■ China
No more Chen Jies, please
Who's the real Chen Jie? According to city statistics, Chen Jie is Shanghai's most popular name shared by nearly 4,000 people. Prefer Zhang Min? Well, you'll have to share that moniker with 3,751 other Shanghainese. Local residents say the common names cause havoc with school registrations and bank accounts and other personal documents. One Chen Jie told the Shanghai Daily she kept getting another woman's letters. "Every time I have to pass the letters to her, and her office is two floors up." Surnames have proven to be even more problematic.
■ China
Dissident released from jail
A veteran dissident who helped organize a banned Chinese opposition party has been released after serving a seven-year sentence on charges of subversion, a fellow activist reported yesterday. Zhu Yufu (朱虞夫), 52, was released on Thursday, according to fellow activist Cheng Fan. A telephone number provided for Zhu rang unanswered. Zhu was arrested in the eastern city of Hangzhou in June 1999 along with three others accused of circulating pro-democracy articles on the Internet and producing a party journal.
■ Singapore
Wolfowitz slams bans
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz yesterday called Singapore's restrictions on the entry of activists for the World Bank/IMF meetings "authoritarian." But he said the World Bank and IMF did not plan to postpone their annual gathering, which is being hosted by the Southeast Asian city-state this month. "Enormous damage has been done and a lot of that damage is done to Singapore and self-inflicted," he said.
■ Australia
Cow to receive artificial leg
A prized cow that lost a leg in a farm accident in Australia may soon be walking back on all four hooves after medical experts offered to help its owner fit an artificial leg. Farmer Geoff Heazlewood began the search for a new leg for his breeding Jersey, Theresa, two months ago after the cow fell down a river bank and broke its leg, forcing vets to amputate the limb between the knee and ankle. Theresa is a prized breeding cow at Heazlewood's stud farm in Tasmania, with genetic lines from Canada, and the farmer said he was determined to get the animal back on four hooves.
■ Japan
Terrorist's appeal rejected
The Supreme Court yesterday finalized the death sentence of Shoko Asahara, the founder of the doomsday cult that attacked the Tokyo subway in 1995, throwing out his last appeal, media reports said. The court refused to consider a motion by the guru's lawyers, who had missed a deadline to submit an appeal arguing that Asahara was mentally unfit and could not communicate with them, public broadcaster NHK and other media said. Court officials had no immediate comment. Asahara, a 51-year-old former acupuncturist, was convicted of ordering the gassing of the rush-hour subway trains in March 1995 that killed 12 people and injured thousands.
■ Thailand
New airport hits snags
Bangkok's new international airport hit a few snags when it opened yesterday for a handful of domestic and international flights, a soft-launch for the flashy new hub two weeks ahead of its grand opening. Check-in services went on the blink and phone lines at the airport's call center, set up to answer traveler's questions, were not working. Full commercial services are expected to start Sept. 28 at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, which will take over most of the traffic from the aging and overcrowded Don Muang Airport. Yesterday marked the beginning of a gradual shift to the new airport, with a portion of Thai Airways domestic flights scheduled to use Suvarnabhumi.
■ Australia
Con-woman pleads guilty
A con-woman who had evaded police for months, pleaded guilty yesterday to around 40 charges of fraud and theft. Dubbed the "Catch Me If You Can" thief by police after the movie of the same name, Jody Harris, 28, was arrested in July after an intense search spanning three states. She was eventually charged with around 130 counts relating to identity fraud and theft. Police said Harris fooled her alleged victims into believing she was a doctor, a businesswoman and the niece of a known underworld figure before stealing their identities and robbing them. Harris eluded arrest for more than a year, frequently changing her appearance and taunting police with phone calls.
■ Australia
Half of nation supports Hicks
More than 50 percent of the nation does not believe their country's sole inmate at Guantanamo Bay would receive a fair trial at the US military base, according to survey results released by a lobby group yesterday. David Hicks, 31, has been held at the US military prison since early 2002 after he was seized in Afghanistan during the US-led invasion that toppled the hard-line Taliban regime. Hicks was later charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a US military tribunal. The US Supreme Court ruled in June that the military tribunals were illegal.
■ Kenya
Cult enters bunkers
Followers of a US-based sect which predicted the world would end after a Sept. 12 outbreak of nuclear war moved into bunkers on Wednesday despite the failure of their prediction. Dozens of members of the House of Yahweh -- dressed in gas masks, gloves and long overcoats -- have built a network of underground hideouts in the highland village of Mauche. They have stocked the bunkers with dried fermented flour meant to feed them for a year, by which time sinners would have been wiped off the Earth, according to their beliefs. "Those who have been doubting us will in hours be ashamed and if the effect of the war is not felt here, then let the police arrest us," Mosheh Sang, the leader of the group said.
