CHINA
Rural harmony index begins
The government has released its first-ever “rural social harmony index,” state media reported yesterday, with the gauge apparently able to measure happiness down to the nearest ten-thousandth of a decimal point. The index shows that social harmony in the countryside at 59.2526 on a 100-point scale, Xinhua news agency said, citing a report by the Center for Chinese Rural Studies at Central China Normal University. The measurement was based on six criteria related to the Communist Party’s definition of a “harmonious society,” Xinhua said, including “democracy, justice, honesty, vitality, stability and harmony between humans and nature.” The study found that rural areas ranked highest in the area of honesty (83.65), but lower in achieving harmony between humans and nature (50.74), the agency said. The notion of a harmonious society was introduced by former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) as a call for a unified nation pulling together, but the slogan has been tarnished in recent years by persistent social turmoil and outbreaks of violent unrest over a wide range of issues, including corruption, police brutality and unpaid wages.
INDONESIA
Vimeo banned over ‘porn’
The government has ordered a ban on popular video-sharing Web site Vimeo after accusing it of hosting pornographic content, sparking social media fury yesterday. The Ministry of Communications announced on Monday that the US-based site would be blocked following the discovery of Vimeo pages with names such as “Art of Nakedness” and “Nudie Cutie,” featuring naked and scantily clad women. The ministry is headed by Minister of Communications Tifatul Sembiring, who has waged a campaign against illicit material on the Internet. It said that Vimeo had been added to a list of 119 other sites banned over content deemed pornographic. Vimeo said on Twitter that the site was “blocked for some Indonesian users, but it’s on the Indonesian side and we can’t unblock it.” Social media users reacted furiously to the news that the site was being blocked. “It’s insane... The world will laugh at Indonesia for considering Vimeo a pornographic site,” Savic Ali said on Twitter.
JORDAN
Diplomat held in Libya freed
Ambassador to Libya Fawaz Aitan has been freed a month after masked gunmen kidnapped him in Tripoli and returned home yesterday. Aitan’s release came days after Tripoli said it had ratified an extradition agreement with Amman. There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction, but Libyan sources say the abductors were demanding the release of a Libyan jihadist jailed in Jordan for more than seven years. Mohammed Saeed al-Darsi was tried and convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to life in prison in 2007. He was found guilty of possessing explosives and planning an attack on Amman’s international airport. Aitan was handed over to the Jordanian authorities in Libya at 3am, Jordanian Parliamentary Minister of Affairs Khaled al-Kalaldah told reporters. “Last week, [al-]Darsi was handed over to Libyan authorities in line with the [extradition] agreement so that he will spend the rest of his sentence in Libyan jails,” al-Kalaldah said. Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Judeh said on local state TV that Aitan was “doing well” following his release. Upon landing at Marka military airport in Amman, the ambassador was greeted by relatives and officials led by Prince Faisal bin Hussein, the brother of King Abdullah II, state news agency Petra said.
CANADA
Railway crash charges laid
Authorities on Monday charged Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway Ltd (MM&A) and three employees with criminal negligence following the train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people last year. Thomas Harding, Jean Demaitre, Richard Labrie and the company itself were charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death, public prosecutor’s office spokesman Rene Verret said. He said Harding was the train driver, while Labrie was a controller at MM&A and Demaitre was director of operations. Verret said the three were placed under arrest on Monday and would appear in court yesterday afternoon in Lac-Megantic. The derailment occurred after Harding parked his train for the night on a main line uphill from the small town. The train of oil tankers started rolling and eventually derailed, exploding into balls of fire and flattening the center of the town. US-based MM&A initially blamed the catastrophe on the failure of the train’s pneumatic air brakes after an engine fire, but chairman Edward Burkhardt later said the train’s engineer did not apply an adequate number of handbrakes to hold the train in place.
MEXICO
Zetas founder killed
A most-wanted founder of the ultra-violent Zetas drug cartel has been killed in a clash with the military that involved grenades and assault rifles, authorities said on Monday. Galdino Mellado Cruz, a military deserter known by the alias Z-9, was killed in one of two gunfights in the northern border city of Reynosa on Friday that also left five civilians and a soldier dead. The skirmish came amid a surge in violence in Tamaulipas State that has left more than 80 people dead since April 5, including the state police’s chief of investigations. Intelligence work led the troops to a house in Reynosa where Mellado was hiding, national security commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said. Grenades were lobbed from the house and shots fired at the soldiers. Several carloads of gunmen arrived at the scene with assault rifles, apparently to help Mellado. When the clash ended, Mellado was found dead inside the house next to a submachine gun, Rubido said.
VENEZUELA
Leprosy vaccine maker dies
Scientist and doctor Jacinto Convit, renowned for developing a vaccine against leprosy, died on Monday in Caracas at the age of 100, his family said. Convit won many international honors, including Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award and France’s Legion of Honor, and was tipped for the 1988 Nobel Prize for Medicine, although he did not win. Convit also made significant contributions to a better understanding of infectious and parasitic diseases such as Leishmaniasis and Chagas. In the past 15 years, he devoted much of his time looking for a cure for cancer.
UNITEDS STATES
Boy in court over killing
A 13-year-old Colorado boy suspected of shooting his father dead and concealing the killing for days by calling the man’s work to say his dad was sick made his first court appearance on Monday as prosecutors weighed whether to charge him as an adult. Kai Kelly was arrested last week on suspicion of first-degree murder in the death of his father, Joseph Kelly, in the small town of Gypsum. Jill Sarmo, spokeswoman for the Eagle County District Attorney’s Office, said the boy was appointed a public defender on Monday and will be formally charged at a later date.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
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