■ CHINA
Coal mine owner jailed
A coal mine owner has been jailed for life for a gas blast that killed 21 people and for a subsequent cover-up, local media said yesterday. Wang Jianjun, the owner of a private mine in Jincheng in the coal-rich northern province of Shanxi, received the sentence from a local court for the March accident, the Beijing News said. In March, he ordered an "outrageous cover-up" of the deaths by sealing off information, sending home miners and destroying evidence, the newspaper said. The sentence was the harshest punishment meted out in the world's deadliest coal mining industry -- with a death toll of 4,746 people last year -- in recent years, it added.
■ JAPAN
Arrest made in murder case
Police said yesterday they had arrested a third man in connection with last month's slaying of the mayor of Nagasaki. Masaki Yamashita, 29, was arrested on suspicion of abetting the gangster who shot mayor Iccho Ito as he campaigned for re-election, a spokesman for the Nagasaki police department said. Yamashita turned himself in yesterday and confessed to having helped the assassin, Tetsuya Shiroo, by watching the movements of the 61-year-old mayor, who was shot twice in the back on April 17, he said. On Sunday police also arrested Hiromi Ogawa, 60, on suspicion of having driven Shiroo to the scene of the murder.
■ JAPAN
Prosecutors appeal verdict
Prosecutors have appealed a verdict clearing a Tokyo businessman of the abduction and killing of British bar hostess Lucie Blackman, a court spokeswoman said yesterday. The Tokyo District Prosecutors Office filed the appeal on Friday, the spokeswoman at the Tokyo District Court said. The court last week sentenced Joji Obara, a wealthy former property developer, to life in prison for raping nine women including Australian bar hostess Carita Ridgway, who also died. But the court said there was insufficient evidence to prove he killed Blackman. Obara, who denied all the charges, has already appealed the jail term.
■ MALAYSIA
Doctors in a knot
Doctors want to be free of encumbrances around their necks. Not their stethoscopes, but neckties. The Malaysian Medical Association has asked the Health Ministry to scrap a regulation requiring doctors to wear ties while on hospital ward rounds, saying the gentleman's fashion accessory could pose a health risk to patients, a news report said yesterday. "Neckties are not the most frequently washed apparel and ... [studies] show that neckties carry contaminants that could cause infections [to the patients]," Malaysian Medical Association president Teoh Siang Chin was quoted as saying by the Star daily. "And when doctors are doing their clinical rounds, they dangle all over the place. And how many people wash their ties?"
■ MALAYSIA
Police search for teenagers
Police and army troops were searching yesterday for 23 national service trainees who went missing after their instructor left them behind while on a jungle trek, news reports said. A major search was under way in the Asahan Forest Reserve in southern Malaysia to search for the teenagers, all males, who went missing on Monday afternoon, The Star daily reported. The New Straits Times daily said the missing group's trainer walked ahead of them and waited at the next checkpoint.
■ DOMINICA
Whaling support criticized
The government rejected criticism on Monday that its vote on an international whaling council was up for sale after the prime minister returned from Japan with new aid pledges and renewed his support for commercial whaling. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, said on state-owned DBS radio on Monday that "we told the Japanese we will continue to support the sustainable use of marine resources." Environmental groups have accused the country and other developing nations of voting with Japan at International Whaling Commission meetings in exchange for financial aid. "Dominica is for sale and acts like an international prostitute," conservationist Atherton Martin said.
■ FRANCE
Le Pen issues voting orders
Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen urged his supporters to abstain from voting in the presidential runoff on Sunday between conserva-tive Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal. Le Pen, speaking at a traditional May Day rally yesterday, said he was focusing on next month's two-round parliamentary elections. He placed fourth and was ousted in the April 22 first-round presidential balloting, having received some 3.8 million votes. "I invite voters who trusted me not to cast ballots for Madame Royal or Mr. Sarkozy," Le Pen told at least 5,000 supporters in front of Paris' gilded Opera.
■ COLOMBIA
Cocaine grab largest ever
Armed forces captured between 20 and 25 tonnes of cocaine packed into 1,000 bales on the Pacific coast on Monday in what authorities said was a historic blow to drug traffickers. The coast is a major drug smuggling route to Mexico and the US and is an area where narcotics gangs, illegal paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas battle for control of trafficking operations. "They have captured the largest number of tonnes of cocaine ever," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said. The country is the world's top cocaine producer, putting around 600 tonnes of cocaine on the market each year.
■ POLAND
Former general apologizes
Former general Wojciech Jaruzelski, charged with committing a "communist crime" by declaring martial law in 1981 to curb the rise of the Solidarity movement, on Monday apologized to victims. The 83-year-old apologized to "all the victims" of the nine-year crackdown. "I was under pressure by internal and external forces. I still suffer today," said Jaruzelski, who faces 10 years in jail if convicted. Thousands of arrests were made and dozens of people were killed in clashes after he outlawed the Solidarity trade union, led by later president Lech Walesa.
