China
Hospital throws out baby
A hospital has suspended four medical workers for mistakenly diagnosing a stillbirth and disposing of a baby that was alive, state press said yesterday. Health authorities in Guangdong Province have launched an investigation into the incident on Oct. 26 at the Nanhai Red Cross Hospital in Foshan City, Beijing News said. Liu Dongmei (劉冬梅) — eight months pregnant — had been rushed to the hospital with internal bleeding and stomach cramps. She later had an emergency birth, but the baby was neither breathing nor crying when it came out and its skin had turned purple, the report said. Believing it was dead, the medical team disposed of the child, but did not follow proper procedures, it said. When Liu’s sister-in-law asked to see the body about 30 minutes after birth, she was handed a yellow plastic bag containing the infant and found it was still alive, said the Foshan News, a local Web site. Following the discovery, the newborn was rushed to intensive care, where he remains in stable condition. Liu and her husband are seeking to sue the hospital, Beijing News said.
SOUTH KOREA
No-smoke zones to expand
Seoul will expand no-smoking zones to cover one-fifth of its area by 2014, the municipal government said yesterday, as part of a clampdown in a city once noted for its tolerance for smokers. Over the next three years, smoking will be banned in 21 percent of the metropolis’ 605km2 area, including 1,305 school zones, 1,910 parks and 5,715 bus stops. The city government said in a statement that after 2014, it would consider banning smoking in all public outdoor areas except for designated zones. Seoul this year banned smoking in three major plazas and 20 parks to try to reduce second-hand smoke. Offenders face a fine of 100,000 won (US$90).
SOUTH KOREA
‘Bald’ label not libelous
Calling somebody “bald” is not derogatory and does not constitute libel, the top court ruled on Thursday. A 30-year-old man only identified as Kim living in the southern port of Busan was charged last year with defamation after calling a man named Park “bald” during an online chat. An investigation found that Park was not even bald, and Kim was convicted and fined 300,000 won. The Supreme Court overturned the decision, calling for caution in restricting free expression. “The word ‘bald head’ might have been used to insult the plaintiff, but we cannot say from an objective viewpoint that it implies damage to the social status or reputation of people,” it said.
CHINA
Baby sellers arrested
Police in Zoucheng, Shandong Province, broke up a human trafficking ring involving poor migrant couples who were selling their babies, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday. Police in Zoucheng found last month that 17 infants had been sold in the city to Chinese buyers, the Global Times newspaper said. Police rescued 13 of the babies and sent them to welfare centers and a search is under way for the other four, the paper said. The report cited an investigating police officer as saying the couples were mainly migrants who had moved from poor areas in Sichuan Province to Zoucheng to seek work. It quoted the officer, Chen Qingwei (陳慶偉), as saying the husbands would go out to work while their wives sold their babies to raise money. One couple had sold three children, the newspaper said. Chen said baby boys could be sold for up to 50,000 yuan (US$7,730), while the price for girls was 30,000 yuan, much more than the parents could earn from farming.
UNITED STATES
Troop drawdown questioned
Republican House Speaker John Boehner warned on Thursday against hasty troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan he said could be fueled by political expediency trumping security concerns. Asked about a Wall Street Journal report that President Barack Obama could be eyeing a quicker-than-expected shift to a supporting role in Afghanistan, Boehner noted Obama’s move to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by the end of the year and warned that “there are serious gaps in Iraq’s ability to protect itself, especially from their neighbors to the east,” Iran.
UNITED KINGDOM
Whale meat warning issued
The government is warning travelers to Iceland that bringing whale meat back with them could lead to a fine or a jail term. Iceland continues to hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling and the meat is widely sold there. The Foreign Office on Wednesday updated its travel advice page for the North Atlantic nation, noting that “any importation of whale meat will result in seizure of the goods, possibly a fine of up to ￡5,000 [US$8,000] and a custodial sentence.” The government’s international travel advice pages typically warn of risks from crime, terrorism or natural disaster. Whale meat imports to the EU are banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
UNITED STATES
Glacier crack grows
A crack in western Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier stretching at least 30km and running 50m deep is growing and could break apart the Arctic ice sheet in the coming months, forming an iceberg the size of New York City, NASA scientists said on Thursday. The rift is widening at a rate of 2m a day, NASA project scientist Michael Studinger said. When the ice breaks apart, it would produce an iceberg of more than 880km2 said Studinger, who is part of the US space agency’s IceBridge project. However, the process is not a result of global warming, he said. “We expect that later this year or early next year there will be a pretty large iceberg forming as part of a natural cycle,” he added. The rift was first seen in late September by scientists monitoring changes on the ice shelf via airplane flyovers in order to fill in the gaps left between a pair of satellites, ICESAT, which ended in 2009, and ICESAT 2, which launches in 2016.
FRANCE
Wrong Web site hacked
A fansite for a rugby union team is recovering after hackers mistook it for the Web site of the German stock exchange and launched an attack. The allezdax.com Web site for second-division Dax in the rugby-loving southwest of the country was shut down for two weeks after its usual 700 daily page hits — 1,200 on match days — skyrocketed to 80,000 because of the attack. “Our defenses were certainly inadequate,” one of the site’s administrators who gave his name as Stephane told the France Bleu Gascogne radio station. He said the hackers had “insulted us copiously in German” thinking they were something to do with the DAX, Germany’s blue-chip stock market index. “I only have one thing to say to them: ‘Leave us alone,” Stephane said. “Having been attacked full-on by a young, spotty Teuton, the site is back with more security,” the site’s home-page said on Thursday. The site notes that as a result of the attack, it is now twice as popular as the Dax club’s official site.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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