World news in brief - August 28, 2012
TORONTO - The estranged boyfriend of a woman whose body parts were found scattered around Toronto has been arrested and charged in connection with her murder. Police said 40-year-old construction worker Chun Qi Jiang has been charged with second degree murder in the killing of Lui Guanghau, a single mother of three. Police said both the victim and suspect are Canadian citizens of Chinese descent. The couple dated for four years and recently broke up. AP
CANBERRA - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Labor Party lost power in elections in the Northern Territory after 11 years in office. The Country Liberal Party, led by Terry Mills, won at least 15 of the 25 seats in the Legislative Assembly to oust Chief Minister Paul Henderson's Labor, according to incomplete results from the August 25 election published yesterday by the Australian Electoral Commission. The Northern Territory is a sparsely populated arid region, with more than half of the territory's 230,000 people living in Darwin. Bloomberg
LONDON - Fees at British private schools rose 68 per cent in the past decade, almost twice the pace of inflation, according to a report by Lloyds TSB Private Banking. Since 2002, the average annual private school fee has increased to £11,457 (HK$140,485) from £6,820. The highest annual fees are for private schools in London, at £13,359, the report showed. Fees in the capital and southwest England rose 79 per cent during the period. Bloomberg
BAGHDAD - Iraqi Communications Minister Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi quit his post, accusing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of "political interference" in his ministry. "I resigned because Maliki refused to … [stop] political interference in my ministry," Allawi said by phone from London, referring to demands he made in late July for an end to meddling in his ministry. He pointed to attempts to control who could appoint and transfer senior officials. AFP
LONDON - British police called off their search for a suspected "big cat" after reports of a lion being spotted in a field. Police in the county of Essex, eastern England, said they believed the animal seen in grassland in the village of St Osyth on Sunday was "either a large domestic cat or wild cat". Armed officers had spent the night scouring the area, while a police helicopter with heat-seeking equipment was deployed to help find the animal, alongside zoo workers with tranquiliser guns. AFP
