■SOUTH KOREA
Two fighter jets crash
Two fighter jets crashed into a mountain yesterday during a routine training mission, but the fate of the pilots was not immediately known, the military said. The F-5 jets hit a mountain in Pyeongchang, about 180km east of Seoul, shortly after they took off from a nearby air base, an air force official said on condition of anonymity citing department policy. A total of three pilots were aboard the jets, but it was not immediately known if they survived, he said. The air force dispatched two helicopters to the area to locate the pilots, the official said. The cause of the accident was not immediately known, the official said. Yonhap news agency reported that at the time of the crash snow and strong winds were pounding the mountain, which was shrouded in heavy fog.
■PHILIPPINES
Angry parents torch school
A group of parents torched a school in a central province after complaining their children weren’t given the food promised by a government program aimed at boosting school attendance, police said yesterday. The gutted walls were all that remained of the one-story Gaib Elementary School in Masbate island province, provincial police chief Ed Benigay said. No one was hurt because the school was empty when it burned down overnight, he said.
■MALAYSIA
Swine flu death confirmed
The government has confirmed the country’s first death linked to swine flu in nearly half-a-year. Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai says the 22-year-old woman died of respiratory problems at a hospital on Sunday after testing positive for the A(H1N1) virus. The minister’s statement yesterday did not give details of how she had been infected.
■CHINA
Security ‘moat’ launched
More than 700,000 people will work to keep public order during the upcoming parliamentary session, as police build a “great moat” of security around Beijing, state media said yesterday. Extra police forces have been deployed to ensure security during the annual session of the National People’s Congress that opens on Friday and the meeting of an advisory body that begins today, the People’s Daily said. “The capital police force is fully prepared to safeguard the two meetings ... the ‘great moat’ project to surround Beijing has been launched,” the People’s Daily said.
■MYANMAR
Leader cautions farmers
The country’s military leader yesterday urged the rural masses to counter pro-democracy forces said to be seeking to disrupt stability before general elections. Senior General Than Shwe made the comments in a statement published on the front page of all state-run newspapers on the anniversary of Peasant’s Day. He urged farmers “to elect representatives capable of building a peaceful, modern and developed nation and exercising democracy correctly.” “You also have to ward off potential dangers of those who will disrupt state stability and community peace with the assistance of aliens in the background,” the message said.
■JAPAN
Tokyo eyes whaling change
Japan will push for a resumption of commercial whaling, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu said ahead of an International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting yesterday. “To gain the right to resume commercial whaling, what and how much can we give?” he said. “We will continue our patient negotiations.” In 1986, the IWC slapped a moratorium on commercial whaling, but Japan uses a loophole that allows lethal scientific research for its annual Antarctic hunts.
■CHINA
Snoring sparked stabbing
A college student fed up with his roommate’s snoring, has confessed to stabbing him to death. Zhao Yan, 22, was stabbed in the chest and back late last year in his room at Jilin Agricultural University, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. His roommate, Guo Liwei, confessed that he stabbed Zhao because of a dispute over his snoring, the report said. Guo had previously complained to Zhao about his snoring and posted a video of him snoring on a Web site, creating tension between the two, Xinhua reported. “I told Zhao about it and he became angry. He verbally abused me several times, prompting me to kill him,” Guo was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
■RUSSIA
Security forces kill rebels
Security forces have killed four rebels in the Caucasus region of Ingushetia, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday, citing a police spokesman. Security forces surrounded hideouts in the village of Ekazhevo and opened fire when rebels refused to surrender, a police spokesman said. “During the clash, four of them were eliminated,” he said. The rebel group had taken part in attacks targeted at policemen and their relatives, the spokesman said.
■GAZA STRIP
Journalist kept in detention
A British journalist who has been held in Gaza for two weeks without charge faces a further fortnight in detention after a court ordered an extension to his arrest. Paul Martin, a 55-year-old filmmaker, entered Gaza to testify on behalf of a Palestinian accused of collaborating with Israel, but was arrested and told he was wanted in connection with the case. His lawyer said on Monday that the court had extended his detention order for a second 15-day period, after which he would be charged or released. Martin is being held on suspicion of harming Gaza’s security, a Hamas spokesman said. He had reportedly been working on a documentary about Mohammad Abu Muailik, who was arrested and accused of collaboration with Israel.
