■ China
25 killed in fireworks blast
At least 25 people died and nine were injured after fireworks exploded at a firecracker factory in northern China's Shanxi province, local officials said yesterday. State media said most of the victims of the accident Tuesday afternoon at the Xiangliu firecracker factory were young women. Police were searching for the factory owner, who fled after the explosion, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The cause of the accident was under investigation, it said.
■ Vietnam
China `attacks' fishermen
The Chinese coast guard fired on two Vietnamese fishing boats in separate attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin, killing nine Vietnamese fishermen and wounding six others, an executive said yesterday. Nguyen Phi Phuong, director of Hung Cuong Fishing Cooperative in northern Thanh Hoa province, said two Chinese coast guard boats armed with machine guns attacked one of his company's vessels on Saturday. The Vietnamese were fishing in waters jointly shared by Vietnam and China when they came under fire, Phuong said. However, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Hanoi said the embassy had received an unconfirmed report that Vietnamese pirates attacked Chinese fishermen who were fishing in China's territorial waters, he said.
■ China
Israel denies drone report
The Israeli military denied reports that Israel had suspended an upgrade for drone aircraft it sold to China in the 1990s. Rachel Niedak-Ashkenazi, spokeswoman for the Israeli Defense Ministry, said Tuesday that Israel had not returned parts to the Chinese military as earlier reported. Several Israelis close to the deal had said Israel returned the parts without upgrading them in apparent deference to Washington's concern that the Harpy attack drones threatened Taiwan. However, another Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed Niedak-Ashkenazi's assertion that the parts are still in Israel.
■ Hong Kong
`Longhair' strikes again
Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) was forced to delay his policy address speech by 15 minutes yesterday when rebel Legislator Leung "Longhair" Kwok-hung (梁國雄) shouted protests as he entered the legislative council chamber. Legislative Council President Rita Fan (范徐麗泰) adjourned the speech and took Leung to one side to seek an assurance that he would allow Tung to continue his speech uninterrupted. Leung then delivered a brief, defiant speech before walking out. "I just want to say one thing -- that is that absolute power leads to absolute corruption," he said.
■ India
Homeless seek tsunami aid
Beggars from the south Indian technology capital Bangalore have shifted operations to the tsunami-hit coastline where aid cash and supplies is overflowing, a newspaper reported yesterday. The traditional haunts of Bangalore's beggars -- temples, mosques and churches as well as train and bus stations -- are virtually deserted, The Times of India said. No one has an official count for the number of beggars, but Karnataka state's Beggar Relief Committee has noticed the migration. "In fact we expected more beggars from Tamil Nadu and other tsunami-affected areas to inhabit the city," committee superintendent Chandrappa B. Madar told the Times. "We are happy the numbers have reduced in the city for now," he said.
■ United States
Kicking bunny' on trial
A Playboy Playmate accused of grabbing a dance pole and karate-kicking the ex-girlfriend of NFL quarterback Jeff Garcia went on trial on a misdemeanor assault charge. Carmella DeCesare, who is dating the Cleveland Browns player, faces a misdemeanor assault charge in the Aug. 21 barroom fight with Kristen Hine. According to testi-mony Tuesday, Garcia dated Hine, 32, four or five times but later dropped her for DeCesare, 22. Nasty phone calls and threatening voice mails followed and culminated in a confron-tation last Aug. 21 at the Tramp nightclub. Name-calling ensued, and a friend of Hine's dumped a drink on DeCesare. Each woman had to be restrained and when Hine tried to walk away, DeCesare allegedly grabbed a dance pole and kicked Hine in the head, snapping her head back.
■ United Kingdom
Three die in heavy storms
Three motorists have been killed as heavy storms lashed Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland, leaving thousands of homes without power, police said yesterday. The full force of the weather was unleashed in Scotland, where 60,000 people lost electricity after gales brought down trees and telegraph poles. A Spanish fishing trawler with a crew of 19 was missing in the Outer Hebrides, 200 miles off the coast of Skye, Scottish coast guards reported. But northern England and Northern Ireland were also badly hit by the high winds, which blew over two trucks, claiming the lives of two motorists.
■ Switzerland
Geneva buys costly toilets
Switzerland is renowned as one of the richest, cleanest and most efficient countries in the world. Now, authorities in Geneva are bringing the city's public conveniences up to scratch -- at a cost of US$13 million for just 35 new toilets, Swiss daily Le Matin reported on Tuesday. Each facility is designed by a different architect at a cost of 370,000 Swiss francs (US$313,000) -- about the same as a one-bedroom, city center apartment. "Inside they are functional and equipped to a high sanitary standard," the city council said on its Web site. "On the outside, each public toilet is different and adapted to its surroundings."
■ United States
Jackson trial re-enacted
Two television companies found a creative way around the ban on cameras for Michael Jackson's child-molestation trial: dramatic re-enactments. E! Entertainment Television and satellite company British Sky Broadcasting, BSkyB, are joining to present daily recreations of the trial, executives announced on Tuesday. Given international interest in the pop star's case and the lack of cameras, the series will "bring the trial to life," said Ted Harbert, president and chief executive officer of E! Networks. Court transcripts will be used to highlight the previous day's testimony and court events, with each network packaging the recreations with its own hosts.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At 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
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Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese