CHINA
Gutter crackdown nabs 32
Authorities detained 32 people for making and selling tonnes of cooking oil dredged from gutters, the Ministry of Public Security said yesterday, in the latest food safety scandal to hit the country. Police confiscated more than 100 tonnes of the “gutter oil” — used cooking oil fished from drains behind restaurants — in a crackdown on a criminal network that operated in 14 provinces, the ministry said on its Web site. The suspects were detained as part of an investigation that began in March in Zhejiang Province, the statement said, further pledging to eliminate the “gutter oil” market.
CHINA
Letters held for love
Postal authorities in Beijing have come up with a novel solution to a soaring divorce rate — love letters sent with a seven-year delay. The new service allows couples in the first flush of romance to post a letter their partner will only receive seven years later, the China Daily reported yesterday, saying that was when relationships often began to cool. In Beijing, the divorce rate has risen from 11,582 in 2004 to 21,013 last year, according to government data. Special envelopes containing a card for a personalized message went on sale in Beijing on Friday. Couples who marry in one of the capital’s 17 registration offices will also receive one of the envelopes. However, some people were less enthusiastic about the plan. “It’d be more than depressing if I received a love letter from seven years ago and I was no longer with my then-loved one,” Tsinghua University graduate Sun Lubin told the newspaper.
INDONESIA
Pangolin under threat
A shy and defenseless anteater has become the most illegally trafficked mammal in Asia. Smugglers are vacuuming up the pangolin for use in traditional Chinese medicine. Many believe it can cure an array of ailments and boost sexual prowess. Conservationists are making what they say is a last-ditch effort to save the scaly anteater by strengthening enforcement of wildlife protection laws. The pangolin was once widespread in Asia, but now is found only in parts of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and India. The largest market is China.
NEW ZEALAND
Seal-killer teen jailed
A teenager who admitted bludgeoning to death 25 seals, including newborn pups, was jailed for two years yesterday, the Malborough Express reported. Jason Trevor Godsiff had previously pleaded guilty to charges arising from the seal killings in November last year at Ohau Point on South Island. The 19-year-old reportedly told police he clubbed the seals with a metal pipe because he believed they were pests.
UNITED STATES
Bombing blamed on Haqqani
The Haqqani insurgent network was behind the truck bomb that killed five Afghans and wounded 94, including 77 US soldiers, the Pentagon said on Monday. The Taliban had claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack outside a combat outpost in Wardak Province. However, Department of Defense press secretary George Little said it was Haqqani operatives. The Haqqani network is a Pakistan-based group affiliated with both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. “This was not some guy with a suicide vest; this was a large, large vehicle with a large amount of explosive material,” said Navy Captain John Kirby, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “You don’t conduct that kind of attack without good resourcing, good planning and a fair level of coordination.”
UNITED STATES
Neanderthal mating rare
Scientists have shown that modern humans have some traces of genes from Neanderthals, but a study out on Monday suggests that any breeding between the two was most likely a rare event. The new computational model, based on DNA samples from modern humans in France and China, shows successful coupling happened at a rate of less than 2 percent. The research suggests that either inter-species sex was very taboo, or that the hybrid offspring had trouble surviving, according to the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Between 2 and 4 percent of the human genome can be linked to the long-extinct Neanderthals and their cavemen relatives. The squat, low-browed Neanderthals lived in parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for up to 300,000 years, but all evidence of them disappeared about 40,000 years ago, their last refuge being Gibraltar.
UNITED KINGDOM
New Met head appointed
The acting deputy commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, has been appointed the new head of Britain’s biggest police force, the government said on Monday. Hogan-Howe, who made his name by cutting crime as head of the Liverpool force, must now rebuild the Met’s reputation after his predecessor resigned over the phone-hacking scandal. He will oversee one of Scotland Yard’s biggest ever security challenges, next year’s London Olympics, and must also seek to reassure a capital scarred by August’s riots, the worst unrest seen in England for decades.
DUBAI
Al-Qaeda sends message
Al-Qaeda has released a message in which Osama bin Laden’s successor as the group’s leader, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, said al-Qaeda supported the Arab Spring. The hour-long video was released to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US. The SITE Monitoring Service, which tracks jihadist statements, quoted al-Zawahiri as saying he hoped the protest movements that have overthrown leaders in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya would establish what he called true Islam.
IRAN
Officials hang murderer
Authorities yesterday publicly hanged a man convicted of murdering a female fellow student in Tehran, the state television Web site reported. The 25-year-old, identified only by his first name, Kousha, had confessed to stabbing the woman to death in broad daylight after she spurned him in early July, the report said. Kousha was sent to the gallows near the scene of the crime, a bridge in northwest Tehran, it added. The latest hanging brings to 193 the number of executions reported in the country so far this year, according to an AFP tally.
