SOUTH KOREA
Psy battles tenants
Singer Psy is fighting a legal battle with artist tenants who are reluctant to leave a building he owns in Seoul. Choi Jee-ahn of Takeout Drawing yesterday said that about 10 lawsuits have been exchanged between a gallery the artists belong to and their star landlord. Psy bought the six-floor building in February 2012 and wants to evict the artists on the grounds of a 2011 court ruling that ordered them to move out by the end of 2013. The artists question whether the ruling is still effective when it was based on earlier plans by the building’s previous owner to reconstruct it. They said Psy’s continued attempts to evict them betray an agreement they reached with him in May, which stated that they remain at their current space until the end of next month. Psy’s lawyer has filed defamation suits against four of the artists for criticizing the singer on the Internet.
VANUATU
Lawmakers sentenced to jail
Fourteen lawmakers who tried to overturn their own bribery convictions with hastily issued pardons were reportedly jailed yesterday for up to four years. The 14, including Deputy Prime Minister Moana Carcasses and parliamentary speaker Marcellino Pipite, were sentenced in Port Vila’s Supreme Court, the Australian Broadcasting Corp and Radio New Zealand International said. The 14 were convicted on Oct. 8 on bribery charges. President Baldwin Lonsdale was overseas and Pipite, using his powers as acting president, issued pardons for himself and his co-conspirators, arguing it was for the good of the country. Carcasses was reportedly jailed for four years and the others received three-year terms.
ECUADOR
New tortoise species named
Scientists on Wednesday said a new species of giant tortoise in the Galapagos Islands has been discovered through genetic testing. The tortoise is the 15th known species on the archipelago, four of which are extinct. Its discovery was announced in a paper published online by PLOS ONE. The discovery will help protect and restore the tortoise on Santa Cruz island, which is vulnerable as its numbers are estimated at 250, said Washington Tapia, head of giant tortoise conservation at Galapagos National Park. The new species was christened Chelonoidis donfaustoi after longtime park ranger and conservationist Fausto Llerena.
INDIA
Road closed for air’s sake
New Delhi authorities yesterday closed a 6km stretch of a road to private cars for a few hours, hoping to give residents a brief breath of fresh air by observing a car-free day. Only public transport was allowed on the road. New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Cabinet colleagues, led hundreds of cyclists as they pedaled the route to encourage people to use public transport. “All of us have to do our bit to decongest the roads and to reduce pollution,” Kejriwal said as he prepared to lead the cyclists. Traffic was sparse in the rest of the city as schools, businesses and government offices were closed for a Hindu holiday.
NAURU
Police raid charity’s office
Police yesterday raided the offices of Save the Children for a second time, amid a scandal over conditions and reports of child abuse at an Australian immigration detention center on the island. A spokeswoman for the group said the raid was believed to be aimed at locating the source of a recent critical report on the center published by Guardian Australia.
UNITED NATIONS
Iran missile test probe urged
Britain, France, Germany and the US on Wednesday asked a Security Council sanctions committee to investigate Iran’s recent missile test, branding it a serious violation of UN resolutions. The four countries presented a report to the sanctions committee making the case that the Oct. 10 missile test was a “serious violation” and requesting “appropriate action,” according to a joint letter. The request to the committee marks a first step toward possible sanctions, although such a decision would require agreement from China and Russia.
MEXICO
‘El Chapo’ suspects arrested
Authorities have arrested the brother-in-law of drug baron Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who allegedly helped in his July jailbreak, and a pilot accused of flying him out of town, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The pair were among six more people detained in connection with Guzman’s prison escape, Attorney General Arely Gomez told a news conference, adding that they were people who worked on the outside. She said the brother-in-law supervised and organized the construction of a 1.5km tunnel leading to a hole in his cell’s shower as well as other parts of the escape.
VENEZUELa
Tycoon on treason charges
Lawmakers from the ruling Socialist Party filed treason charges on Wednesday against a prominent billionaire businessman for allegedly seeking an IMF bailout for the nation. Lorenzo Mendoza, head of food and beverage empire Empresas Polar, could face decades in prison if convicted of the charges, which include conspiracy and “usurpation of state functions.” The complaint is based on a leaked telephone call between Mendoza and economist Ricardo Hausmann that was aired a week ago on a TV program hosted by the speaker of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello. In the conversation, Hausmann tells the 50-year-old magnate he has held “conversations” with the IMF because he believes Venezuela needs between US$40 million and US$50 million in international assistance to escape its economic crisis — to which Mendoza agrees.
UNITED STATES
IRS recognizes gay marriage
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has moved to rewrite tax regulations to make sure they treat gay marriages the same as heterosexual marriages. The US Department of the Treasury and the IRS on Wednesday said that they had proposed new regulations to ensure that any marriage between two individuals, of whatever sex, “will be recognized for federal tax purposes if that marriage is recognized by any state, possession, or territory of the United States.” The move responds to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in June that required all 50 states to allow and recognize same-sex marriages.
UNITED STATES
Three Dog Night singer dies
Cory Wells, a singer in Three Dog Night whose radio-friendly cover songs yielded a stream of hits in the 1970s, has died, the band said on Wednesday. He was 73. Wells, one of three singers in the Los Angeles-bred band, died unexpectedly on Tuesday in Dunkirk, New York State, the band said on Facebook. Wells was still touring with the band until last month, when he developed severe back pain, the band said, without giving a cause of death. Three Dog Night — named for an Australian Aboriginal expression on the number of dogs needed to keep warm at night — enjoyed immense popularity in the 1970s.
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
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