■CHINA
Monk arrested for murder
Police have arrested a 43-year-old Catholic monk who confessed to the murder earlier this week of a priest and a nun in the north of the country, state media reported yesterday. The suspect, identified as Zhang Wenping (張文平), was taken into custody on Thursday in Hohhot in the Inner Mongolia region and later confessed to the double homicide, Xinhua news agency reported. Police are still investigating, the report said. A motive for the crime was not immediately clear. The priest, Zhang Shulai (張書來), and the nun, Wei Yanhui (魏艷慧), were found dead on Tuesday in a nursing home where they worked, in a church in the city of Wuhai.
■THAILAND
Report slams military
The military and “Red Shirt” protesters exposed the media to “mortal danger” during violent street protests in Bangkok that left two journalists dead, a press freedom group said. The army failed to act with the “required restraint” to protect members of the media, Reporters Without Borders said in a report released on Thursday. Italian freelance photographer Fabio Polenghi and Japanese cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto of the Thomson Reuters news agency were among 90 people killed when anti-government protests descended into bloodshed in April and May. The group said that some of the witnesses and victims it interviewed believed journalists were targeted. “Some of their accounts clearly show that Thai soldiers put civilian non-combatants, including journalists, in mortal danger and respected no rule of engagement,” it said. The report, Thailand: Licence to Kill, also found that armed Red Shirts “deliberately exposed Thai and foreign journalists to mortal danger.”
■INDIA
Kashmir curfew widened
Security forces widened a curfew in Kashmir yesterday, the Muslim day of prayers, after anti-India separatists threatened fresh protests against the killing of locals. “We have widened the curfew to ensure a violence-free Friday,” said a police officer, who declined to be named. Towns such as Kupwara and Handwara in the north, Kakpora and Pulwama in the south and Gandherbal in the east were placed under fresh curfew. Violent flash points such as Sopore, Srinigar and Anantnag remain restricted. Police and paramilitary forces, who have been struggling to control the wave of protests in the Kashmir valley, have been accused of killing 15 civilians in less than a month.
■AUSTRALIA
PM talks up refugee plan
Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday talked up her plan for a regional refugee center to tackle people smuggling, but backed away from suggestions it should be built in East Timor. Gillard on Tuesday launched her bid for a regional processing hub with assurances she had discussed the plan with East Timor. Her remarks were widely interpreted as inferring that the tiny island nation would be the site for such a center, drawing a hostile response both domestically and in aid-dependent East Timor. She moved to shift the debate away from East Timor, denying she had definitively said it would be home to the center.
■AFGHANISTAN
Miscommunication kills six
A NATO helicopter patrol mistook Afghan soldiers for militants planting roadside bombs and opened fire on them, killing six and wounding one, the alliance said yesterday. The Afghan soldiers died in Ghazni Province on Tuesday as a “result of miscommunication,” a statement said.
■IRAQ
Bomber kills five
A suicide bomber blew up a vehicle at an army checkpoint in Baghdad yesterday killing five people, including three soldiers, and wounding 18 others, an interior ministry official said. The attacker struck at 7am in Ghazaliyah, a Sunni neighborhood and former stronghold of insurgents in the west of the capital. Overall levels of violence in the country have fallen markedly, but deadly attacks occur almost every day.
■ITALY
Alleged crime boss arrested
Cesare Pagano, an alleged organized crime boss who was one of the country’s most wanted, was arrested on Thursday, police said. Pagano was the alleged head of the so-called “secessionists” gang of the Camorra — the Naples version of the Sicilian Mafia — who led a bloody clan war for control of Scampia, one of Naples’ most blighted and dangerous neighborhoods. The 42-year-old Pagano, who was arrested along with his nephew in a seaside villa near Naples, led a revolt against the Di Lauro clan for control of the area’s drug trafficking operations. He was on the list of 30-most-wanted criminals.
■DR CONGO
Activist’s death probed
An international autopsy team looking into the death of a prominent Congolese human rights activist was unable to give a conclusive cause of death. The death of Floribert Chebeya, whose corpse was found in his car last month after he was summoned to see the police chief, caused outrage and led to calls for an international investigation. A joint Dutch and Congolese forensic team conducted the autopsy. “The autopsy could not show with certainty the cause of death,” a joint statement said. However, the team found “indications of external duress via impact, compression and/or being clasped at the arms and legs. [The] evidence is strongly in favor of a primary cause involving the heart,” it said. Chebeya suffered from heart problems.
