■ CHINA
ArticleText = "Court sentences swan-killer
A court sentenced a farmer to 12-and-a-half years in prison for killing and selling endangered white swans that are under state protection, a court official said yesterday. Zhao Naishun, 42, of Henan Province, was accused of poisoning 37 white swans on the Yellow River last fall and selling them to another area farmer for 150 yuan (US$20) each, according to Xinhua news agency and Li Guowang, an official at the People's Court of Lingbao. The court also ordered him to pay a fine of 40,000 yuan. The farmer accused of buying the swans, Zhang Yuelin, was sentenced in May to 13 years in prison after being convicted of buying the birds and selling the meat.
■ CHINA
Accident data released
Authorities said yesterday that 79,000 people died in industrial and road accidents in the first 10 months of this year, but claimed progress had been made in improving notoriously weak safety standards. The death toll marked a drop of nearly 14 percent over the same period last year, work safety minister Li Yizhong (李毅中) said in a speech reported on his administration's Web site. More than 419,000 road and workplace accidents were recorded from January to October, down 22 percent on the same period last year, he said.
■ NEPAL
Wives send condoms
Women in a rural village have been mailing condoms to their husbands working abroad to protect them from sexually transmitted diseases, report said yesterday. The women in Pang village, in the midwestern mountains, have been writing to their husbands urging them not to have sex with other women, but also mailing them condoms so that if they are unfaithful, they will have safe sex. The Kantipur newspaper said that social workers have been counseling women in the village about sexually transmitted diseases over the past two years.
■ JAPAN
Fighter jets grounded
The nation's F-15 fighter jets have been grounded following a crash in the US involving the same type of aircraft, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said yesterday. Tokyo gave the order on Sunday after it was informed by US forces that an Air National Guard F-15 fighter jet crashed in Missouri, Ishiba said. "The cause of the crash in Missouri is not yet known," he said. Flights of F-2 fighter jets were also suspended after one crashed on takeoff and burst into flames at an airport last week. "We will deal with the task of preventing airspace incursions with our F-4 fighter jets," the oldest model among Japan's fighter jets, Ishiba said.
■ FRANCE
Sarkozy tries to end protests
President Nicolas Sarkozy was to make a lightning trip yesterday to the Brittany fishing town of Guilvinec in an effort to calm fishermen blocking ports to protest the rising price of fuel. Angry fishermen blocked a handful of ports yesterday as well as the entrance to a Total refinery in Donges. They lit bonfires at fishing ports to call attention to their plight and slowed down traffic between major towns in Brittany with barrages. Fishermen pay at least 0.50 euro (US$0.72) per liter for fuel for their boats, a sum they say eats up 30 percent of their take. Sarkozy to fly to the US afterwards, where he was due to dine last night with US President George W. Bush at the start of a two-day visit to Washington.
■ NETHERLANDS
Officials admit break-in
The government admitted on Monday that some of its bureaucrats had improperly accessed the internal computer system of a Dutch news agency, raising concerns about press freedom. Marcel van Lingen, editor-in-chief of the GPD news agency which serves more than a dozen newspapers in the country and Belgium, accused the government of spying. The Social Affairs Ministry "used stolen information to influence [our] reporting," Van Lingen told the national NOS broadcaster. He said the press bureau first became aware of systematic "break-ins" when a ministry press officer complained about a story that had yet to be published. The ministry confirmed in a statement some of its employees had accessed GPD's internal site and apologized.
■ GERMANY
Pay raise proposed
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the center-left Social Democrats presented legislation on Monday to give lawmakers their first in four years -- a 9.4 percent raise. But the opposition criticized the draft proposal. The proposal would raise a lower-house lawmaker's monthly pay by 659 euros (US$956) from the current 7,009 euros. The raise would be introduced in two stages between now and 2009.
■ FRANCE
Leroy wins the Goncourt
The nation's top literary prize, the Goncourt, went to author Gilles Leroy on Monday for his Alabama Song, a story written in the first person but inspired by the descent into madness of the wife of famed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. Leroy's 12th novel mixes biographical material with the imaginary to portray Zelda. Leroy uses the pronoun "I" to tell the story of his Zelda, saying that putting himself in her skin was the only way to recount "an extreme life." It wasn't an easy sell. The 48-year-old Leroy won the vote on the 14th round of balloting by the literary jury. A second prize, the Renaudot, went to Daniel Pennac for Chagrin d'Ecole (School Blues).
■ GHANA
Lithuanian teens arrested
Two Lithuanian teenage boys on their way back to London after a West African holiday were arrested at the airport for cocaine possession, officials said on Monday. A drug control officer said a 16-year-old student and a 19-year-old laborer -- who both live in London -- had swallowed dozens of cocaine pellets before attempting to board a plane on Saturday. The officer said police are also pursuing a Ghanaian suspected of giving the teens the drugs to swallow. The boys were at a hospital on Monday, where they had so far expelled 53 pellets of cocaine, the official said.
