■ China
Quakes imperil reservoirs
Nearly 50,000 people are in danger after a deadly earthquake struck southwestern China this week and opened cracks in the walls of several reservoir dams that could collapse, officials said yesterday. Four people were killed, nearly 600 people injured and more than 125,000 left homeless in Ludian county in Yunnan Province by Tuesday's quake, which measured 5.6 on Richter scale. The tremor damaged 22 rammed-earth reservoirs about 400 km north of Kunming. Leaks have already opened in some of the dams, officials said. By Thursday, relief workers had rushed at least 6,000 tents for those left homeless, along with medicine and food. Xinhua said 594 people had been injured and 130,000 would need relief food over the next eight months.
■ Indonesia
Volcano closed to hikers
Authorities in crowded East Java province closed off access to an area around one of the country's volcanoes after it showed warning signs of a possible massive eruption, officials said yesterday. East Java authorities upgraded the Mount Semeru volcano status to "alert," after the 3,676m volcano erupted on Wednesday, sending volcanic ash to nearby villages. The volcano, 780km east of Jakarta, is a popular tourist destination, especially for hikers. Heri Subagiajo, head of the province's Semeru-Bromo national park, said that volcanic ash from Semeru volcano showered the city of Malang about 40km to the northwest.
■ Mongolia
Power-sharing deal made
Rival parties have reached a deal to share power weeks after disputed June 27 elections, with Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj of the opposition Motherland Democratic Coalition expected to be prime minister, sources said. The deal was reached this week between the opposition Motherland Democratic Coalition and the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP). "Basically a letter of intent has been signed by both sides," said party advisor Tjalling Halbertsma. The MPRP, which ran Mongolia as a one-party Soviet satellite, had won 36 seats in the parliament to the coalition's 34.
■ Nauru
Island nation asks for food
The people of tiny, cash-strapped Nauru are facing food shortages and quickly need aid from their South Pacific neighbors, a government minister said yesterday. "There is no better indication of hardship and poverty being experienced by the people of Nauru than the simple fact that they are going hungry," David Adeang, Nauru's finance and foreign minister, told Australian radio. Nauru relies almost totally on aid from Australia, which has agreed to an A$22.5 million assistance package over two years for the 12,000 people.
■ Sri Lanka
Anthrax scare proves hoax
An anthrax scare at the US embassy turned out to be a hoax and the embassy will reopen on Monday, nearly a week after it shut down citing a security threat, diplomats said. Tests on a powdery substance received in the embassy mail on Tuesday proved negative, embassy spokesman Chris Long said yesterday. "The tests showed that there was no toxic substance," Long said. The embassy, located in a high-security area of the capital, was closed along with the nearby USAID and US Information Service offices. Fearing an anthrax-type attack, the embassy ordered staff to leave.
■ Israel
Golan Heights negotiable
Israel can defend its northern border even if it gives up the strategic Golan Heights in a peace deal with Syria, Israel's army chief said in an interview published yesterday. Israel has long argued that giving up the plateau, captured from the Syrians in 1967, would leave northern Israel vulnerable to Syrian attack. "From a military standpoint it is possible to reach an agreement [with Syria] by giving up the Golan Heights," Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon said in the interview with the daily Yediot Aharonot. "The army is able to defend any border." The last round of Israeli-Syrian peace talks collapsed in 2000, when then-Syrian President Hafez Assad rejected an offer of an Israeli withdrawal from virtually all of the Golan, with minor border adjustments near Israel's Sea of Galilee at the foot of the plateau. The Syrians insist that Israel pull back to the frontier that ran between the two countries on the eve of the 1967 Mideast war.
■ New Zealand
Dogs bite horse
Dog catchers are hunting two marauding pit bull dogs that savagely attacked a horse in South Auckland, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported yesterday. Terrified riding teacher Tooki Riggs and two builders from a nearby site used a spade and a billet of wood to beat off the blood thirsty attackers. Flossy, an 8-month-old filly, suffered more than 40 puncture wounds on her legs, a gaping wound on her cheek, a split tongue and a torn lip. She is healing but not out of danger. The dogs are still on the loose. The newspaper quoted Riggs as saying she went to investigate sounds of distress from Flossy. She found a pit bull dog hanging from the horse's bloodied head and another tearing at its stomach.
■ United States
Court annuls gay marriages
California's Supreme Court on Thursday voided the marriages of 4,000 gay couples wed by the city of San Francisco, ruling that its mayor had overstepped his powers by blessing the unions. The latest blow to the same-sex marriage movement comes less than three months ahead of the November 2 presidential election, giving new life to the politically and socially divisive debate. The judges emphasized that their ruling covered the narrow question of whether San Francisco's mayor had overstepped his authority and did not deal with the constitutionality of the ban on gay marriage.
■ Brazil
Coffee bean genes unraveled
Brazilian researchers and officials say their recent unraveling of the coffee bean's genome puts the South American nation in the forefront of coffee research. Officials announced this week the creation of the world's largest coffee data bank after researchers said they had identified about 30,000 Arabica coffee genes. The project cost two million dollars. The data will be accessible only to Brazilian researchers for the first two years. Researchers will now work to determine the genes' functions.
■ Canada
US sued over beef ban
A group of Canadian beef producers in Picture Butte, Alberta, said it has launched a multimillion-dollar suit against the US government in a bid to force the reopening of the Canada-US border to live cattle. The claims, filed under a provision of the North American Free-Trade Agreement in Washington on Thursday, seek damages for investments in feedlots and farms hurt by the border closure since May last year. The closure followed discovery of a lone case of mad cow disease in Alberta. The plan is to get other Canadian producers to file similar claims to pressure politicians in Washington to take action, a spokesman for the group called Canadian Cattlemen for Fair Trade said.
■ United States
`Post' admits poor coverage
The Washington Post said on Thursday that it underplayed scepticism of the White House's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, becoming the latest US newspaper to publish a mea culpa of its prewar coverage. In a 3,000-word front-page article, the Post said it "did not pay enough attention to voices raising questions about the war." The admission followed similar articles by the New York Times and New Republic magazine, which said they were either insufficiently rigorous, gullible or more concerned with getting stories first than getting them right.
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
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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