CHINA
Facebook CEO gives talk
China might ban Facebook, but not its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, and he entertained an audience of students with a 30-minute chat in his recently learned Mandarin Chinese at a prestigious Beijing university. There was no explicit discussion of the ban or any Facebook effort to enter the China market during Wednesday’s question-and-answer session at Tsinghua University. However, Zuckerberg said during his talk that the social media giant already helps some Chinese companies gain customers abroad. He cited computer maker Lenovo’s advertisements on Facebook in India. Zuckerberg married Chinese-American Priscilla Chan in 2012 and said he was learning Chinese. His pronunciation was far from fluent, but he maintained the conversation for a half hour and the students responded with warm cheers for his effor and laughter at his humor.
CHINA
Troops deployed over drone
China deployed more than 1,200 troops and scrambled fighter jets in response to an unauthorized flight near Beijing airport by what turned out to be a mapping drone, a media report said yesterday. Three men are being prosecuted over the incident, the China Daily said. It cited prosecutors as saying that 1,226 military personnel, 123 military vehicles, 26 radar technicians, two fighter jets and two helicopters were sent into action after the aircraft was spotted on radar screens. Police arrested two men as they flew the drone and a third confessed later, according to the paper, which is published by the government. All three men worked for an aviation technology company, the report said, and the 2.3m-long drone was intended to be used for survey and mapping purposes.
RUSSIA
Airport employees detained
Authorities have detained four Moscow airport employees over a plane crash that killed the head of French oil giant Total, whose private jet hit a snowplow on takeoff, investigators said yesterday. Those detained include the air traffic controller in charge of directing the doomed plane at Vnukovo airport, her supervisor, the head of air traffic controllers and the chief of runway cleaning, Russia’s investigative committee said in a statement. “The investigation suggests that these people did not respect the norms of flight security and ground operations, which led to the tragedy,” the statement said. “They have been detained as suspects.” Longtime Total boss Christophe de Margerie was killed along with the crew of his private jet in Monday night’s accident.
ZIMBABWE
Students fight kissing ban
The Zimbabwe students’ union yesterday made war not love over a new code of conduct banning students from kissing on campus at the country’s top university. In a circular displayed at halls of residence, authorities at the University of Zimbabwe said students “caught in any intimate position such as kissing or having sex in public places” would be punished. The university also barred resident students from bringing members of the opposite sex to their hostels and “loitering in dark places outside the sports pavilion or lecture venues.” Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASSU) president Gilbert Mutubuki said students would resist the rules introduced two weeks ago. “We are against these rules, which we view as archaic, repressive and evil,” Mutubuki said. “These rules reduce the university to a primary school. The authorities need to be reminded that this is an institute for adults, who are mature.” He said the rules, which also bar students from accommodating non-resident colleagues, were meant to curtail students’ right to associate.
MACEDONIA
Grave guard stole teeth
The country may have found its ultimate gold digger. Police say a 52-year-old guard at an Orthodox Christian cemetery was detained after alleged opening graves to prize gold teeth and dentures and reselling them. The suspect identified only by his initials, J.K., was taken in for questioning in Tetovo after police searched him outside a shopping mall and found him carrying 12 pairs of dentures and four gold tooth caps, believed to be destined for sale in Serbia. Tetovo police spokesman Marijan Josifovski on Wednesday said the man has been charged with desecrating graves, an offense that carries a jail sentence of up to one year.
SWITZERLAND
Firm sorry for Hitler labels
Swiss retailer Migros apologized on Wednesday for putting cream capsules with the faces of Hitler and Mussolini on them in cafes in the Alpine country. Migros said it “offered its apologies for this unforgivable incident” and that it was in the process of withdrawing them from cafes. Labels from coffee cream capsules have a cult following in Switzerland, with manufacturers feeding the passion by releasing regular new editions that are sometimes available to collectors before they reach cafes. The designs were developed by Karo, a firm which specializes in cream capsules, and were part of a 55-label series based on vintage cigar bands. Among them were cigar bands from the pre-World War II era that showed the faces of Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler and his Italian fascist counterpart, Benito Mussolini.
UNITED STATES
Latest fence-jumper held
A 23-year-old Maryland man was in custody early yesterday after he reportedly climbed over the White House fence and was swiftly apprehended on the North Lawn by uniformed US Secret Service agents and their dogs. The incident that began on Wednesday came about a month after a previous White House fence-jumper carrying a knife sprinted across the same lawn, past armed uniformed agents and entered the mansion before he was detained in the ceremonial East Room. Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said a man he identified as Dominic Adesanya of Bel Air, Maryland, climbed the north fence line at about 7:16pm and was taken into custody immediately by uniformed agents and K9 teams. Obama was at the White House at the time of Wednesday’s incident. Adesanya was unarmed when he was arrested, Leary said. Charges were pending. Two dogs were taken to a veterinarian for injuries sustained during the incident, Leary added.
UNITED STATES
Online harassment surveyed
A new study confirms what many Internet users know all too well: Harassment is a common part of online life. The report by the Pew Research Center found that nearly three-quarters of US adults who use the Internet have witnessed online harassment. Forty percent have experienced online harassment. The types of behavior that Pew asked about range from name-calling to physical threats, sexual harassment and stalking. Half of those who were harassed said they did not know the person who had most recently attacked them. Young adults aged 18 to 29 were the most likely age group to see and undergo online harassment. The survey was conducted between May 30 and June 30 among 3,217 respondents.
CANADA
Baby corpses lead to arrest
A woman was charged on Wednesday after police discovered six decomposing baby corpses in a rented storage unit in Winnipeg, police said. Andrea Giesbrecht, 40, was arrested and charged with concealing the bodies of children and breaching probation. Giesbrecht, who also goes by the name Andrea Naworynski was “detained in custody,” police said. Authorities initially thought there were four bodies in the storage unit, but said on Wednesday that six rotting bodies were found. “Autopsies are ongoing,” Winnipeg police said. It was not clear how the babies died or how old they were. Police said on Tuesday they were “speaking with a number of individuals” in connection with the gruesome discovery. Local media outlets said an employee at the storage facility detected the bodies on Monday afternoon, after tracing a foul smell emanating from the tiny corpses.
PERU
Town holds ‘coin-toss runoff’
The tiny town of Paruro determined its new mayor in a strange way — a coin toss — after the two candidates reached a tie at the ballot box earlier this month, officials said on Wednesday. Wilbert Medina and Jose Cornejo Carpio each earned exactly 236 votes in the Oct. 5 balloting in the southeastern town with a population of less than 4,000 people. So the Cusco area special electoral board jumped in and applied existing legislation that allows for a coin toss to break any such odds-defying tie. Medina won the toss and so became Paruro’s lucky leader.
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