The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Australian boy jailed for 13 yrs for murdering Indian student
- Government muddle, Tepco missteps cited by Fukushima panel - paper
- Protest against power plant in South China escalates - papers
| Australian boy jailed for 13 yrs for murdering Indian student Posted: 21 Dec 2011 08:57 PM PST MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An Australian teenage boy was sentenced to up to 13 years jail on Thursday for murdering an Indian student in 2010, an attack which ignited a diplomatic crisis and damaged the nation's international student sector, the third largest export earner. The killing came amid a string of attacks in late 2009 and early 2010 against Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney. The violence received widespread publicity in India, with some news outlets there claiming the attacks were racially motivated. Australian police said race was a factor in some of the assaults, but many were ordinary crimes. Thousands of Indian students boycotted Australia in response. The 17-year-old teenager, known as JLE as his identity can not be revealed under court orders, was 15 when he stabbed to death Indian student Nitin Garg in Melbourne in a bungled attempt to rob him of a mobile phone. In handing down sentence, Victorian Supreme Court Judge Paul Coghlan said the murder was opportunistic, with Garg targeted as he walked home from work at night, and "probably took place in less than a minute," local media reported from the court. "Although it was a very serious crime, it was committed spontaneously," said Coghlan. Coghlan said despite the fact JLE did not intend to kill Garg, and did not even know if he had stabbed his victim, he was still guilty of "constructive murder" because the killing occurred in the process of committing a violent offence. Australia's international student sector is the country's third largest export earner, behind coal and iron ore, totalling some A$18 billion in 2010. Enrolments of international students continue to tumble, dropping 9.4 percent in the last year. (Reporting by Michael Perry, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. | ||
| Government muddle, Tepco missteps cited by Fukushima panel - paper Posted: 21 Dec 2011 08:22 PM PST TOKYO (Reuters) - Poor communication at the top level of government may have delayed the evacuation of residents threatened by radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear plant, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Thursday, citing a panel investigating the crisis. It also accuses plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co of misjudgements soon after the plant was wrecked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which knocked out reactor cooling systems and triggered meltdowns, the paper said. The 12-member panel, set up in May on the initiative of then prime minister Naoto Kan, will release an interim report of its findings on December 26, the Yomiuri said without citing sources. It said the panel found that poor communication between the government's crisis management centre and decision-making top officials, both housed in the same building, delayed the use of a system that predicts the spread of radioactivity, which could have allowed more adequate evacuation orders to be given. The government ordered the first evacuation of residents near the plant, 240 km northeast of Tokyo, on the evening of March 11, hours after the quake and tsunami. The quake struck at 2:46 p.m. on that day, and the first tsunami reached the plant about 40 minutes later. The evacuation was expanded to a 20 km radius of the complex from 10 km next day. The panel found Tepco staff did not have a full grasp of backup cooling systems, which delayed its response, the paper said. NOT THE ONLY ONE The government panel, headed by Yotaro Hatamura, an engineering professor at Tokyo University specialising in the study of things going wrong, includes seismologists, former diplomats and judges. It is not the only body investigating responses to the March disaster. Dissatisfied with the panel's perceived lack of muscle -- it has not yet summoned Kan or other top officials for questioning -- lawmakers formed a separate panel this month with the authority to summon witnesses to parliamentary sessions. A third panel financed by private-sector funds is also looking into topics the government panel may have overlooked. Some have called into question the effectiveness of having a several investigative panels, which include high-profile figures such as Nobel laureates but few nuclear experts. The Fukushima aftermath is far from over, and it may take many years before engineers have a chance to see what really happened inside the Daiichi plant's damaged reactors. In a much anticipated move, the government declared last week that reactors at the plant had reached a state of cold shutdown, a milestone in cleanup efforts. But it said on Wednesday it may take another seven years before the inside of the reactors can be checked due to high levels of radiation and technological constraints. (Reporting by Shinichi Saoshiro; Editing by Michael Watson) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. | ||
| Protest against power plant in South China escalates - papers Posted: 21 Dec 2011 08:20 PM PST HONG KONG (Reuters) - Protests in a small town in China appear to have escalated with residents smashing cars and hurling bricks even though officials sought to calm tempers by suspending a plan to build a power plant, Hong Kong newspapers reported on Thursday. Angry crowds smashed and overturned police cars and riot police fired teargas in Haimen town in Shantou city on Wednesday, the second day of the unrest, newspapers reported.
The unrest escalated as a 10-day standoff between villagers and officials over a land dispute in the same province was resolved, and as China's domestic security chief told officials to focus on stability before the ruling Communist Party's leadership transition next year. Residents of Haimen, furious with plans to build a coal-fired power plant, took to the streets on Tuesday, surrounding a government building and blocking an expressway. Officials agreed to suspend the project by late Tuesday, but residents refused to back down, demanding the plan be scrapped. Government officials, including those from the security arm, have been vague and appeared to play down the unrest. A Shantou official told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday that there had been injuries but no deaths. On Thursday, an official at the Chaoyang Public Security Bureau denied any deaths or injuries although he said there was a "gathering" on Wednesday. Haimen is under the jurisdiction of Chaoyang district in the booming southern province of Guangdong. According to the Mingpao newspaper, more than 1,000 residents gathered at a toll gate to confront hundreds of riot police. POLLUTION Witnesses said police fired four rounds of teargas and beat up protesters, who do not want another power plant when existing power facilities there were already polluting air and seawater and had greatly reduced their catch at sea, Mingpao reported. At least three protesters were hit and arrested. Mingpao also quoted Zheng Guifang, 45, who was hit and injured by police when she said she was trying to find her daughter among the crowd of protesters. "I found my daughter but there were too many people and she could not come out," said Zheng from her hospital bed. People in China are increasingly unwilling to accept the relentless speed of urbanisation and industrialisation and the impact on the environment and health. "Look at how many villagers have died of cancer these past few years," a furious mother was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post. "Do you know how many Haimen people are lying in hospital beds?" Protests are also often held over corruption, wages and land seizures, that officials justify in the name of development. Residents of Wukan village, also in Guangdong, agreed to end a 10-day standoff with authorities over a land dispute on Wednesday. Chinese experts put the number of "mass incidents," as such protests are known, at about 90,000 a year in recent years. On Thursday, China's main official newspapers published an account of a speech by Zhou Yongkang, chief of domestic security, who urged law-and-order cadres to ensure "a harmonious and stable social setting" ahead of the Communist Party's 18th Congress late next year. At that congress, President Hu Jintao and his cohort will give way to a new generation of central leaders: a sensitive transition for the one-party government. (Reporting by Sisi Tang, Alison Leung and Tan Ee Lyn, Chris Buckley in BEIJING; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Robert Birsel) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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