CHINA
Writer banned for HK support
Publishers and bookstores say authorities have ordered books by Chinese-American academic Yu Ying-shih (余英時) to be removed from sale, as Beijing expresses displeasure with a writer who has shown support for pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong and elsewhere. It was not possible to immediately confirm the ban, believed to be an oral directive from government regulator the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. However, the manager of a bookstore in the eastern city of Ningbo, who refused to give his name because of the matter’s sensitivity, yesterday said he was ordered to pull Yu’s books off shelves. At least two of three major bookstores in Beijing said they were no longer carrying Yu’s books. A major publisher confirmed the ban with the Hong Kong English-language newspaper the South China Morning Post.
AUSTRALIA
Abbott to ‘shirtfront’ Putin
Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Monday vowed to “shirtfront,” or charge at, Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit next month over the loss of Australian lives in the MH17 crash over Ukraine. Australia is hosting the summit in Brisbane and there had been question marks over whether Putin would take part. However, Treasurer Joe Hockey confirmed on Sunday the Russian leader would attend, despite concerns about Russia’s actions in Ukraine in recent months. Abbott has used tough language against Russia since a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July, killing all 298 on board — including 38 Australian citizens or residents. He said on Monday he would be confronting Putin over the tragedy. “I’m going to shirtfront Mr Putin — you bet I am,” Abbott told reporters, referring to a sporting term in which a player charges someone. “I’m going to be saying to Mr Putin — Australians were murdered and they were murdered by Russian-backed rebels using Russian-supplied equipment.”
AUSTRALIA
Asylum policies face tests
The country faced two court challenges to its controversial asylum seeker policies yesterday, with both seen as test cases. The High Court in Canberra began hearing a case on the validity of a law used to detain 157 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers for weeks on the high seas in June, after they sailed from India. In Brisbane, the Federal Court began considering a case that lawyers believe could set a precedent for asylum seeker babies born in the country. Lawyers for the 157 Tamils, who are held in a detention camp on the Pacific island of Nauru, claim their clients were falsely imprisoned on the ship. Their case centers around whether Canberra has the power to remove asylum seekers from its contiguous zone, just outside territorial waters, and send them to other countries.
CHINA
WWII base to fight drought
An airfield in the south from which the famed Flying Tigers took off to fight Japanese warplanes is being converted to battle a new enemy: drought. Aircraft equipped for cloud-seeding operations began using World War II-era Zhijiang Airport in Hunan Province last month as part of a trial operation, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Known as China’s rice basket, Hunan suffered its worst drought in decades last year, causing nearly US$2 billion in losses to farmers. Beijing has experimented heavily with cloud seeding to combat declining rainfall across large parts of the country.
MEXICO
Protesters torch state palace
Hundreds of students and teachers smashed windows and set fires inside a state capital building on Monday, as fury erupted over the disappearance of 43 young people believed abducted by local police linked to a drug cartel. The protesters called for the 43 students from a rural teachers’ college in Guerrero State, missing since Sept. 26, to be returned alive, even though fears have grown that 10 newly discovered mass graves could contain their bodies. Photographs showed smoke billowing from the government building in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, and flames licking from office windows. Firefighters battled the blaze. Jose Villanueva Manzanarez, spokesman for the local government, said the protesting members of a teachers’ union initially tried to get into the state congress in Chilpancingo, but were repelled by anti-riot police. They then headed to the state government palace. With the support of hundreds of students from the teachers’ college, the teachers blockaded the capital building, attacking it with battle bars, rocks and Molotov cocktails, he said.
NIGERIA
Kidnap anniversary marked
Protesters calling for the release of 219 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants were yesterday set to mark the six-month anniversary of their abduction with a march on the presidency. Members of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign were planning to walk to President Goodluck Jonathan’s official residence in Abuja to keep up the pressure on the government to bring the missing teenagers home. The march is the culmination of a series of events in the past week, including a candlelit vigil, to keep the fate of the girls in the public eye, as media coverage and online interest wanes.
UNITED STATES
Parrot’s four years a mystery
The owner of a parrot that spoke English with a British accent says the bird went missing for four years, only to return speaking Spanish and asking for someone named Larry, a Southern California newspaper reported on Monday. Darren Chick told the Daily Breeze that he does not know where African gray parrot Nigel has been for four years, but that aside from the language switch, the bird is doing fine back at home. “He’s doing perfect,” Chick told the paper. “It’s really weird, I knew it was him from the minute I saw him.” Nigel was discovered in the back yard of a Torrance couple who run a dog grooming business and originally was thought to belong to Teresa Micco, who had placed an ad for her own missing parrot, the Breeze reported. When Micco, a veterinarian’s technician, realized that Nigel was not her bird, she was able to trace him via the original sales records to Chick, who was stunned to recover his lost bird after four years, the paper said.
GREECE
Hermes mosaic uncovered
Archeologists digging through a vast ancient tomb in Amphipolis have uncovered a floor mosaic that covers the whole area of a room seen as the antechamber to the main burial ground. The mosaic, 3m long and 4.5m wide, depicts a horseman with a laurel wreath driving a chariot drawn by two horses and preceded by the god Hermes. According to the ministry of culture announcement made on Sunday, Hermes is depicted as the conductor of souls to the afterlife. The mosaic is made up of pebbles in many colors — white, black, gray, blue, red and yellow. A circular part, near the center of the mosaic, is missing, but authorities say enough fragments have been found to reconstruct a large part of it.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of