■ UNITED STATES
ArticleText = "F-15s grounded
The US Air Force has suspended some F-15 flights, citing a "possible structural failure" discovered after one of the fighter jets crashed in Missouri. All "non-mission critical" flights were suspended on Saturday, a day after a Missouri Air National Guard jet crashed in a wooded area, the Air Force said in a release on Sunday. The pilot, who ejected, was released from a hospital Saturday after being treated for a dislocated shoulder, broken arm and minor cuts; no one else was hurt. It was unclear which flights were considered non-mission critical.
■ UNITED STATES
Hell's couple wins lottery
Life in Hell just got a little easier for John and Sue Wilson. The couple, who live in the town of Hell, Michigan, 72km west of Detroit, were blessed with a US$115,001 windfall from the Michigan Lottery. They won the big prize in the Fantasy 5 drawing on Wednesday -- that is, Halloween. "How cool is that?" said Sue Wilson, 43, a teacher's aide. Her husband is an electrician. The couple said they plan to use their winnings to pay off bills, make some home improvements, buy a video game system for their 13-year-old son and possibly visit relatives in Georgia.
■ UNITED STATES
Envoy to Vatican named
President George W. Bush plans to nominate Harvard University law professor and anti-abortion scholar Mary Ann Glendon to be his new US ambassador to the Vatican. Glendon, 69, is an opponent of gay marriage who also has written on the effects of divorce and increased litigation on society. Her 1987 book Abortion and Divorce in Western Law was critical of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion. The White House announced on Monday that Bush would nominate Glendon to the post, which requires Senate confirmation.
■ UNITED STATES
Capitol incident in Colorado
A man shouting threats was subdued and arrested at the Colorado Capitol, less than four months after a trooper shot and killed an armed man inside the building, witnesses and authorities said. Derrick Shumate, 28, tried on Monday to get through a locked door on the Capitol's east side and punched a door window out, State Patrol spokesman Ryan Sullivan said. Shumate ran from a trooper inside the building, ignoring a command to stop, but surrendered to a trooper outside the building by putting his hands up and lying down, Sullivan said. Shumate was unarmed and there were no reports of injuries.
■ UNITED STATES
Man shares tub with snakes
Another day, another bizarre world record for Jackie Bibby, the "Texas Snake Man." Bibby spent about 45 minutes in a see-through bathtub with 87 rattlesnakes on Monday, fully clothed, shattering his own record by 12 snakes just in time for Guinness World Records Day tomorrow. A Guinness official certified the record. The snakes crawled under his arms, between his legs and anywhere else they could slither, Bibby said. None bit him. "They can go wherever they want as long as they don't start biting," Bibby said. "The key to not biting is for me to stay still. Rapid movement scares a rattlesnake. If you move real slow and gentle, that doesn't seem to bother them."
Australia has announced an agreement with the tiny Pacific nation Nauru enabling it to send hundreds of immigrants to the barren island. The deal affects more than 220 immigrants in Australia, including some convicted of serious crimes. Australian Minister of Home Affairs Tony Burke signed the memorandum of understanding on a visit to Nauru, the government said in a statement on Friday. “It contains undertakings for the proper treatment and long-term residence of people who have no legal right to stay in Australia, to be received in Nauru,” it said. “Australia will provide funding to underpin this arrangement and support Nauru’s long-term economic
‘NEO-NAZIS’: A minister described the rally as ‘spreading hate’ and ‘dividing our communities,’ adding that it had been organized and promoted by far-right groups Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country yesterday that the center-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis. “March for Australia” rallies against immigration were held in Sydney, and other state capitals and regional centers, according to the group’s Web site. “Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the Web site said. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration.” The group also said it was concerned about culture,
ANGER: Unrest worsened after a taxi driver was killed by a police vehicle on Thursday, as protesters set alight government buildings across the nation Protests worsened overnight across major cities of Indonesia, far beyond the capital, Jakarta, as demonstrators defied Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s call for calm. The most serious unrest was seen in the eastern city of Makassar, while protests also unfolded in Bandung, Surabaya, Solo and Yogyakarta. By yesterday morning, crowds had dispersed in Jakarta. Troops patrolled the streets with tactical vehicles and helped civilians clear trash, although smoke was still rising in various protest sites. Three people died and five were injured in Makassar when protesters set fire to the regional parliament building during a plenary session on Friday evening, according to
STILL AFLOAT: Satellite images show that a Chinese ship damaged in a collision earlier this month was under repair on Hainan, but Beijing has not commented on the incident Australia, Canada and the Philippines on Wednesday deployed three warships and aircraft for drills against simulated aerial threats off a disputed South China Sea shoal where Chinese forces have used risky maneuvers to try to drive away Manila’s aircraft and ships. The Philippine military said the naval drills east of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) were concluded safely, and it did not mention any encounter with China’s coast guard, navy or suspected militia ships, which have been closely guarding the uninhabited fishing atoll off northwestern Philippines for years. Chinese officials did not immediately issue any comment on the naval drills, but they
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