■ China
Fire tackled after 30 years
A project has begun to extinguish a fire that has been burning in a Chinese coal mine for almost 30 years and spews out tonnes of poisonous gases, state media said yesterday. The blaze that started in the mine in Baicheng county in northwestern Xinjiang autonomous region in 1975 has consumed 20 million tonnes of coal, the Xinhua news agency cited an official as saying. It has also led to 70,000m3 of noxious gases being blown across the area annually, according to Qi Dexiang, deputy head of the Firefighting Team of Xinjiang Coalfield. A report last year said 35 fires were burning in Xinjiang. Regional authorities aim to extinguish them all by 2018.
■ Thailand
Teacher gunned down
An unidentified gunman yesterday shot to death an Islamic religious teacher who cared for hilltribe children at his house in southern Thailand, police said. Nuzee Yakoh, 39, was shot in the forehead from close range when he came out of his house in Narathiwat province to greet the gunman, police Major Metha Singhasena said. Police believe Nuzee was targeted because he was helping non-Muslim children. Nuzee had taken in 33 animist hilltribe children in his house to raise them and give them an education, Metha said. Nuzee's killing raised to 294 the number of people killed in violence linked to the separatist campaign since it gathered pace earlier this year.
■ Hong Kong
HK wants to swim
The Hong Kong government plans to spend US$2.5 billion to make the city's landmark Victoria Harbor clean enough to swim in again, a news report said Tuesday. A new sewage network would be constructed under the plan which would also allow for the reopening of beaches around the harbor shut down because of pollution, according to the South China Morning Post. The huge scheme would be funded by increases in sewage disposal fees in Hong Kong under a proposal that has been put out to a four-month public consultation, the newspaper said. The state of the water in Victoria Harbor has declined dramatically over the past century because of increasing levels of sewage being pumped out into it.
■ Australia
Flags required at schools
Australian schools will be required to have a flagpole and fly the national flag or risk losing federal government funding, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday. Howard rejected the view that flying the Australian flag was old-fashioned or smacked of jingoism. "I don't think that kind of symbolism is old-fashioned at all," he said. "It's perfectly compatible with the attitude of Australians, the display of the national flag by Australians now is far more regular, far more visible, far more a part of life than what it was when I was 30 years younger."
■ Philippines
Candidate scatters spikes
A disqualified presidential candidate who scattered steel spikes on Manila's streets in a political protest said yesterday he went into hiding after police announced plans to charge him over the act, which punctured the tires of more than 100 cars. Elly Pamatong, head of the group Discovery Crusade of the Philippines Inc, said he was miffed at being deemed a "nuisance" candidate and disqualified from the May 10 election. He defended his action as part of "taxpayers' active defiance and insurrection against corruption."
■ Croatia
Taste a tree in Zagreb
A park set to open this summer as a new Zagreb attraction offers visitors
the full range of sensory perceptions, including the chance to listen to, smell and even taste the trees. The 10,000m2 site at Jarun lake was primarily conceived for the blind and is currently being given the finishing touches. All the plants are labelled in braille and visitors are encouraged to run
their hands over the plants,
while a chew of some of
the more tasty tree-barks is recommended. Ramps make it easier for wheelchair users to approach the water's edge.
■ Bahrain
Terror suspects arrested
Security forces early yesterday arrested at least three Bahrainis on suspicion of links to the al-Qaeda terror network, their lawyer said. The reasons for the arrests of Bassam al-Ali and brothers Yasser Abdullah Kamal and Omar Abdullah Kamal were unclear, lawyer Abdullah Hashim said. The lawyer said police also searched the home of Sheikh Mohammad Saleh and confiscated documents, books and computer disks. The suspects are believed to follow the Sunni Salafi movement, which is close to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.
