■ CHINA
Electric bike explodes
Police were investigating a bike explosion that killed one person and injured five others, state media said yesterday. The blast occurred on Wednesday evening on a downtown street in Hunan Province's Zhuzhou City when an electric bike suddenly exploded, Xinhua news agency reported. Xinhua said initial investigations showed that the blast was caused by a cache of explosives on the electric bike. It did not say if police believe the material was being transported or was detonated by the bike's 35-year-old rider, who was killed in the blast.
■ JAPAN
`Shoplifter' beaten to death
Police arrested the manager of a supermarket on Wednesday on suspicion of beating a man to death for stealing two cans of beer. The 40-year-old supermarket manager is thought to have dragged the man to a storage area at the back of the shop in Chiba Prefecture on Tuesday and beaten him around the stomach and face before leaving him in the road, Kyodo news agency said. A passer-by called an ambulance, but the man later died in hospital, Kyodo said. "I never thought he would die," Kyodo quoted the manager as telling police. Police said they were trying to confirm the identity of the victim, who appeared to be in his 50s or 60s.
■ NEPAL
Prince suffers heart attack
Crown Prince Paras suffered a major heart attack and was admitted to the Norvic hospital in Kathmandu yesterday, doctors said. The prince, 35, was in stable condition, Dr. Bharat Rawal said. "He had his right artery blocked and we were able to treat that on time," Rawal said. "He is out of danger and fully conscious." Paras will have to stay at the hospital for at least five days, first two days in intensive care unit, he said. Paras remains an unpopular prince, dogged by allegations of involvement in two vehicular homicides and frequent drunken brawls in nightclubs and discos.
■ MALAYSIA
Pig cull called off
The government has called off a cull of 50,000 pigs amid concerns it could stoke racial tensions between Chinese pig farmers and their Muslim neighbors. Authorities in Malacca state abandoned the cull on Tuesday night after dozens of farmers formed a human barricade around their farms. Riot police were called in to keep them at bay. Officials had said they ordered the cull following complaints from residents about the smell and water pollution from the pig farms. The government denied on Wednesday the cull had been called off because of fears of racial tensions and said farmers had now agreed to reduce their herds. But an opposition party said the racial dimension had forced authorities to back down.
■ CHINA
Sandwich not cause of death
Tainted food was not to blame for the death of Whang Joung-il, a South Korean diplomat in Beijing, even though the man became ill after eating a tuna sandwich, Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu (陳竺) said on Wednesday. Whang suffered severe stomach pains and vomiting after having the sandwich from a nearby eatery on the night of July 28. He checked himself into a health clinic the next morning and died two hours later. An investigation determined the sandwich was not to blame for the death of 52-year-old Whang, Chen said. Whang's family has said the ministry told the embassy on Aug. 5 that it had reached a tentative conclusion that Whang died of "acute myocardial infraction," a kind of heart attack.
■ AUSTRIA
Aunt found mummified
A Viennese woman lived with the mummified remains of her dead aunt for more than a year, police said on Wednesday. Officials said the remains of the 96-year-old aunt were discovered late on Tuesday in a bed in the apartment the two women shared, and that a preliminary investigation indicated the elderly woman died in August last year. Her niece, described only as a 51-year-old, was taken to a psychiatric hospital for examination. Investigators planned to conduct an autopsy to determine if foul play was involved. Police did not specify how the body came to be mummified.
■ AUSTRIA
Young soldiers investigated
Prosecutors are investigating young soldiers seen exchanging Hitler salutes in a video that appeared on the Internet, Defense Minister Norbert Darabos said on Tuesday. In a statement, Darabos said suspects had been tracked down and were being questioned over the incident in an army barracks in Salzburg, captured by a mobile-phone camera and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. Any display of Nazi propaganda or symbols is a crime, which took decades to acknowledge it was more a willing party than a victim of Nazi Germany's Third Reich.
■ South Africa
`Witches' burnt to death
Two women were burnt to death by a group of students who suspected the victims had bewitched their high school with evil spirits, the South African Press Association (SAPA) reported on Wednesday. The 60-year-old women, identified as Mangubane Msaba Zungu and Qibile Thabitha Thusi, were dragged from their homes near Manguzi in KwaZulu-Natal province and taken to a sports field by students from Manhlenga High School, police told SAPA. There they were doused with petrol and set alight, police said. Zungu died at the scene and Thusi later in hospital.
■ South Africa
Perverts not welcome
Concerns over unwelcome "sex perverts" have prompted strict access controls to this weekend's "reed dance" by hundreds of topless maidens carrying reeds to the Zulu king as a symbol of their purity and virginity. Nhlanhla Mtaka, media director for the ceremony, said on Wednesday that any journalists wishing to cover the event would have to prove their credentials "beyond reasonable doubt" and not seek access to restricted areas. "Zulu maidens are increasingly becoming targets of unscrupulous photographers and cameramen who take the pictures of maidens and flash them on Internet porn sites," Mtaka told the South African Press Association.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Jude Law arrested
Police arrested Jude Law after he allegedly attacked a photographer outside his London home. The actor, however, denied the allegations on Wednesday. The photographer accused The Talented Mr. Ripley star of trying to grab his camera during a scuffle late on Tuesday, Britain's Press Association reported. The 34-year-old actor voluntarily went to a West London police station after the incident, his lawyer Graham Shear said in a statement. "Mr. Law provided the police with a statement regarding his denials of allegations by a paparazzi photographer against him and made his own allegations concerning the photographer," Shear said. He said he would not comment further at present.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
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