Seoul: Five workers suffocated yesterday at a steel plant in this port city after gas leaked from a furnace, authorities said. The workers, employed by a subcontractor of Hyundai Steel Co, were found dead at about 1.40am inside the 8-metre-deep rotating furnace in Dangjin, 120km south of Seoul, after argon gas leaked from the furnace. They were removing the scaffolding used for repair from inside the furnace.
Professor fined in poetry row
BEIJING: A Chinese court ordered a controversial professor who claims descent from Confucius to apologise and pay a fine after an online row over poetry, local media said yesterday. Kong Qingdong, of Peking University who sparked an outcry in 2012 by calling Hong Kong people “dogs”, said online a student was a “dog-like traitor” for criticising a poem he wrote, the Beijing News reported. The poem was in the style of China’s Tang dynasty (618-906 AD) but the student said it rhymed incorrectly. A court in Beijing ordered him to pay the student 200 yuan ($33) in damages and make a public apology.
China bird flu death toll 32
Beijing: Another person has died of bird flu in Henan province in central China, bringing the death toll to 32. Authorities said the man, 56, died two weeks after being infected by the virus. He suffered from high fever for a week before being taken to hospital. Though he had no contacts with birds directly, there were some cages hanging out in the corridor of the building where he lived. Officials said there are 129 patients across the country.
Cambodia aims to wipe out Aids
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia is on track to reverse its HIV epidemic and may eliminate new infections by 2020, the World Health Organization said yesterday. The Southeast Asian nation has reduced its HIV prevalence rate from a 1998 peak of 1.7 percent among people aged 15-49 to 0.7 percent in 2012 across the population, the WHO said.
Academic’s blog blocked
BEIJING: A prominent Chinese law professor had his social media account suspended, state media said yesterday, after authorities vowed a renewed crackdown on “online rumours”. He Bing, from Beijing’s University of Politics and Law, was blocked from posting further on Twitter-like Sina Weibo service “for deliberately spreading rumours”, the official Xinhua news agency said. He had reposted claims about a murder dating from 2009, Xinhua added, citing the State Internet Information Office set up in 2011 to regulate the Internet in the country.
Seoul-US focus on arms control
Seoul: Top diplomats from South Korea and the US yesterday discussed arms control and non-proliferation as well as nuclear issues of North Korea and Iran. Talks were led by Shin Dong-ik, Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs, and Rose Gottemoeller, acting US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International security.
Agencies
