■ China
Zoo animals die wretchedly
A bankrupt zoo in central China has watched helplessly as dozens of its animals, including at least eight lions and 12 ostriches, starved to death, domestic media said yesterday. Zoos have sprung up across China in the past decade to meet a growing appetite for entertainment among increasingly affluent Chinese, but many provide wretched conditions, inept management and cannot draw enough visitors to cover their costs. The zoo in Xiantao, Hubei Province, did not earn enough from ticket sales to buy even basic food supplies, the Hubei-based Chutian Metropolis Daily said. One wolf, two deer and two camels had also died in the past 17 months, it said. The zoo had more than 500 animals when it opened in October 2003, but only three lions, one tiger and some other animals were still there, the paper said.
■ South Korea
Successor killed spy boss
A government panel yesterday said the country's former spy chief who disappeared mysteriously in Paris in 1979 was kidnapped and killed on the orders of his successor. Kim Hyung-wook, the longest-serving head of South Korea's intelligence agency, was last seen at a casino in the French capital on October 7, 1979. The panel investigating unexplained disappearances during the rule of South Korea's past regimes said in an interim report that Kim was abducted by a South Korean spy working with two foreign hitmen. Kim was a one-time favorite and confidant of Park Chung-hee, who took power in a military coup. But he later turned into a critic of Park's increasingly autocratic rule in the 1970s.
■ Thailand
Tourist-killing cop gets life
A policeman was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday for murdering two British tourists last year following a row outside a restaurant in western Thailand. Somchai Visetsing, 40, was charged with two counts of murder for shooting dead Vanessa Arscott, 24, and her boyfriend Adam Lloyd, 25, on Sept. 9, close to the famous Bridge on the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi Province. Several witnesses had testified that Somchai's car was at the scene, that they heard gunfire and that they had seen the suspect with the two tourists. Somchai had confessed to the killings during the police investigation but later denied murdering the two and pleaded innocent during the trial. His laywer said Somchai would appeal.
■ China
Depressed cop hangs self
A policeman involved in the high-profile case of a man wrongly jailed for murder has been found hanged in a graveyard. Pan Yujun, 42, was an arresting officer in the case of She Xianglin, who spent 11 years in jail for murdering his wife and was released only when she turned up alive last month. She has since said police tortured him into confessing to the murder, sparking outrage across China over police brutality and the country's arbitrary legal system. Investigators looking into She's case questioned Pan on Saturday, the Beijing News said. "On Tuesday, he called his wife and said `There's nothing I can do. I don't want to live any more'," it said.
■ Hong Kong
Van saves man's fall
A suicide jumper survived a six-story leap when he landed on top of a parked van in Mongkok. The 45-year-old man leapt from a corridor outside his six story home in a high-rise block on Wednesday. His fall was broken when he landed on top of a parked van where a decorator was waiting for his brother to buy window frames from a nearby shop. The man was rescued from the roof of the van and taken to the hospital for treatment. The decorator was also treated for a sore neck when he jumped from his seat in fright. In the area, suicide rates have shot up by 72 percent over the past 20 years.
■ Indonesia
Exorcism ends in death
A four-year-old girl died after her family performed an exorcism rite upon her, believing she had been possessed by an evil spirit. The girl perished after relatives wrapped her in cloth and placed her under a tarpaulin in stifling temperatures in the town of Ciracas. Six family members, including the girl's parents and grandmother have been detained by police. Although most Indonesians are Muslim, traditional superstitions predating Islam remain a part of everyday life.
■ North Korea
Search for POWs suspended
The Pentagon has suspended its efforts to recover the remains of US soldiers from North Korea, saying the country has created an environment that could jeopardize the safety of US workers. The announcement Wednesday came amid rising tensions with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons and missile programs and concern that it might be preparing a live nuclear test. Defense officials said the decision was more about a broader unease among senior administration officials with the overall direction of the North's policies. The work has so far returned more than 220 remains of US soldiers who died in the Korean War; more than 8,000 US troops are still missing, and a large number of the remains are believed recoverable.
■ Police crackdown sparks riot
Hundreds of township residents rioted on Wednesday after police destroyed street stalls in an ongoing crackdown on vendors and other illegals in the capital. Residents used old cars and scrap metal to set up roadblocks along the main road leading into Glen View suburb, a working class area south of Harare. Rioting began when a street stall housing a popular furniture maker was burned down by police after police launched pre-dawn raids on makeshift corner shops and market stalls in the townships, arresting more people as part of its Operation Restore Order. The operation has been condemned by rights groups as unjustified and brutal.