■ NIGERIA
Official's mom kidnapped
Gunmen seized the mother of a newly elected state governor in the oil-rich south, police said yesterday. The mother of Celestine Omeiha was kidnapped overnight from her home in southern Rivers state, said police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu. The kidnappers have not yet made any demands. Omeiha was elected governor of the country's richest state two weeks ago in polls characterized by widespread violence and vote-rigging. Meanwhile, six foreign oil workers were kidnapped and one Nigerian killed by armed militants on an oil industry vessel off the coast yesterday, security sources said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Army dumps war criminal
The country's first convicted war criminal was dismissed by the army and sentenced to a year in prison on Monday in connection with the death of an Iraqi hotel worker. Corporal Donald Payne was sentenced by a military court, Bulford Camp in southwest England, after pleading guilty to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians in southern Basra in 2003. In September, Payne became the country's first soldier to plead guilty to a war crime under international law. Judge Stuart McKinnon acknowledged the violent treatment of prisoners was standard practice in Basra for the soldier's Queen's Lancashire Regiment.
■ UNITED STATES
LA serial killer convicted
A man described by prosecutors as possibly Los Angeles' most prolific serial killer was convicted on Monday of murdering 10 women and one victim's unborn fetus in the 1980s and 1990s. The jury also found Chester Turner guilty of the special circumstances of multiple murder and murder committed during rape. The six-man, six-woman jury had deliberated since Thursday. Turner did not appear to react as the jury's verdicts were read. He could receive the death penalty in the penalty phase of the trial, scheduled to begin today. Turner, 40, is already serving an eight-year prison sentence for a 2002 rape. His DNA in that case linked him to the serial killings.
■ UNITED STATES
Fires strike historic sites
Two fires ravaged historic sites in Washington on Monday, one gutting part of the 134-year-old Eastern Market and the other destroying irreplaceable documents and art at the Georgetown public library branch. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin said there was absolutely no suspicion that the fires were related. The first blaze tore through the southern half of the Eastern Market, a Capitol Hill landmark. The city-owned building was empty at the time. Hours later, a blaze rushed through the library, which was undergoing renovation. There were no injuries. Many employees cried at the sight of the flames. "This is stuff nobody else has, not even the Library of Congress," archivist Jerry McCoy said.
■ UNITED STATES
Alligator causes traffic jam
All it takes is one illegally parked troublemaker to tie up freeway traffic -- especially if it is a 2.4m alligator sprawled across the pavement. The alligator caused a traffic jam in San Antonio, Texas, early on Sunday. Police car sirens did not persuade the big reptile to budge off Loop 410. Police threw orange traffic cones at the gator, but it just snapped at the cones and flung them away. The gator even assaulted a police car, biting a chunk out of its bumper. Officers finally used a lasso and metal poles to coax it into a drainage ditch leading to a lake. State game warden David Chavez could not explain why a gator would take up residence on a busy highway.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Harry will go to Iraq
Prince Harry will serve in Iraq with his regiment, the head of the army said on Monday, despite fears that insurgents could target the third in line to the throne. "I have taken the decision as chief of general staff. It's my decision as chief of general staff. I have full command of everyone in the army, including Prince Harry," General Richard Dannatt said in a statement. Dannatt said the decision had been taken after the "widest possible consultation" but added that he could yet change his mind if circumstances changed.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
‘CROWN JEWEL’: Washington ‘can delay and deter’ Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans for Taiwan, but it is ‘a very delicate situation there,’ the secretary of state said US President Donald Trump is opposed to any change to Taiwan’s “status quo” by force or extortion and would maintain that policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Hugh Hewitt Show host on Wednesday. The US’ policy is to maintain Taiwan’s “status quo” and to oppose any changes in the situation by force or extortion, Rubio said. Hewitt asked Rubio about the significance of Trump earlier this month speaking with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) at the White House, a meeting that Hewitt described as a “big deal.” Asked whether the meeting was an indication of the
‘RELATIVELY STRONG LANGUAGE’: An expert said the state department has not softened its language on China and was ‘probably a little more Taiwan supportive’ China’s latest drills near Taiwan on Monday were “brazen and irresponsible threats,” a US Department of State spokesperson said on Tuesday, while reiterating Washington’s decades-long support of Taipei. “China cannot credibly claim to be a ‘force for stability in a turbulent world’ while issuing brazen and irresponsible threats toward Taiwan,” the unnamed spokesperson said in an e-mailed response to media queries. Washington’s enduring commitment to Taiwan will continue as it has for 45 years and the US “will continue to support Taiwan in the face of China’s military, economic, informational and diplomatic pressure campaign,” the e-mail said. “Alongside our international partners, we firmly
KAOHSIUNG CEREMONY: The contract chipmaker is planning to build 5 fabs in the southern city to gradually expand its 2-nanometer chip capacity Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday confirmed that it plans to hold a ceremony on March 31 to unveil a capacity expansion plan for its most advanced 2-nanometer chips in Kaohsiung, demonstrating its commitment to further investment at home. The ceremony is to be hosted by TSMC cochief operating officer Y.P. Chyn (秦永沛). It did not disclose whether Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and high-ranking government officials would attend the ceremony. More details are to be released next week, it said. The chipmaker’s latest move came after its announcement earlier this month of an additional US$100 billion
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