■CHINA
Boy chained for years
A mother — unable to handle her violent mentally handicapped 14-year-old son and find proper treatment — has chained him up for much of the last five years, state media said yesterday. The boy has been chained to the kitchen door of the family’s remote rural farmhouse in Zhejiang Province because of repeated bouts of violence that began when he was nine years old, the Qianjiang Evening News said. “Other mothers, when they have money, they go out and buy good things for their child to eat,” the woman, Duan Jinfeng, told the paper. “When I have money, I only think about going out and buying a thicker chain.”
■KAZAKHSTAN
Pork detector unveiled
Scientists in the mainly Muslim country have come up with an instant test for the presence of pork in food, a popular newspaper reported on Monday. The plastic-stick test detects food molecules that are found only in pork, which is forbidden by Islam but is easily found in the Central Asian state, the Megapolis weekly said. “It’s no secret that some chefs cheat and add pork to beef to make the dish cheaper,” the newspaper wrote on Monday, saying the practice was widespread in the country. “When you get your beef patty, cut off a couple of small pieces and drop them in a glass of water. Stir, shake, put the test stick in ... In a minute or two you will see the result.”
■THAILAND
Drug smuggler caught
A 54-year-old woman from the Philippines was facing the death penalty after being arrested at Bangkok’s international airport for trafficking cocaine worth US$500,000, police said yesterday. Estrelita Turado Basilio was detained at Suvarnabhumi Airport on Tuesday after flying in from the Peruvian capital Lima, said the Narcotics Suppression Police, who added they acted on a tip-off. They said 5.4kg of cocaine was found in the woman’s luggage, wrapped in aluminum foil and hidden in boxes of candy.
■CHINA
Quake moms giving birth
More than 2,000 babies have been born to women who lost their children in a 2008 earthquake thanks to a government program that includes artificial insemination, state media said yesterday. A total of 3,140 women had become pregnant under the program, which also provided free medical treatment, with 2,106 giving birth so far, the Global Times said, quoting government figures.
■ITALY
Accused minister resigns
A Cabinet minister announced his resignation on Tuesday, saying he needs time to defend himself against accusations that a businessman under investigation for corruption underwrote his purchase of a luxury Rome apartment. Industry Minister Claudio Scajola denied wrongdoing, but said he cannot continue his duties as minister while dealing with the accusations. Prosecutors allege that Scajola paid 610,000 euros (US$788,000) — well below the market price — for an apartment he bought overlooking Rome’s Colosseum with the help of the businessman, who allegedly paid the sellers an additional and undeclared 900,000 euros, according to the reports.
■FRANCE
Bubbly for 114-year-old
A 114-year-old woman who this week became the world’s oldest person lives on a Caribbean island and still enjoys a glass of champagne every now and then. Eugenie Blanchard, who lives on the French island of Saint Barths, won the title after Japan’s Kama Chinen died on Sunday, the Gerontology Research Group said. Blanchard was born on February 16, 1896, the group said. Her nephew Daniel Blanchard told reporters that Blanchard still had a zest for life. “Because of her age, she had to be hospitalized but she still loves having a glass of champagne, at least on her birthday,” Blanchard said in 2008.
■FRANCE
France to return Maori heads
Lawmakers decided on Tuesday to return 16 tattooed and mummified Maori heads to New Zealand, ending years of debate on what to do with the human remains acquired long ago by French museums seeking exotic curiosities. For years New Zealand has sought the return of Maori heads kept in collections abroad, many of which were obtained by Westerners in exchange for weapons and other goods. Maori, the island nation’s indigenous people, believe their ancestors’ remains should be respected in their home area without being disturbed. It was unclear when the heads might be sent home.
■ITALY
Veiled woman may be fined
News reports say a Tunisian woman risks a 500 euro (US$655) fine for wearing a burqa in public in alleged violation of a local ordinance. The ANSA news agency and local news reports say the woman was stopped on Friday in the post office of the northern city of Novara by carabinieri who asked her to remove her veil to check her identity documents. She and her husband refused until a female police officer arrived at the scene. Novara Mayor Massimo Giordano, of the often xenophobic Northern League party, has said he pushed through the ordinance at the beginning of the year to abolish behavior which he says impedes the integration of foreigners.
■RUSSIA
Putin no ‘press predator’
Reporters Without Borders’ inclusion of Russian President Vladimir Putin on its list of the world’s worst “Predators of Press Freedom” is an error likely based on stereotypes, his spokesman said on Tuesday. “We don’t know the criteria on the basis of which these conclusions were drawn. They are completely false,” said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, cited by the RIA Novosti news agency. “Unfortunately this error is maybe linked to stereotypes about Russia that are still alive today,” he said.
■UNITED STATES
More cities reject new law
Another city council in Arizona has voted to sue over the new state immigration enforcement law. The Flagstaff City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday night in favor of the resolution before a crowd that initially numbered in the hundreds but dwindled significantly as the night wore on. Earlier on Tuesday, the Tucson City Council voted to sue Arizona in an effort to overturn the law. The state law requires local and state law enforcement officers to question people about their immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally. The Flagstaff resolution says it’s an unfunded mandate to carry out the responsibilities of the federal government. The council’s vote directs the city attorney to retain legal counsel.
■BRAZIL
Sting opposes Amazon dam
British music star Sting is speaking out against a renewed plan for a huge dam in the Amazon that he helped halt two decades ago, saying the project would destroy a river and the lives of thousands who depend on it. He voiced opposition to the Belo Monte dam at a news conference on Tuesday, saying: “I stand in solidarity with the indigenous people who are trying to stop it.” He is among a growing number of celebrities, including film director James Cameron and actress Sigourney Weaver, who have joined activists in lobbying against Brazil’s plan to build the world’s third-largest dam on the Xingu River. Sting helped put a temporary halt to the Belo Monte dam in 1989 when he protested alongside Brazilian Indians in an event that helped persuade international lenders not to finance the project.
■UNITED STATES
Arnie ends drilling support
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday withdrew his support of a plan to expand oil drilling off the state’s coast, citing the massive oil spill that resulted from a drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. The announcement assures that no new drilling will take place off the coastline in the foreseeable future because Schwarzenegger would have to include the drilling proposal in his May revision of the state budget. Speaking at a news conference near Sacramento, he said television images of the oil spill in the Gulf have changed his mind about the safety of ocean-based oil platforms. “You turn on the television and see this enormous disaster, you say to yourself, ‘Why would we want to take on that kind of risk?’” Schwarzenegger said.
■UNITED STATES
Police halt movie ‘robbery’
A filmmaker was taking the blame on Tuesday after New York police officers were summoned to what they thought was an armed robbery, but turned out to be a location shoot for his upcoming movie. The confrontation ended peacefully when officers ordered an actor playing a gunman to drop his weapon. “I made the mistake,” Fred Carpenter said in a telephone interview. “I was supposed to tell the local police precinct what we were doing.” Carpenter was filming inside a convenience store in Bellmore, on Long Island, east of New York City, on Tuesday morning in a scene in which a gunman takes a number of people hostage. A passer-by apparently thought it was the real thing and called police. “All of a sudden I’m directing and 15 police officers come in,” Carpenter said. “And for a moment I’m thinking it’s part of the movie and then I said, wait a minute, I wrote the movie and this wasn’t in the film.”
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
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
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
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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