■ The Philippines
Kidnap suspects nabbed
Five suspected kidnappers including one on the Philip-pines' most wanted list have been arrested in and around Manila while an abducted money lender was recovered in the south of the country, officials and family members said yesterday. Police picked up Ronnie Tan, No. 12 on the government's list of most-wanted kidnappers on Friday, said Angelo Reyes, head of an anti-kidnap police task force. The gang is accused of abducting a number of Manila business-men of Chinese descent, Reyes told reporters. Tan carried a half-million-peso (US$179,000) bounty on his head. Police also detained four other suspects in the abduction of a Chinese-Filipina business-woman in Manila last month.
■ The Philippines
Man to drive jeepney to UK
A 42-year-old Briton said yesterday he plans to drive a Philippine jeepney on a three-month expedition that will eventually take him back to his hometown of Norwich, England. Paul Farbon, an agriculturist and environ-mental activist, said he has been fascinated with the jeepney -- the open-air locally produced mini-bus -- since he first came to the Philippines in 1990. "It's been a fanciful dream for me to transport a jeepney back to the United Kingdom," he said. Farbon said the jeep-ney, which was custom-built for him by a small workshop in Baguio, would be shipped from Manila to Bangkok today.
■ New Zealand
DNA key to murder trial
A man went on trial for murder yesterday with police claiming his DNA was found on the fingernail clippings of a woman strangled and thrown off a bridge in December 1987. Lawyer Mary-Jane Thomas told the Invercargill High Court that DNA on the clippings taken from the body of Maureen McKinnel at the end of 1987 was 4 billion times more likely to have come from Jarrod Mangels, who was 15 at the time, than any other man, Radio New Zealand reported. Thomas said the clippings had been stored and matched with Mangels when he voluntarily gave a sample of his DNA to police over an unrelated matter last year. Mangels has pleaded not guilty.
■ China
29 killed by mining blasts
Explosions have killed 29 people in an abandoned coal mine. The explosions had been deliberately set to seal a deserted mine in Shanxi Province, state media said yesterday. The bodies of villagers were found in the mine which was rocked by explosions on Wednesday, the deputy secretary general of the provincial govern-ment, was quoted as saying. The group had entered the deserted mine with explo-sives to try to seal it after learning it was linked to another mine, the China Daily said. Authorities have detained the owner of an illegal coal mine in a nearby village, who had admitted ordering four workers to set off explosives at the mouth of the deserted mine.
■ Japan
Students stranded in snow
Fourteen college students have been stuck since Saturday on a snowy moun-tain in northwestern Japan, police said yesterday. About 50 members of the police and Ground Self-Defense Force began climbing Mt. Ocho yesterday morning. The students said via radio yesterday that all 14 were safe, but six had frostbite and one was suf-fering hypothermia, and they were almost out of food, water and fuel. They are sheltering in a snow cave they dug.
■ United States
Pilot spreads the Word
An American Airlines pilot asked Christians on his flight to identify themselves and suggested the non-Christians discuss the faith with them, the airline said. The case was handed over to the airline's personnel department for an investigation, spokesman Tim Wagner said Sunday.
"It falls along the lines of a personal level of sharing that may not be appropriate for one of our employees to do while on the job," he said earlier. American's Flight
34 was headed from Los Angeles to New York's JFK Airport on Friday when the pilot asked Christians on board to raise their hands. The pilot, whose name was not released, told the airline
that he then suggested the other passengers use the flight time to talk to the Christians about their faith.
■ United States
Bill Clinton wins Grammy
Former US president Bill Clinton won a Grammy Award on Sunday, but not
for his famed saxophone playing. Clinton was honored in the spoken-word album for children category for a project he worked on with fellow winners, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Italian screen siren Sophia Loren. None of them was at the ceremony to pick up the award for Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf/Beintus: Wolf Tracks. Senator Hillary Clinton was nominated in the spoken-word album category for the audiobook version of her bestselling memoirs Living History.
■ Turkey
Second survivor found
A 23-year-old woman was found alive in the rubble
of an apartment building yesterday, seven days after the building collapsed, a TV report said. Rescue workers were trying to free Yasemin Yaprakci from the rubble early yesterday, adding that the woman was "fine" except that her foot was trapped in the debris. Teams pulled
a 16-year-old boy from the debris on Sunday, after surviving almost six days under the rubble shrouded
in pulverized concrete that kept him warm. He slept often, which had slowed
his metabolism.
■ Egypt
Three tourists attacked
An Australian and two Norwegian tourists were injured in a weekend knife attack by an Egyptian man who claimed to be angered by Israeli and US aggression in the Middle East, a police source said. The Australian man, his Norwegian wife and an unspecified relative of
the woman were rushed to hospital after being injured in the knife attack in a historic Islamic quarter
of northern Cairo. They
were said to be in stable condition. Police confirmed that the attacker "suffered from mental problems."
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of