■IRAN
Filmmaker arrested: son
Award-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi was arrested along with his family and guests during a raid on his Tehran home, his son said yesterday. “About 10 on Monday evening, several plainclothes agents broke into the house,” Panah Panahi said. Panahi, his wife and daughter as well as 15 guests were arrested and taken to an unknown location, the son said.
■FRANCE
‘Confession’ line under fire
A pay telephone line for Roman Catholics to confess their sins drew criticism from bishops on Monday. “For advice on confessing, press one. To confess, press two. To listen to some confessions, press three,” says a soothing male voice, welcoming the caller to “The Line of the Lord” service. “In case of serious or mortal sins — that is, sins that have cut you off from Christ our Lord, it is indispensable to confide in a priest,” warns the service. The Conference of French Bishops warned in a statement that the line had “no approval from the Catholic Church in France.” The site does not offer absolution for sins, which only a priest can provide, said the creator, Camille, who asked for her second name not be cited. “The idea is to confess sins which are not capital sins, but minor sins, directly to God,” she said. Callers do not talk to a person but are offered an “atmosphere of piety and reflection,” where they can listen to prayers, music and other people’s confessions.
■NEW ZEALAND
Keep teens from screens
Parents who don’t let their children watch too much television or sit at the computer for hours have been vindicated by a study that linked excessive “screen” time with troubles relating to other people. Rose Richards of the University of Otago said: “Our findings give some reassurance that it is fine to limit TV viewing.” The study was based on the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study and the Youth Lifestyle Study conducted in the 1980s and then in 2004. Although the studies were some 16 years apart and the nature of screen-based entertainment has changed, the link with family relationships appears to be the same.
■UNITED STATES
O.J. acquittal suit donated
With O.J. Simpson giving his agreement from prison, a judge approved a plan on Monday to donate the suit the former NFL star was wearing when he was acquitted of murder to the Smithsonian Institution. The deal ends a 13-year legal battle between Simpson’s former sports agent, Mike Gilbert, and Fred Goldman, the father of the man Simpson was accused of killing in 1994. Both men claimed the right to the suit, shirt and tie Simpson was wearing on Oct. 3, 1995, when he was acquitted of killing former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman after a trial that riveted the nation. Gilbert, who has had the clothes in his possession, came up with the idea of a donation. “It’s part of American history,” Gilbert said outside court.
■UNITED STATES
Weedkiller alters gender
Atrazine, one of the most commonly used and controversial weedkillers, can turn male frogs into females, researchers reported on Monday. The experiment is the first to show such complete effects of atrazine, which had been known to disrupt hormones and which is one of the chief suspects in the decline of amphibians such as frogs around the world. “Atrazine-exposed males were both demasculinized [chemically castrated] and completely feminized as adults,” Tyrone Hayes of the University of California Berkeley and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
■UNITED STATES
Mugabe sanction extended
US President Barack Obama announced on Monday he was extending sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s regime for another year, saying the country’s deep political crisis remained unresolved. Both the EU and Washington maintain a travel ban and asset freeze on Mugabe, his wife and inner circle in protest at disputed elections and alleged human rights abuses by his government. “I am continuing for one year the national emergency with respect to the actions and policies of certain members of the government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes or institutions,” Obama said in a statement.
■UNITED STATES
Man agrees to remove ad
A Los Angeles businessman who was arrested for investigation after draping a building with a massive movie billboard near the site of the upcoming Oscars agreed to remove the sign on Monday in exchange for a drastic reduction of his bail. Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo accepted the deal between Kayvan Setareh’s lawyers and the city attorney’s office, which dropped his bail from US$1 million to US$100,000 after Setareh agreed to have a crew begin removing the eight-story ad by Monday night.
■UNITED STATES
Bridal show cons thousands
Police said thousands of brides-to-be and wedding vendors have been scammed by a Web site advertising a fake Boston bridal show. Police said on Monday a site called The Boston 411 invited would-be brides and vendors to a nonexistent Spring Home and Bridal Show at the Hynes Convention Center this weekend. They say 6,000 people and businesses paid registration fees and bought floor space through the Web site, which promised elegant wedding displays and free samples. Authorities say they got wind of the scam after vendors began calling the convention center to ask when they could start working on their exhibits and were told no such show existed.
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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