,” Baptist Health System spokeswoman Kate DeWitt Darden said in a statement. The lawsuit does not specify a monetary value for damages.
UNITED STATES
China warned on missile
The government says China has tested a missile designed to destroy satellites and is urging Beijing to refrain from destabilizing actions. Department of State spokeswoman Marie Harf said the “non-destructive” test occurred on Wednesday. She said a previous destructive test of the system in 2007 created thousands of pieces of dangerous debris in space. Harf on Friday said that the continued development and testing of destructive anti-satellite systems threaten the long-term security and sustainability of the outer-space environment that all nations depend upon. Xinhua news agency, citing a Chinese Ministry of Defense statement, reported a successful missile interception test conducted from land within China late on Wednesday.
CANADA
Passenger threatens plane
Two US F-16 fighter jets escorted a Panama City-bound plane back to Toronto on Friday after a passenger threatened the aircraft. Flight 772 turned around over West Virginia about 45 minutes after its 7am departure from Toronto Pearson International Airport, Sunwing Airlines spokeswoman Janine Chapman said. She said an “agitated passenger directly threatened the aircraft,” but did not elaborate on the threat. NORAD Captain Jennifer Stadnyk said the two fighter jets from Ohio flew with the plane out of US airspace as a “precaution.” Toronto police said Ali Shahi, 25, has been charged with uttering threats and endangering the safety of an aircraft. Police Constable Lilly Fitzpatrick said he is Canadian.
RUSSIA
US ‘peace cyclist’ killed
A 61-year old American who was cycling in the country carrying “messages of peace” was killed by a drunk driver in a hit-and-run accident, news agency Itar-Tass reported local police as saying on Friday. Ron McGerity who was touring historic cities around Moscow by bicycle, was struck by an intoxicated truck driver on Thursday. The driver was later detained, Itar-Tass said. McGerity, who was in the country as part of a planned ride through 61 countries to promote messages of peace, was hit while cycling on a road between the cities of Kostroma and Ivanovo in Ivanovskaya Province, about 280km northeast of Moscow. The last photographs posted by McGerity on his Facebook page showed him on his specially designed bicycle in front of the mausoleum of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in Moscow’s Red Square. His personal Web site said cycling was a vehicle for charity fundraising that gave him a chance to deliver “peaceful and spiritual civic messages” to local officials around the world.
CHINA
Crackdown on officials
More than 850 government workers in China’s southern province of Guangdong have been forced out of their jobs as part of an anti-crackdown on officials whose spouses and children have moved abroad. An investigation by the provincial government identified 2,190 “naked officials” and 866 of them have been removed from their posts, according to a report on the Guangdong government’s official news portal. State media have reported that so-called naked officials will not be considered for promotion, as they are viewed as flight risks whose ability to escape overseas could make them more inclined to engage in acts of corruption. Xinhua news agency said naked officials were a serious problem in Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong. Guangdong province has traditionally seen high levels of emigration, with communities of people relocating to Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia and North America. Many officials have been taking advantage of a Hong Kong investment scheme to squirrel away more than $1 million each, which includes buying “residency” in faraway African nations, as the scheme is not open to mainland Chinese.
CHINA
China investigating graft
China investigated more than 25,000 people for corruption in the first six months of this year, state media said on Friday, amid a nationwide crackdown on graft. Nearly 85 percent of the cases investigators pursued involved bribes of more than 50,000 yuan (US$8,000) or embezzlement of 100,000 yuan, Xinhua news agency said, citing the country’s top prosecutor, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP). Such “major cases” were up nearly 14 percent over the corresponding period last year, Xinhua said. China’s leadership under President Xi Jinping (習近平) has presided over an anti-graft campaign to shore up a ruling mandate shaken by suspicion that officials waste taxpayer money or use their positions for personal advantage. Xi has said graft threatens the survival of the ruling Communist Party. China is also going after officials who have fled abroad with illicit funds, Xinhua said.
JAPAN
Volcanic island smoulders
A volcanic island off Japan’s southern coast continues to smoulder with lava flowing from its craters into the sea, new aerial images showed Friday. Nishinoshima, 1,000km south of Tokyo, joined up with a small volcanic islet formed in November and the new mass now measures 1.26km2, the Japanese coast guard said. The agency’s images showed a few craters on Nishinoshima spewing columns of smoke 1,500 to 2,000m high as molten lava flowed into the sea, sending clouds of white steam into the sky.
PAKISTAN
Boy’s arms amputated
Pakistani police have arrested the son of a landowner for an assault on a 10-year-old boy which resulted in his injured arms being amputated A tiny number of families own huge tracts of land in Pakistan, particularly in its bread-basket province of Punjab, and political parties woo the families, hoping to win the votes of the villagers working for them. Police said the injured boy’s father, Muhammad Iqbal, had a long-running dispute with landowner Ghulam Ghaus, who accused Iqbal of letting his cows graze on his land in central Punjab. “Iqbal’s son, Mohammad Tabassum, was grazing the cows near Ghaus’s fields on Monday when one of the cows went on his land,” district police officer Rai Ijaz Ahmed said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
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