■ United Kingdom
Christie's taken in by fake
One can only guess at the amount of squirming going on among Christie's 20th century specialists after an elegant wicker chaise attributed to designer Tom Dixon, and bearing a ?6,000 (US$10,986) estimate, was revealed to be a Filipino fake. The offending chaise was to go under the hammer yesterday, but the fact emerged after the Guardian contacted Dixon to ask how he felt about the piece being so highly valued at auction. With just one look at the photograph, the designer declared it was a knock-off.
■ Australia
Brothel owners acquitted
An alleged brothel owner accused of buying a Thai university student as a sex slave was acquitted yesterday by a Sydney jury. The verdict on a charge of slave trading -- which carries a maximum 25 years' imprisonment -- was delivered in Australia's first sexual servitude case. After two days of deliberation, the jury failed to reach verdicts against alleged brothel owner Sally Cui Mian Xu, 41, and two other defendants. The alleged victim testified she had been studying law in Thailand when she was promised a well-paid waitressing job in Australia, but when she arrived she was forced into prostitution at a string of brothels until she phoned an emergency number for help. Defense lawyers said the alleged victim was a willing prostitute who was never held against her wishes.
■ Australia
References help bad doc
An Indian-trained surgeon linked to the deaths of at least 87 patients in Australia over two years had been given glowing references by six former colleagues in the US, despite having been cited for negligence there earlier. Jayant Patel, 56, is the subject of an official inquiry examining why he was permitted to practice medicine in Queensland in 2003 despite a nearly 20-year history of criticism and sanctions imposed by medical authorities in Oregon and New York as a result of his work practices. The Medical Board of Queensland alleges Patel falsified his application to practice by removing his disciplinary history, but acknowledges that it failed to check his application against US medical records.
■ Romania
US to set up two bases
A Romanian army official said the US would set up two military bases on the Black Sea within a year. General Valeriu Nicut, head of Romania's strategic planning division, said the country was in talks with the US on two training locations for US troops. New NATO members Romania and Bulgaria hope to form a new hub for US forces as Washington pulls 70,000 troops out of central Europe and Asia in the next decade.
■ Zimbabwe
Math puzzle almost solved
Mathematicians have taken a giant step toward cracking one of the oldest and most complex number puzzles. The puzzle, known as the twin prime conjecture, has stumped the best mathematical brains for centuries. Number experts Dan Goldston of San Jose State University in California and Cem Yildrim of Bogazici University in Istanbul, working with Janos Pintz of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, have paved the way for a solution. The twin prime conjecture proposes there are an infinite number of paired prime numbers that differ only by two, such as 3 and 5, 11 and 13, 29 and 31. But as the size of the prime numbers soars, so does the difficulty of keeping track of them. The trio's work does not prove that huge prime numbers also crop up in pairs, but it suggests they are likely to, based on an analysis of the average size of the gap between them.
■ United Kingdom
Conviction overturned
A man who spent 25 years in jail for the attempted murder of a 9-year-old boy had his conviction overturned by a British appeal court Wednesday. Paul Blackburn, now 41, was aged 15 in 1978 when he was found guilty by a jury of attempted murder. Three judges in London's Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday that Blackburn's conviction was "unsafe." His attorney had argued that he did not have a fair trial judged by current standards. Blackburn, who has always protested his innocence, was sentenced to life imprisonment and served 25 years in jail before being released on bail in 2003.
■ United States
Disputed judge confirmed
The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed the first of President George W. Bush's disputed judicial nominees following a truce between Democrats and Republicans that will allow the White House to get some of its most conservative choices on to the federal bench. By a largely party-line vote of 55 to 43, the Republican-led chamber approved Texan Priscilla Owen for the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice first nominated by Bush to the federal bench four years ago, was among 10 appeals court candidates stopped by Democrats in the last Congress.
■ United States
`NY Times' to slash jobs
The New York Times group Wednesday announced plans to cut 190 jobs as it wrestles with the industry-wide problems of dwindling newspaper circulations and a lacklustre advertising market. Two-thirds of the job losses will be at the New York Times. The company said "fewer than two dozen" of the cuts would be from the title's editorial department, through a voluntary redundancy programme. The paper employs 1,200 editorial staff. The other third of the job cuts will come from the New England Media Group, which includes the Boston Globe.
■ United Kingdom
Ismail Merchant dies
Merchant-Ivory, synonomous with classy movie making, is left with only Ivory after the death of Indian-born filmaker Ismail Merchant at the age of 68. Merchant died at a London hospital, surrounded by friends and family, a spokesman at Merchant Ivory Productions' London office said Wednesday. Indian television news reported that he had been unwell for some time and recently underwent surgery for abdominal ulcers. Bombay-born Merchant and Ivory, an American, made some 40 films together, including A Room With a View, The Remains of the Day, and Howards End.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
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