■ Slovenia
Posters used in manhunt
After trying for almost nine years to help find and arrest the region's most wanted war crimes suspect, NATO peacekeeping forces in Bosnia are renewing their efforts. The military alliance has paid for a billboard advertising campaign to coincide with the birthday last Saturday of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. The advertisements offer him a free one-way plane ticket to The Hague, the home of the UN war crimes tribunal. Advertising campaigns
have been tried before, but without success. "Radovan, we didn't forget," reads the advertisement, which was also placed in the country's two leading newspapers, above a picture of an airline ticket with Karadzic's name written on it.
■ South Africa
Mbeki sued in US
South African President Thabo Mbeki is to be sued in the US in a class-action case in which it is alleged that he continued apartheid-style economic exploitation of black South Africans. Court documents filed at New York's district court earlier this week accused the African National Congress-led government of siding with big business against ordinary people. Ed Fagan, a New York lawyer who made his name suing Swiss banks for Holocaust survivors, also cited eight multinationals in a lawsuit which wants the government and firms to
pay US $20 billion into a "humanitarian fund."
■ France
Big cat taken for panther
A massive hunt for a black panther in a popular tourist area in southern France was called off yesterday after the animal was identified
as being just a "big cat," authorities in Marseille
said. Sightings of the "black panther" forced police
to close an area of 5,000 hectares popular with tourists along the Mediterranean coast between Marseille and Cassis. Soldiers and police had prepared to search the region yesterday for the animal, after a guard had spotted it on Saturday, confirming earlier sightings. Everyone who had seen the animal had identified it as a black panther.
But they were mistaken.
"This is the animal we have been looking for," a police spokesman said. "It's a black cat about 60cm long."
■ United States
Miscount problem for Bush
Several hundred more people died from international terrorist attacks last year than the 307 fatalities the US State Department originally reported, a US official said on Monday. The official, who asked not to be identified, spoke as the department prepared to release revised terrorism figures after its embarrassing June 10 announcement that its original count of last year's attacks and deaths was wrong. The admission dented the claim by US President George W. Bush's administration that Washington is winning the war on terrorism, an argument key to his re-election campaign.
■ United States
Arnold flip-flops on casinos
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger struck a bargain on Monday with five California Indian tribes that will provide the state with a quick cash infusion of $1 billion while permitting a sizable expansion of tribal gambling operations in the state. The deal is a sharp reversal for the governor, who last fall during his campaign demonized the tribes as a "special interest" that did not pay a fair share of its billions of dollars in gambling winnings to the state. The five tribes that signed new compacts with the state on Monday own something less than 20 percent of the slot machines now in operation at 50 Indian casinos around California. Under the new agreements, the tribes will be able to operate as many slot machines as the market will bear.
■ United States
Clinton book a doze
Reviews have been discouraging and conservatives are on the attack, but booksellers still hoped for the best as shoppers snapped up copies early yesterday of Bill Clinton's My Life, the year's most anticipated nonfiction book. Critics have so far deemed My Life about as interesting as Herbert Hoover. The New York Times' Michiko Kakutani, in a front-page review Sunday, panned Clinton's 957-page book as "sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull."
■ United States
Airport switch grounds pilots
Two pilots who landed a Northwest Airlines flight at the wrong airport have been suspended from flying pending an investigation. NWA's Kurt Ebenhoch said Monday that the two pilots "have been held from service." The flight carrying 117 passengers to Rapid City, South Dakota, veered off-course Saturday and landed at nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base. The plane remained on the ground for three hours as the pilots told the Air Force what went wrong, and a new crew resumed the flight to Rapid City, 11km away. Air Force Lt. Christine Millette said the pilots reported that they were in contact with Rapid City controllers when they descended through a cloud, and the first runway the pilots saw was the one at Ellsworth, which is parallel to the Rapid City runway.
■ United States
Corpse noticed after 4 days
A man who was apparently pinned by a van he was working on lay dead in his driveway in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, for up to four days before a neighbor noticed him, police said. Allan Burfoot, 57, was found on Sunday morning, State Police Trooper H.D. Heil said. The parking brake wasn't on and the vehicle wasn't in gear, and it apparently rolled onto him as he worked on the vehicle. Checking messages on Burfoot's answering machine, investigators believe he was pinned as early as Wednesday, Heil said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was