AUSTRALIA
Hospital declares 200 ‘dead’
Austin Hospital in Melbourne apologized yesterday after mistakenly sending out death notices for 200 of its — very much alive — patients. The hospital erroneously killed off the patients when it faxed death notices to their family doctors. The notices were the result of an inadvertent change to the templates the hospital sends to doctors once a patient has been discharged, operator Austin Health said in a statement. “We apologised unreservedly to affected clinics who, for the most part, were very understanding about the error,” it said. The Australian Medical Association said the error was unacceptable and potentially distressing to family doctors, while an opposition lawmaker said it was symptomatic of an overworked health system.
KOREAS
Two defectors swim to South
Two North Koreans yesterday swam across the sea border with South Korea, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said, in a rare maritime defection across the tense boundary. Two men — in their 20s and 50s — swam across the Yellow Sea border to the South’s island of Gyodongdo at about 4am, where they were spotted by local marines. “The marines found them coming across the border... and both expressed a desire to defect. They are believed to be a father and a son,” the spokeswoman said. “They are being interrogated as part of a normal process for defectors.”
CHINA
More ‘patriotic’ shows to air
Beijing has ordered local television broadcasters to air “patriotic” or anti-fascist series for two months from next month, reports said, stepping up its propaganda efforts amid disputes with Japan and ahead of national holidays. Such programs are already a staple of Chinese television, but news portal Netease, citing unnamed industry insiders, said satellite channels — which are controlled by provincial governments — had been ordered to broadcast them in prime time until the end of October. The National Day holiday falls on Oct. 1. “Patriotic” dramas “probably” include those with themes of defending the country, creating a business, ethnic solidarity and family relations — but excluding fights between relatives — a Shanghai satellite television staffer said, according to the report on Wednesday. “Anti-fascist” refers to the fight against Japan and Germany during World War II, the staffer said, adding: “Anti-Japanese series are surely counted as part of it.”
RUSSIA
Hackers tweet PM has quit
Hackers yesterday broke into Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s Twitter account, tweeting his resignation and criticizing President Vladimir Putin. “I’m resigning. I’m ashamed of the government’s actions. Forgive me,” Medvedev’s Russian-language Twitter account said. “I’ve wanted to say this for a long time: Vova you’re wrong!” another tweet said, using the nickname for Vladimir. Medvedev, even when he served as president, was considered the second fiddle to Putin. Medvedev’s “Twitter account has been hacked, the messages are not genuine. We’re working on the problem,” a government spokesman told the state-tun RIA Novosti news agency. However, hacked messages continued to appear, and his account quickly became the top trender in Moscow, with the number of followers of his account swiftly rising by 10,000 to more than 2.5 million. Many of the hacked tweets criticized Russian government policies. “Crimea isn’t ours. Please retweet,” a message as Mevedev said.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Vape’ through a ‘listicle’
Know what “vaping” is? How about a “listicle”? Britain’s Oxford University Press yesterday said that it is adding the words — along with other new entries, from “time-poor” to “Paleo diet” — to its online Oxford Dictionaries to reflect new language trends. “These are words that are common enough that you are likely to encounter them and may have to look up their meanings,” Oxford Dictionaries editor Katherine Martin said. One of these is “vape” or “vaping,” which describes inhaling smokeless nicotine vapor using e-cigarettes. Many new entries are informal words or abbreviations that reflect people’s changing media consumption habits and the Internet’s ever-increasing prominence. They include “listicle” — an Internet article in the form of a numbered or bullet-pointed list. Martin said inclusion in the online dictionary did not mean the words would become permanent additions to the English language.
UNITED NATIONS
Saudi Arabia gives US$100m
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday gave US$100 million to the UN to support counterterrorism efforts and called on other countries to do the same. It follows a US$500 million Saudi gift to the UN effort to help Iraqi refugees. “We have been stung by the evil of terrorism,” Saudi Ambassador to the US Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir told reporters. “We believe that those countries that have not been stung by terrorism seem to be lax in dealing with terrorism in a serious way,” he told reporters after presenting a check to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
FRANCE
Six killed on Mont Blanc
Six French climbers died on Western Europe’s tallest mountain, officials said on Wednesday. August is the height of the climbing season on Mont Blanc, where storms can strike quickly even in the warmest months. High winds buffeted the area where the group fell, Mont Blanc rescue squad leader Jean-Baptiste Estachy said. Estachy said five bodies were found on Wednesday morning and the body of the sixth victim was later pulled out from the bottom of a crevasse. The six included five experienced climbers and a guide. Mont Blanc, in addition to its primary peak, contains about 200 summits, and touches France, Switzerland and Italy. An average of 59 people die yearly in accidents on its slopes, according to the Chamoniarde, a safety association.
CHILE
Airport heist nets US$7m
Eight masked, armed robbers made off with more than US$7 million on Tuesday from an armored truck at the airport in the Chilean capital, Santiago, the largest robbery in the nation’s history. The suspects reportedly arrived in three vehicles and held up guards who were escorting the truck. “Initial investigations indicate the sum stolen is more than 4 billion pesos (US$7 million), but we still don’t have the exact amount,” prosecutor Luis Pablo Cortes told journalists.
FRANCE
WWI soldiers statue stolen
A memorial to soldiers killed in World War I has been stolen from its pedestal. French Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Kader Arif said in a statement on Wednesday that the theft in the northern town of Craonne in the Aisne region is an “insult to war victims and to France.” Local Web site aisne.net described the modernistic bronze monument as 4m tall and weighing 1.45 tonnes.
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