■JAPAN
Man arrested over exports
Police yesterday arrested a businessman for allegedly trying to export to North Korea two large vehicles that could be put to military use in its missile program, police officials said. Tei Rinsai — a 50-year-old trading house president of unknown nationality also using the name Tadao Morita — allegedly tried to export two tanker trucks to North Korea via South Korea. Media reports said the two vehicles, second-hand tanker trucks, could be used to carry missiles and fuel and serve as launching pads.
■AUSTRALIA
Conservation zone created
The government yesterday announced a new conservation zone off the northeast coast, but rejected environmentalists’ demands for a fishing ban in the Coral Sea. Environment Minister Peter Garrett said fishing boats and cruise ships would continue to have access to the 972,000km² of waters east of the protected Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. But no increase in fishing or cruise ship traffic would be allowed, he said.
■AUSTRALIA
Woman arrested in Phuket
An Australian woman said yesterday she had been wrongfully locked up in a Thai prison for allegedly stealing a bar mat. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Melbourne mother of four Annice Smoel would receive consular assistance as she fights charges over the incident on the island of Phuket, which could lead to a five-year jail term. Smoel, 36, said she spent four nights in a cramped cell with three other inmates and had her passport confiscated after undercover police arrested her as she left a bar on May 3. Smoel, who was released on bail after being charged with theft, said the mat was jokingly placed in her bag by a friend and security footage would show she was innocent. The bar’s owner, Australian Steve Wood, said police initially intended only to chastise Smoel but the situation escalated when she began to abuse them and tried to flee.
■HONG KONG
Teacher convicted over sex
A primary school teacher was facing a jail term yesterday after being convicted of having sex with a girl pupil 280 times starting when she was 12 years old. Chu Chi-wah, 39, was found guilty of 11 counts of having sex with a minor over a two-year period. He will be sentenced on June 8. The girl told police they had sex 10 times a month on average. Chu, who taught her at primary school, began giving her private tutorials when she graduated to high school. They would have sex after the tutorials and her mother allowed her to sleep at his home, the court was told.
■UKRAINE
Tatars mark deportation
About 20,000 ethnic Tatars gathered in the Crimea peninsula on Monday to mark the 65th anniversary of their people’s mass deportation by Josef Stalin and renew demands for greater rights. Protesters rallied in the center of Simferopol, Crimea’s main town, to hear leaders urge the authorities to honor their claims to land and improve living conditions for the descendants of those who returned to their home region. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko issued a statement expressing sympathy at the suffering of the deportees and saying that Tatar returnees could help build a new Ukraine. Within days of Crimea’s recapture by Soviet Red Army forces, Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire Tatar population of more than 180,000 on May 18, 1944, on grounds that they collaborated with the Nazis.
■IRAN
Ex-PM cleared to run
Former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi has been cleared by the Guardians Council, the powerful constitutional watchdog, to stand in presidential elections on June 12, his media adviser Abolfazl Fateh said yesterday. Mousavi was the last serving prime minister before the post was scrapped in 1989. He is seeking to make a comeback after two decades in the political wilderness. The conservative electoral and constitutional watchdog screens prospective candidates and gives a final ruling on those who can run for the election. It will release the list of approved candidates tomorrow and on Friday.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Prince honored for garden
Prince Charles, an avid gardener and environmentalist, on Monday received the nation’s top gardening award from his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. The Victoria Medal of Honor is the highest accolade the Royal Horticultural Society bestows. Only 63 horticulturists can hold it at any time — a tribute to the 63 years of Queen Victoria’s reign. The society said the heir to the throne was given the medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in London in recognition of his “passion for plants, sustainable gardening and the environment.”
■UNITED STATES
Mockingbirds know threat
Mockingbirds can remember people who have threatened them and even start dive-bombing them if they see the person again, a study has found. An urban population of the songbirds ignored most passers-by, but took to the air when they recognized people who had approached their nest days before. When the birds spotted a previous offender, they screeched and set off to harass the person with swooping dives, at times grazing the tops of their heads. The extraordinary behavior, reported in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is thought to be the first published account of wild animals in their natural setting recognizing individuals of another species.
■DR CONGO
Condemn war crimes: HRW
The Security Council should condemn war crimes committed by UN-backed Congolese soldiers as a delegation visited the country yesterday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. “The Congolese army is responsible for widespread and vicious abuses against its own people that amount to war crimes,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher in HRW’s Africa division. HWR also demanded that the Security Council force the removal from military duty of Bosco Ntaganda, a former Tutsi rebel indicted by the International Criminal Court, which is now working with the Congolese army.
■UNITED STATES
Firefighters rescue ducks
Firefighters plucked four baby ducks from a storm drain on Monday after the rescuers heard the mother squawking for her hatchlings in a bustling Washington neighborhood known more for nightlife than wildlife. Firefighters at Engine Company 9 noticed a duck “screaming at a storm drain” in an alley, fire department spokesman Alan Etter said. When they took the cover off the drain, they found four ducklings swimming about 1.8m down, he said. The firefighters took all the ducks, including a fifth duckling that had stayed by its mother’s side, to a nearby police station, Etter said. Animal control officials said the ducks would be released into the wild once they are healthy enough.
■UNITED STATES
Man shot at Harvard
A man has been shot near a Harvard University dormitory. The man was wounded in his stomach on Monday outside an entrance to Kirkland House, one of a dozen dorms on the university’s campus in the Boston suburb of Cambridge. He was hospitalized in stable condition. Police said it was unclear if he was a student. House Master Tom Conley told the Harvard Crimson daily student newspaper the man didn’t live in the undergraduate dorm. A witness told the paper the victim was “college-aged” and was bleeding but conscious. No arrest has been made. Harvard said the shooting appears to be an “isolated” incident.
■UNITED STATES
Rapper Dolla shot dead
Up-and-coming rap artist Dolla, whose legal name is Roderick Anthony Burton II, was shot dead outside a landmark Los Angeles shopping mall on Monday, friends and family of the slain musician were reported as saying. The Atlanta-based musician was gunned down at the entrance to the Beverly Center, a popular shopping haunt for tourists, at around 3pm, the Los Angeles Times quoted Dolla’s publicist as saying. Los Angeles police have refused to confirm the identity of the 21-year-old victim, who died at Cedars Sinai Medical Center after being shot. LAPD officer Karen Rayner said a person of interest had been detained at Los Angeles International Airport later on Monday and was being questioned.
■BRAZIL
Ten arrested over child porn
Authorities arrested 10 people on Monday as part of a broad nationwide crackdown on child pornography on the popular Google-run Orkut social networking Web site. Some 400 federal agents were mobilized in Brasilia and 20 other states across the country seizing hundreds of CDs, DVDs and computers containing pornographic material, police said. Police said they accessed the private data of 3,267 Internet users suspected of possessing or distributing child pornography.
■COLOMBIA
Defense minister resigns
The nation’s defense minister resigned on Monday, saying he will launch a presidential bid if President Alvaro Uribe decides not to seek a third term. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, who has received credit for some of the military’s biggest successes against leftist rebels, said he is stepping down on Saturday after nearly three years in the post. Public officials have to step down a year ahead of the election to seek the presidency. Santos said he will support Uribe if the president runs for a third term next May, but if Uribe isn’t on the ballot, Santos said, “I will be a candidate.” Uribe has not said publicly whether he will seek a third term, something that would require a constitutional change.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
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