EGYPT
Emergency decree expanded
One of Cairo’s ruling generals said on Monday the military would expand a state of emergency because of a “breach in public security” after protesters stormed Israel’s embassy and clashed with police, state news agency MENA reported. The ruling military council issued a decree to widen the scope of the emergency law — restricted last year by ousted president Hosni Mubarak to narcotics and terrorism cases — to target labor strikes and the “spread of false rumors.” It will also target acts that “disrupt traffic,” MENA reported. That could possibly outlaw many demonstrations like the regular protests held after an uprising overthrew Mubarak in February.
UNITED STATES
Shuttle extras for sale
The US space agency is offering schools and universities a special deal on astronaut cuisine and heat tiles from the now extinct space shuttles, NASA said on Monday. “The lightweight tiles protected the shuttles from extreme temperatures when the orbiters re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere,” NASA said in a statement. “The food, which was precooked or processed so that refrigeration is unnecessary, is ready to eat or could be prepared simply by adding water or by heating.” Since the items are government property, the price to mail them was set at US$23.40 for a package of “Tiles for Teachers” and US$28.03 for a three-pack of food items, called “Space Food for Schools.”
UNITED STATES
Palin jealousy begat baby
Levi Johnston writes in his upcoming book that his ex-girlfriend, Bristol Palin, was so angry about her mother’s pregnancy with son Trig that she wanted to get pregnant, too. The book is called Deer in the Headlights. It comes out on Tuesday. Johnston says when Bristol found out her mother, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, was expecting a baby, she responded that she should be having a baby, not her mother. He says she told him in March 2008: “Let’s get pregnant.” She had their baby at age 18.
UNITED STATES
‘Temple’ allegedly sold sex
Police in Arizona have arrested 20 members of a group called the “Goddess Temple” for allegedly offering sexual services online under the guise of religious healing. The probe into the Goddess Temple lasted six months, culminating in raids last Wednesday in Phoenix and in the northern Arizona city of Sedona. Detectives gathered evidence proving male and female “practitioners” were performing sexual acts, in exchange for monetary “donations,” under the guise of offering religious services, Maricopa County attorney Bill Montgomery said.
UNITED STATES
In-flight scares were duds
Crews aboard two US flights on Sunday, the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, were so unnerved by lengthy bathroom visits that officials scrambled F-16 aircraft to shadow the flights. The planes landed without incident and the six passengers who exhibited the “suspicious behavior” were released after being interviewed, the FBI said on Monday. Three men aboard an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York “went into the bathroom several times during the flight,” said Tim Flannelly, a spokesman for the FBI in New York. It turned out that “everything was copacetic,” he said. Two men and a woman who were sitting together unnerved passengers aboard a Frontier flight from Denver to Detroit after the two men went to the bathroom at about the same time. They were questioned by the FBI and released.
THE NETHERLANDS
Pope could be investigated
Clergy sex abuse victims, upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic officials have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests, brought their claims yesterday to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, seeking an investigation of the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity. The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit legal group, requested the inquiry, arguing that the church has maintained a “long-standing and pervasive system of sexual violence” despite promises to swiftly oust predators. The Vatican said it had no immediate comment.
The pledge by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to “work, work, work, work and work” for her country has been named the catchphrase of the year, recognizing the effort Japan’s first female leader had to make to reach the top. Takaichi uttered the phrase in October when she was elected as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Many were initially as worried about her work ethic as supportive of her enthusiasm. In a country notorious for long working hours, especially for working women who are also burdened with homemaking and caregiving, overwork is a sensitive topic. The recognition triggered a
Tropical Storm Koto killed three people and left another missing as it approached Vietnam, authorities said yesterday, as strong winds and high seas buffeted vessels off the country’s flood-hit central coast. Heavy rains have lashed Vietnam’s middle belt in recent weeks, flooding historic sites and popular holiday destinations, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Authorities ordered boats to shore and diverted dozens of flights as Koto whipped up huge waves and dangerous winds, state media reported. Two vessels sank in the rough seas, a fishing boat in Khanh Hoa province and a smaller raft in Lam Dong, according to the
‘HEART IS ACHING’: Lee appeared to baffle many when he said he had never heard of six South Koreans being held in North Korea, drawing criticism from the families South Korean President Lee Jae-myung yesterday said he was weighing a possible apology to North Korea over suspicions that his ousted conservative predecessor intentionally sought to raise military tensions between the war-divided rivals in the buildup to his brief martial law declaration in December last year. Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of imprisoned former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s ill-fated power grab, Lee — a liberal who won a snap presidential election following Yoon’s removal from office in April — stressed his desire to repair ties with Pyongyang. A special prosecutor last month indicted Yoon and two of his top
The Philippines deferred the awarding of a project that is part of a plan to build one of the world’s longest marine bridges after local opposition over the potential involvement of a Chinese company due to national security fears. The proposals are “undergoing thorough review” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which acts as a lender and an overseer of the project to ensure it meets international environmental and governance standards, the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways said in a statement on Monday in response to queries from Bloomberg. The agency said it would announce the winning bidder once ADB
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