■ China
Dissident released from jail
High-profile Chinese dissident Yang Jianli (楊建利) was released from a Beijing jail yesterday after serving a five-year sentence for spying and illegally entering China, his lawyer said. "He got out today," lawyer Mo Shaoping (莫少平) said. "He is still being deprived of his political rights so he cannot speak with the press as he has no freedom to speak." Yang, a permanent US resident, was a former researcher at Harvard University and a prominent democracy activist in China's exiled dissident community. He left China after being involved in the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests and was subsequently banned from returning to the country. He re-entered China in 2002 with another person's passport in an effort to document labor rights abuses in the country.
■ Japan
Compensation ruling upheld
The country's top court upheld a ruling yesterday denying compensation to two Chinese women who were forced to work in military brothels during World War II, news reports said. The Supreme Court ruled that the women had no right to seek war compensation from Tokyo because of a 1972 agreement with China, Kyodo News agency and public broadcaster NHK reported.
■ Hong Kong
Jailed reporter hospitalized
A Singapore newspaper reporter jailed for spying two years ago has been hospitalized twice this year, with no word on whether he might be given medical parole, a newspaper reported on Friday. Straits Times journalist Ching Cheong (程翔) was sentenced last August to five years' imprisonment after being convicted of spying for Taiwan. One of Ching's brothers, Ching Hai (程曦) said the journalist had been hospitalized for one week for a "heart problem" then a second time for a duodenum ulcer, the Hong Kong Ming Pao newspaper reported. Reports have suggested he might be released on July 1st -- the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's transition from British to Chinese rule.
■ New Zealand
Not so happy meal
A grandmother was alarmed to find a condom in a happy meal gift pack bought for her seven-year-old granddaughter at a McDonald's restaurant, local media reported yesterday. The condom was discovered on Tuesday night in a bag that came with Maia Whitaker's meal, which her grandparents bought at a McDonald's outlet in the city of Wellington. Grandpa Rowan Hutch told the Dominion Post newspaper it was lucky his wife was first to look inside the small sports bag that came with the meal. She was aghast when she found the green condom and its packet inside the bag, he said. The outlet quickly swapped the happy meal for a hamburger and pencil case. McDonald's is investigating.
■ Russia
Cellist Rostropovich dies
Mstislav Rostropovich, the ebullient master cellist who fought for the rights of Soviet-era dissidents and later triumphantly played Bach suites below the crumbling Berlin Wall, has died, his spokeswoman said. He was 80. Rostropovich, who lived in self-imposed exile in Paris, suffered from intestinal cancer. His criticism of the leaders of his homeland started in the Stalin era. In the early 1970s Rostropovich sheltered dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in their country house. He appeared frail at his 80th birthday party last month at the Kremlin, and the ITAR-Tass news agency said he was hospitalized again several days ago.
■ Italy
Nuns get Internet habit
Cloistered nuns at a convent in Sicily have decided that their vow of silence may rule out gossiping with locals or telephoning old friends, but it does not exclude going online to swap e-mails. The 12 Cistercian nuns of the 13th century Santo Spirito convent in Agrigento have set up a Web site and are happy to take questions about what it is like to pray for hours in silence every day. The sisters, who speak to visitors, if necessary, through a grille, are being bombarded with inquiries at santospiritoag.com, said Sister Maria, who agreed to answer questions over the phone.
■ United States
Woman in jail sex scandal
A woman pleaded guilty to using a false ID badge to enter a US corrections facility while posing as an attorney so she could have sex with an inmate, state prosecutors said. Tiffany Weaver, 29, entered the plea on Wednesday. She was charged with identity theft and use of false government identification after entering the Maryland Reception Diagnostic and Classification Center last November to meet with inmate Jason Moody. Corrections officials responsible for monitoring inmate meetings with attorneys witnessed the two having sex once they were alone. The corrections officers ended the meeting.
■ United States
Man mows down teen
A jury convicted a man of murder for shooting a teenage neighbor who walked on his obsessively maintained lawn. The jury in southern Ohio deliberated less than four hours on Thursday before finding Charles Martin, 67, guilty of murder. Martin shot 15-year-old Larry Mugrage Jr after he stepped on the lawn Martin meticulously cared for. But the defense said Martin had been harassed for years by neighborhood youths. Prosecutors said Martin and the teen exchanged words when he stepped on Martin's yard on the way to play basketball. Later, the boy stepped on the lawn again and Martin fired at him twice with a shotgun, according to testimony.
■ United States
Bullock fan attacks husband
A woman obsessed with Sandra Bullock tried to run over the actress' husband, Jesse James, outside the couple's home, authorities said. Marcia Diana Valentine, 45, of Huntington Beach, California, tried to run over James with her Mercedes last Sunday, said Jim Amormino, an Orange County sheriff's office spokesman. Authorities said it was not the first time Valentine showed up at the celebrity couple's home. On several prior occasions, Bullock and James had found Valentine lying in front of their garage door, Amormino said. Valentine was arrested on Monday for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
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