CHINA
Kunming blocking protests
Kunming authorities are making people who buy white T-shirts or print or photocopy banners show identity cards and register their real names, the Global Times said yesterday. The regulations are aimed at preventing further demonstrations against a planned paraxylene (PX) chemical plant, the newspaper said. PX is a toxic petrochemical used to make fabrics and hundreds of people took to the streets earlier this month to protest against the proposed facility. Two printing and photocopying shops in Kunming said that they were not accepting any work concerning the PX protests even if customers showed identification and provided their real name.
JAPAN
Court rules for dad
A man whose teenage son ran up a ￥5.5 million (US$54,000) credit card bill in a champagne-fueled tour of girlie bars does not have to pay most of it back, the Kyoto District Court has ruled. The 16-year-old and his friend took his father’s platinum American Express card around luxury nightspots, quaffing whisky and sparkling wine at up to ￥380,000 per bottle, local media said. The court ruled last week that bar owners and the credit card company bore the lion’s share of responsibility for the misuse of the card in 2010, media reported. The court ordered that the boy’s father pay ￥800,000 of the bill.
NORTH KOREA
Offer to Seoul over Kaesong
Pyongyang yesterday said it would allow South Korean businesspeople to visit their plants in the shuttered Kaesong joint economic zone, but declined Seoul’s offer of official working-level talks on the complex. The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said it had approved a trip by Seoul businesspeople and would guarantee their safety. Operations at Kaesong ground to a halt after Pyongyang pulled all its workers out early last month. Seoul insists Pyongyang must first agree to working-level talks on the assets of the South Korean firms and other issues before the businesspeople can return.
CHINA
Man caged for 11 years
A mentally ill man has been kept in a cage for more than a decade by his family after he beat a child to death, the Information Daily reported on Monday, carrying images of him staring blankly though the bars. Wu Yuanhong, 42, was shown sitting on blankets, his feet shackled with a heavy chain and wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. He was diagnosed as a schizophrenic at the age of 15 and in 2001 he beat a 13-year-old to death, the newspaper said on its Web site. Jiangxi Province authorities released him a year later as his illness meant he was not legally responsible for his actions, it said. His mother, Wang Muxiang, built the cage after he escaped and walked around his village scaring residents, the report said.
CHINA
HIV tests for teachers dropped
Guangdong Province is likely to abolish mandatory HIV tests for teachers, the China Daily said yesterday, making it the first region to eliminate the measures. HIV carriers are excluded from civil service jobs, including teaching and policing, in many provinces. The newspaper said that HIV tests had been removed from a draft list of health standards for teaching candidates in the province. The announcement represents a “breakthrough”” in a campaign to overturn discriminatory laws and brings the nation’s policy into line with international norms, said Lu Jun (陸軍), head of Beijing-based human rights group the Yi Ren Ping Center.
MALI
Presidential poll scheduled
The country is to hold a presidential election on July 28, according to a draft law adopted by the Cabinet as the nation struggles to move on from war and an 18-month political crisis. A Cabinet communique on Monday marked the first official confirmation of the date of the poll, seen as essential to restoring democratic rule after a coup last year paved the way for Islamist rebels to seize control of the north. Acting president Dioncounda Traore has said that neither he nor his ministers will stand in the polls, which will go to a second round on Aug. 11 if required.
ALGERIA
Child abductors jailed
An Algiers criminal court has sentenced to 12 years in jail a doctor accused of kidnapping children born to single mothers and selling them for adoption in France. Khelifa Hanouti, accused of illegally shipping the children abroad with the help of a notary, must also pay a fine of 1 million dinars (US$12,900), the court ruled late on Monday. Six French suspects of Algerian origin living in the French city of Saint-Etienne were sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison. A notary accused of writing “disclaimer documents” signed by single mothers was sentenced to five years in prison. Four defendants were sentenced to three years suspended, while another was acquitted. The prosecution had requested a 20-year jail sentence and a fine of 5 million dinars for the main suspect, Hanouti.
POLAND
Corpse van thieves jailed
A court has imprisoned three men who stole a van in Germany that contained 12 bodies in coffins. The court in Poznan on Monday ordered the men to serve between two and four years in prison for the theft of the van in October last year in the Berlin suburb of Hoppegarten. The court said the men were not aware that the bodies were inside and that they were scheduled to be taken to a crematorium. The verdict is subject to appeal. A fourth man was previously given an 11-month term, and another one is being sought in the case. Two weeks after the theft, the coffins with the bodies were found in a wooded area near Konin, in western Poland, where the thieves had dumped them.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Amos Oz wins Kafka award
Amos Oz, Israel’s best-known writer, was on Monday named the winner of this year’s international Franz Kafka literary prize for his imaginative tales of life in the Jewish state. Oz, 74, will receive the award and a US$10,000 check at an October ceremony in Prague, the Franz Kafka Society, which organizes the annual award, said in a statement. Oz is known for his use of humor and imagination in work that has been translated into more than 40 languages.
CANADA
Rob Ford aides resign
Two senior aides to embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford resigned on Monday as a controversy over a video purportedly showing him smoking crack cocaine showed no signs of abating. The departure of Ford’s press secretary and his assistant brought the total number of top aides to leave in recent days to three, after the firing of his chief of staff on Thursday. Ford has for more than a week battled allegations of illicit drug use that first surfaced in the Toronto Star. In the latest twist in the saga, the daily Globe and Mail, citing unnamed sources, reported the mayor’s brother, Toronto City Councilor Doug Ford, dealt hashish in his teens and early 20s. He quickly denied the allegation.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
CHINESE ICBM: The missile landed near the EEZ of French Polynesia, much to the surprise and concern of the president, who sent a letter of protest to Beijing Fijian President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for “respect for our region” and a stop to missile tests in the Pacific Ocean, after China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean’s history as a nuclear weapons testing ground, and noted Wednesday’s rare launch by China of an ICBM. “There was a unilateral test firing of a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. We urge respect for our region and call for cessation of such action,” he said. The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the
As violence between Israel and Hezbollah escalates, Iran is walking a tightrope by supporting Hezbollah without being dragged into a full-blown conflict and playing into its enemy’s hands. With a focus on easing its isolation and reviving its battered economy, Iran is aware that war could complicate efforts to secure relief from crippling sanctions. Cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah, sparked by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year, has intensified, especially after last week’s sabotage on Hezbollah’s communications that killed 39 people. Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon followed, killing hundreds. Hezbollah retaliated with rocket barrages. Despite the surge in
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