World news in brief
Oldest man dies aged 112
The oldest man on Earth has died at the age of 112 just days after claiming his Guinness World Record certificate. Chitetsu Watanabe, from Japan, passed away on Sunday after catching a fever, reported Mainichi newspaper.
Mr Watanabe was born in Niigata, in northern Japan, in 1907. He graduated from agricultural school and then moved to Taiwan to work on sugar cane plantation contracts. Mr Watanabe had five children and grew fruit and vegetables on the family farm. He loved desserts such as custards and cream puffs and also enjoyed growing bonsai trees – even having his work exhibited. He had said the secret to his longevity was to keep smiling. The oldest living person – Kane Tanaka, a 117-year-old woman – is also Japanese.
Rebuke as Trump attacks liberal justices
Donald Trump yesterday lashed out at two liberal Supreme Court justices and demanded they recuse themselves from cases related to his administration in an extraordinary attack on the judicial system. Mr Trump attacked Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Twitter over perceived slights against himself and his administration.
The president’s outburst appeared to be inspired by a Fox News programme in which host Laura Ingraham said Justice Sotomayor had accused Republican-appointed justices of being “biased in favour of Trump”. “This is a terrible thing to say. Trying to ‘shame’ some into voting her way? She never criticised Justice Ginsberg [sic] when she called me a ‘faker,’” Mr Trump wrote, referring to a comment by Ms Ginsburg from 2016. “Both should recuse themselves on all Trump, or Trump related, matters! While ‘elections have consequences’, I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States Supreme Court!”
Justice Sotomayor, who is one of four liberal-minded justices on the court, wrote a scathing dissent last week that criticised her conservative colleagues for being too eager to side with the Trump administration on emergency requests to the court. “Claiming one emergency after another, the government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “It is hard to say what is more troubling; that the government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the court would grant it.”
The president’s attack on Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor drew anger on social media, with some commentators accusing him of acting like a dictator. The White House has not yet responded to a request for comment on the allegations.
China jails Swedish bookseller for 10 years
A Swedish bookseller has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a court in China for “illegally providing intelligence” to overseas parties. Gui Minhai, a naturalised Swedish citizen based in Hong Kong, was one of five people affiliated with Causeway Bay Books, which was well known for selling books on Chinese politics that were unavailable in mainland China.
All five people disappeared in 2015 and turned up months later in police custody in mainland China. Mr Gui, 55, went missing while he was in Thailand late that year. He was seen three months later in a controversial public confession broadcast on Chinese state media.
In the so-called confession, Mr Gui said he returned to the mainland and surrendered to the authorities of his own volition. The other four booksellers were also taken to China and were later freed, but Mr Gui is the only one who remained in detention. The court claimed Mr Gui applied to reinstate his Chinese citizenship in 2018, effectively renouncing his Swedish citizenship as China does not allow dual citizenship.
But Sweden’s foreign minister Ann Linde yesterday called for his release and referred to him as a Swedish “citizen”. The sentencing also drew criticism from human rights groups, who have repeatedly accused China of extracting forced confessions from people it perceives to be enemies of the Communist Party.
Sperm could impregnate women in pools, official says
A senior official in Indonesia is facing calls to resign after she claimed women could get pregnant from swimming in the same pool as men with “an especially strong type of male sperm”.
Sitti Hikmawatty, the Indonesian child protection commission (KPAI) commissioner for health, narcotics
and addictive substances, made the claim during an interview with local news site Tribun Jakarta last week. She said: “There is an especially strong type of male sperm that may cause pregnancy in a swimming pool. Even without penetration, men may become sexually excited [by women in the pool] and ejaculate, therefore causing a pregnancy. If women are in a phase where they are sexually active, [such a pregnancy] may occur. No one knows for sure how men react to the sight of women in a swimming pool.”
Ms Hikmawatty issued an apology on Sunday after her claims drew backlash from the Indonesian public and the medical community. “I apologise to the public for giving an incorrect statement. It was a personal statement and not from KPAI. I hereby revoke the statement,” she said. “I plead with all parties not to disseminate it further or even make it available.”
Baboons and his two ‘wives’ go on the loose
A runaway baboon “and his two wives” were recaptured by police in Sydney yesterday after escaping on the way a medical research facility. “This is not a Mandrill”, police joked on Twitter, after concerned members of the public called the emergency services after spotting the fugitive primates in the grounds of a hospital.
The three baboons apparently engineered their escape from a van after a lock failure. The male baboon was due to undergo a vasectomy, and the two females “considered his wives”, according to local journalists, had been brought along to help keep him calm during the transportation and procedure.
New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard said the baboons were not being transported for research purposes.