■ITALY
Milan may lose ‘Monopoly’
Despite its status as the country’s second-largest city and capital of fashion and finance, Milan’s rulers fear the city’s honor is under threat because of its likely failure to feature on a new version of the Italian Monopoly board. The mayor, Letizia Moratti, has launched an appeal for the Milanese to vote in droves in a poll to save their city from the humiliation of being left off the board after a council meeting on Wednesday to call for action. “The absence of Milan from such an important and historic game ... would represent, albeit on a small scale, a lack of recognition — almost a sick joke,” Councilor Alessandro Fede Pellone said. Loyal Milanese have until July 28 to vote online to include it. So far, Milan has received a miserable 0.23 percent of the ballot — about a third of what it needs to make it on to the board.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Spencer items auctioned
Christie’s auction house says a sale of art, antiques and assorted household items owned by the aristocratic family of the late Princess Diana has sold for £21.1 million (US$32 million). The three-day sale, which concluded in London on Thursday, featured hundreds of items, including paintings, furniture and even carriages from the Spencer family’s country estate and historic London home. The top item was a painting by Peter Paul Rubens, Commander Being Armed for Battle, which sold for £9 million at Christie’s Old Masters sale on Tuesday. The Spencer family had owned it since 1802. A horse carriage used at the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902 was sold for £133,250.
■CANADA
Governor general picked
A legal scholar will be Queen Elizabeth II’s new representative to replace Governor General Michaelle Jean, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Thursday. University of Waterloo president David Johnston will assume the role on Oct. 1, after Jean’s term officially ends. “David Johnston represents the best of Canada,” Harper said. “He represents hard work, dedication, public service and humility.” Haitian-born Michaelle Jean, the first black person and only the third woman to hold the post as head of state, will assume the role of special envoy to UNESCO.
■UNITED STATES
Killer given 200-year term
A Newark man convicted in the execution-style murders of three college-bound friends in a schoolyard was sentenced to more than 200 years in prison on Thursday by a judge who said the killings were produced by “a mind diseased.” Rodolfo Godinez, convicted in May on 17 counts including murder, felony murder, robbery and weapons offenses, was given three consecutive life sentences plus 20 years by state Superior Court Judge Michael Ravin, who followed the state’s sentencing request. The 27-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant is one of six defendants in the case; the other five are awaiting separate trials. Before Ravin pronounced sentence, a procession of family members spoke about victims Terrance Aeriel, Iofemi Hightower and Dashon Harvey. The last to speak was a woman who survived the attacks.
■UNITED STATES
Wife charged in murder
The wife of a Florida travel executive who was beaten to death in a suburban New York hotel last year let the killers into the room and handed them a pillow to put over his face, according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday. The victim was 53-year-old Ben Novack Jr. Ecuador-born Narcy Novack, 53, her brother and two others were indicted in the slaying at the Hilton Rye Town in Rye Brook, New York, on July 12 last year. US Attorney Preet Bharara said investigators are also looking into the death of Ben Novack’s 86-year-old mother, Bernice Novack of Fort Lauderdale as well. Her death has been ruled an accident, although she suffered a broken jaw and blood was found on her car and the walls of her house. Narcy Novack was arrested Thursday at her home in Fort Lauderdale.
■COLOMBIA
Journalist refused US visa
The US government has denied a visa to a prominent journalist Hollman Morris, who specializes in conflict and human rights reporting, and was planning on accepting a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University. Morris, who produces an independent TV news program called Contravia, has been highly critical of ties between illegal far-right militias and allies of President Alvaro Uribe, Washington’s closest ally in Latin America. The curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard said a consular official at the US embassy in Bogota told him Morris had been ruled permanently ineligible for a visa under the “Terrorist activities” section of the USA Patriot Act.
■UNITED STATES
Toddler’s body found
A search for a missing two-year-old South Carolina boy has ended with the discovery of a body encased in 181kg of concrete in a trash can. The boy’s father, Roger Williams, and his girlfriend, Grace Nichole Trotman, were arrested on Thursday, two days after the couple concocted a story about the boy falling into the Charleston Harbor, police said.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
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