■ United Kingdom
Rowling manuscript rumpus
US airport security almost stopped Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling from boarding a flight back to Britain because she would not part with the manuscript for the final Potter book. The writer told fans on her Web site that she would have considered sailing home if officials had not relented. Rowling said much of the manuscript was hand-written, she did not have a copy of what she had completed while in the US, and she was not prepared to store the manuscript in the aircraft hold. She was finally allowed to take the draft onto the plane bound up in elastic bands, she said.
■ United Kingdom
Man in court for arms haul
A 55-year-old man was due in a London court yesterday charged with multiple offenSes after police said they had found hundreds of guns in raids on addresses in Kent. Mick Shepherd was charged with conspiracy to sell or transfer prohibited weapons, conspiracy to sell or transfer prohibited ammunition and possession of prohibited weapons. A police raid on three buildings in and around Dartford on Wednesday turned up hundreds of firearms, including automatic and semi-automatic weapons.
■ Italy
Oriana Fallaci dies
Veteran journalist and writer Oriana Fallaci, a former war correspondent best known for her uncompromising interviews and provocative stances, has died, officials said yesterday. She was 76. Fallaci, who was diagnosed with cancer years ago, died overnight in a private clinic in Florence, said an official with the RCS publishing group, which published her work. Fallaci, a Resistance fighter, became known for her challenging interviews with world leaders.
■ Sweden
Capital votes on traffic fee
Traffic has become a key issue for Stockholm voters in tomorrow's general election -- when they will also cast ballots in a referendum on a congestion charge. The governing Social Democratic party believes the charge is the best way to cut traffic and pollution in the city. A newspaper poll found 56 percent of residents in favor of the fee and 34 percent against.
■ Italy
Park pot plan busted
Two brothers aged 25 and 30 have been arrested for growing marijuana in one of the biggest public parks in Palermo, Sicily, Ansa news agency said on Wednesday. Police said the men had grown about 20 marijuana plants each at least 2m high in Parco della Favorita. They were arrested as they carried watering cans to the site, which was hidden by vegetation. Their parents also face charges.
■ Mexico
Tropical storm bears down
Tropical Storm Lane roared northward toward the hurricane-battered tip of the Baja California Peninsula, lashing Mexico's Pacific coast with winds and rain. The storm was centered late on Thursday about 120km southwest of Manzanillo and was moving northwest at 9kph. It had maximum sustained winds of 96kph. A tropical storm warning and hurricane watch were issued along Mexico's Pacific coast from Manzanillo to Cabo Corrientes and along Baja California from Buena Vista to Agua Blanca. The storm was expected to strengthen into a hurricane by Thursday night or early yesterday.
■ United States
Siberian tiger cub dies
The smallest of three rare Siberian tiger cubs born at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium died on Thursday, zoo officials said. Respiratory problems likely caused the five-week-old cub's death, the zoo said. But results of an autopsy performed on Thursday will not be available for several weeks. Zookeepers noticed the cub was lethargic on Wednesday when its mother, Toma, allowed her three cubs to leave the den where they were born. Veterinarians tried to treat the cub, but its condition worsened.
■ United States
School bomb plot defused
Two teenage boys amassed a cache of guns, ammunition, bombs and other weapons at their homes and apparently planned to use them to attack their high school, authorities said. The boys, both 17, were arrested on Thursday morning at East High School in Green Bay, Wisconsin, but their identities were not released pending possible charges, authorities said. Police Chief Craig Van Schyndle said officers who found the materials also found suicide notes. "From statements that we heard it gave us great concern that, yes, it was in the very near future something was going to take place," he said.
■ United States
Missing major returns home
An Air Force officer who vanished in Kyrgyzstan and reappeared three days later has returned to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Major Jill Metzger greeted her family on Thursday and was resting comfortably at the base, said Captain Gary Arasin, chief of public affairs. Metzger was stationed at the US base in Manas outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, when she vanished on Sept. 5 while on a shopping excursion in the city. She resurfaced on Sept. 8 when she knocked on the door of a house in Kant, about 24km outside Bishkek, and claimed she had been kidnapped.
■ United States
Temple spares vandals
Two men who vandalized a Hindu temple in Minnesota got a break when the leader of the temple helped persuade a judge to give them lighter sentences. "In this day and age of `eye for an eye,'" Shashikant Sane told Hennepin County District Judge Kevin Burke, the two men deserved a chance to become "productive citizens," not "hardened criminals." Burke said on Thursday he had been inclined to give 60-day jail sentences to both Tyler Tuomie, 19, and Paul Spakousky, 20. But instead he sentenced them to serve 30 days, the Star Tribune newspaper reported. They also must pay restitution of US$96,454, he ordered. And they must return to court on April 6, the one-year anniversary of the vandalism. If they haven't stayed out of trouble, Burke said, they'll get another 30 days in jail.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
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