SOUTH KOREA
Merkel awarded prize
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was awarded the 2014 Seoul Peace Prize yesterday for acknowledging Germany’s wartime crimes and voicing the sort of contrition that Seoul has repeatedly accused Japanese leaders of avoiding. She was cited by the prize foundation for awakening “global awareness of human dignity by apologizing and taking responsibility for past wartime crimes,” as well as for helping overcome the European economic crisis. The biennial award was established in 1990 to commemorate the 1988 Seoul Olympics. The winner receives US$200,000.
CHINA
Jaycee Chan arrested
Beijing police have formally arrested Jackie Chan’s (成龍) son, Jaycee Chan (房祖名), on suspicion of allowing other people to consume drugs, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment, prosecutors said yesterday. The Dongcheng District prosecutor’s office said it had given approval for the formal arrest following a request from police a week earlier. Jaycee Chan, 31, was detained on Aug. 14 along with Taiwanese actor Kai Ko (柯震東).
CAMBODIA
Garment workers rally
Armed troops were deployed in Phnom Penh yesterday as garment workers held rallies to revive a campaign for higher wages that had helped to stoke a year-long political crisis. About 500 textile workers rallied in an industrial suburb of the capital, demanding a sharp hike in the monthly minimum wage from US$100 to US$177, as dozens of soldiers armed with assault rifles watched. Witnesses said army helicopters flew over the factories earlier. About 100 police were deployed at economic zones in Svay Rieng Province, bordering Vietnam, where garment workers also gathered, but no incidents of violence were reported.
CHINA
Woman wins virginity case
A woman who sued a man for “violating her right to virginity” after he wooed her with false promises has been awarded nearly US$5,000 by a court, Shanghai media reports said yesterday. The two were dating, but after the woman, surnamed Chen, found out the man was already married she sued him for swindling her out of her virginity, accusing him of pretending to be single and pledging to make her his wife, the reports said. The two met online in 2009, but only began dating last year, later traveling to Singapore, where they consummated the relationship, reports said. After the man suddenly broke off contact, Chen burst into his home and found him with his wife. Chen sued, accusing him of violating her rights to virginity and health and demanding more than US$81,000 in psychological damages, plus medical costs of US$250. The court found the original demand “excessive,” but said in its ruling that the “right to virginity” should be protected by law as it was a “moral right” related to “sexual freedom, sexual safety and sexual purity.” The defendant has appealed.
NEW ZEALAND
Lawsuit over Eminem song
The music publishers for US rapper Eminem filed a lawsuit in the High Court on Tuesday against the ruling National Party over the music it used in a campaign commercial. Detroit-based Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated both claim the National Party breached copyright laws by using Eminem’s song Lose Yourself. The National Party denied the charge of copyright infringement and said that it would vigorously defend itself in court.
FRANCE
Terror travel ban approved
Parliament on Tuesday approved a new anti-terror bill aimed at preventing potential jihadists from travelling to Iraq, Syria or elsewhere by confiscating their passports. The travel ban on nationals could be imposed “where there are serious reasons to believe that someone is planning to travel abroad to take part in terrorist activities, war crimes or crimes against humanity or in a theater of operations of terrorist groups and in conditions likely to jeopardise public security upon their return to French territory,” according to the text. Under the scheme the travel ban may be imposed for six months, renewable for up to two years. Someone placed under the order would have their passport and identity card confiscated.
CANADA
Serial killer gets life in jail
The nation’s youngest serial killer, 24-year-old Cody Legebokoff, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for four Rocky Mountains backwoods murders in 2009 and 2010. He will not be eligible for parole until 2039. Legebokoff’s victims were three women and a girl whom he met online, aged 15 to 35. His trial heard that he targeted vulnerable women, raped them and then bludgeoned them to death. Three of their bodies were discovered in a gravel pit, a park and a logging road on the outskirts of Prince George, British Columbia. The fourth was never found, but her DNA was discovered on bedding and an axe seized from Legebokoff’s apartment. He was arrested in 2010 on suspicion of poaching along the logging road where he dumped his last victim.
AUSTRIA
Manure covers traffic officer
A traffic policeman got more than he bargained for after a booby trap covered him head-to-toe in manure as he was trying to catch people speeding, police said on Tuesday. A bucket containing the slurry exploded 3m from the officer after he triggered a trip wire at a site often used for speed traps, police in Carinthia state said. The 58-year-old was not hurt and police said the device was likely designed by an irate motorist to humiliate officers rather than cause injury.
UNITED KINGDOM
Ecologists launch spider app
As the annual invasion of arachnids in British homes gets under way, ecologists have launched an app to help people identify common house spiders. This season is already shaping up to be a bad one for arachnophobes, according to Adam Hart, an entomologist and ecologist at the University of Gloucestershire and one of the creators of the app, named Spider in da House. The app, from the Society of Biology, lists descriptions and photographs of 12 of the most common spiders found in homes from the approximately 660 species in the UK.
MEXICO
Tourists get airlifted
Military and commercial airplanes began on Tuesday to airlift tourists stranded in the Los Cabos resorts after Hurricane Odile left luxury hotels and communities in tatters. About 30,000 tourists have been waiting for a ride out of the devastated zone in Baja California Peninsula after Odile rolled across the region on Sunday and Monday. The airport, along with the region’s other international terminal in La Paz, were left inoperable after the storm. The federal police said one of its planes took 137 people to Mazatlan. Mexican airline Interjet sent a plane for 150 passengers. The armed forces deployed jets to take people to Tijuana and Mexico City.
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