World Briefs : Researcher charged in US over grant funding

WASHINGTON • A researcher who worked at US universities has been charged with illegally using grant funding to develop scientific expertise for the Chinese government, the United States Justice Department said on Thursday.

Zheng Song Guo, 57, did not disclose he was using about US$4 million (S$5.6 million) in grants from the National Institutes of Health to develop China's expertise in the areas of rheumatology and immunology, the Justice Department said.

He is also accused of making false statements about maintaining employment in China while working at universities in the US.

Zheng, who was arrested in Alaska in May as he was about to board a flight to China, was ordered held without bail on Thursday.

BLOOMBERG

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KL police question Al Jazeera journalists

KUALA LUMPUR • Malaysian police yesterday questioned five Australian journalists from Al Jazeera over a documentary on the plight of migrants that the authorities have denounced as inaccurate.

The documentary, Locked Up In Malaysia's Lockdown, looked at the detention of undocumented foreigners during a coronavirus lockdown, and the plight of others in the migrant community.

But the government decried it as misleading, and the police are now probing the broadcaster for breaking laws against sedition, defamation and transmitting offensive content.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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No modern spire for rebuilt Notre-Dame

PARIS • French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday dropped the unpopular idea of building a modern spire atop a restored Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, a possibility he had floated after a fire sent the previous spire crashing through the roof.

The authorities proposed a prestigious international architectural competition to find ways of replacing the spire, leading to a flurry of preliminary submissions that ranged from the modern to the madcap, including a beam of light, glass-covered gardens and a 91m carbon-fibre flame.

But the idea of a modern spire never caught on with critics or the public, and Mr Macron never committed to it.

His office said he had become convinced that the cathedral had to be restored in a way that was "as true as possible" to its "complete, coherent and last known state".

NYTIMES