■ Hong Kong
Collision with Chinese boat
A passenger ferry collided with a cargo boat amid heavy fog in Hong Kong yesterday, injuring more than 90 people. The catamaran ferry carrying more than 150 passengers collided with a Chinese cargo vessel off Tsing Yi Island, throwing passengers on to the deck and leaving four people seriously hurt, a government spokeswoman said. They were all taken to hospital for treatment. Marine police launches and fire service boats rushed to rescue passengers after the collision, which badly damaged the bow of the ferry.
■ Hong Kong
17 injured by drainage
Seventeen people including a three-year-old boy were injured when drain cleaner leaked from a high-rise flat onto the street below. Victims said they felt as if they were being splashed with boiling water as the liquid sprayed down on them from the third-floor apartment in the North Point district. The baby boy was treated in hospital for minor burns along with a 71-year-old woman and 15 other victims, some of whom had holes burnt through their clothes by the powerful corrosive liquid. A 29-year-old housewife who poured the drain cleaner down a faulty pipe was arrested after the incident. In Hong Kong, there are laws against dropping objects or harmful substances from heights.
■ China
Official to go to N Korea
China is sending a top communist party official to North Korea this week -- Wang Jiarui, head of the communist party's international department. Top negotiators from the US and South Korea were in Beijing seeking China's help on persuading the isolated North to return to multination nuclear talks that were suspended in June. South Korean officials said they believed China could do more to win over the North. North Korea has rejected calls to return to the talks, accusing Washington of hostility. Last week, it announced it has produced nuclear weapons.
■ New Zealand
Nude bike rider charged
An environmental protester facing indecent exposure charges arrived at Auckland's District Court naked -- but dressed before he entered the courtroom yesterday. Computer technician Simon Oosterman, 24, was charged during the Auckland Naked Bike Ride last Sunday, an event he organized to protest society's dependence on the car. Oosterman and three supporters -- two men and a woman -- stood outside the courthouse naked yesterday holding a banner reading: "Stop indecent exposure to vehicle emissions." He donned his clothes before entering because he didn't want to risk being charged with contempt of court. He pleaded not guilty and was released to reappear Mar. 21.
■ Australia
Progress on schizophrenia
Australian scientists using advanced computer technology to examine schizophrenics have linked impaired thought processes to changes in the brains of their patients. They said that they hoped the discovery would shed light on the genetic causes of the debilitating mental illness. Vaughan Carr, director of the Sydney-based Neuroscience Institute of Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders (NISAD), said "The importance of this research is that it links together for the first time abnormal brain structure and function in the one image, and ties that with abnormal thinking in schizophrenia." NISAD researchers hope to isolate genes that may be turned on or off in schizophrenia sufferers, leading to possible new treatments.
■ Somalia
Explosion kills three
At least three people died and seven were injured in a suspected bombing near a government building yesterday in the Somali capital, witnesses said. The injured, who were taken to hospital after the explosion, were all in a serious condition, doctors said. According to Mogadishu residents who witnessed the blast, a motorcycle, apparently carrying a bomb, had been parked during the night outside what had been the ministry of foreign affairs, and the explosion occurred at 8:45am.
■ France
Wife alleges more killings
The wife of confessed serial killer Michel Fourniret says her husband, suspected in more than a half-dozen murders, killed two other young women, lawyers familiar with the case said. Fourniret, a 62-year-old former forest ranger, has denied any role in the two deaths. Monique Olivier, who is in jail in Belgium along with her estranged husband, claimed to authorities there that he struck, raped then strangled Briton Joanna Parrish, who disappeared May 16, 1990. Olivier alleged that on July 8, 1988, Fourniret kidnapped and murdered Marie-Angele Domece, 19. Fourniret has been charged with eight killings so far, six in France and two in Belgium.
■ Azerbaijan
Prisoners protest on roof
A rooftop protest staged by dozens of inmates in a maximum-security prison in the Azeri capital ended without violence. Over 100 inmates of Baku's 11th prison colony broke onto the roof of their jail with demands that the prison's warden, whom they called a "bloodsucker" be fired, and rights activists have called for reforms in the prison system. Prisoners broke out of confinement onto the roof of their barracks on Tuesday brandishing white flags and that read "SOS" and demanded to see Azerbaijan's justice minister. It ended after nearly 24 hours when the authorities drenched inmates with cold water from fire trucks and fired smoke grenades onto the prison roof.
■ United Kingdom
Plutonium gone missing
Some 30kg of plutonium, enough for seven or eight nuclear bombs, are listed as "unaccounted for" at the British nuclear site at Sellafied, a newspaper said. The annual audit of nuclear material at all of Britain's civil nuclear installations is expected to reveal that the quantity of plutonium was classified as "material unaccounded for" last year, the Times said. British Nuclear Fuels, which operates the plant at Sellafield in northwest England, is expected to dismiss the figures as a "paper loss" and an "accounting issue," according to the newspaper.
■ United Kingdom
Regulars buy own pub
Regulars at a 15th century British pub said they had bought their drinking hole to save it from being converted into houses. A group of 21 customers raised ?425,000 pounds (US$800,000) to buy the Swan Inn pub in Cheshire, after landlord Ian Edmondson announced he planned to turn it into residential property. "We were upset when we heard he wanted to close the pub because it is a viable business and we didn't want to lose our local," said Matthew Barnes, who helped to organize the purchase in the village of Kettleshulme. "It is only a small village and the pub is the key feature where people come together to chat and exchange stories," Barnes said.
■ Brazil
Army floods troubled region
Brazil sent 2,000 troops into the Amazon rain forest on Wednesday to counter death squads blamed for killing an American nun and rural workers settled on land coveted by loggers and ranchers. Troops flew into lawless regions of Para state after US missionary Dorothy Stang, 74, was slain on Saturday by hired gunmen near the town of Anapu. The prominent activist spent decades fighting for the land rights of poor settlers. Her suspected contract murder by local land barons has embarrassed the government, coming just a week after she spoke of receiving death threats.
■ United States
`Lord Ben' convicted
A former youth leader of a medieval history society was sentenced Wednesday to up to 62 1/2 years in prison for sexually abusing 11 children. Benjamin Schragger, 43, pleaded guilty but mentally ill in August to charges including two counts of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and two counts of rape of a child. Schragger was known as "Lord Ben the Steward" to the dozens of children he mentored over the years as a local leader of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group with 90,000 participants worldwide that studies and re-enacts the Middle Ages.
■ Canada
Gay marriage debate begins
The Canadian House of Commons began Wednesday what promises to be a lengthy debate on legalizing same-sex marriages throughout the country. The planned legislation, a personal project of Prime Minister Paul Martin, is expected to pass with a narrow majority. Martin has told his back-bench members of parliament -- many of whom oppose same-sex marriages on religious grounds -- that they are free to vote against the bill, although government ministers will be expected to vote in in favor. The main opposition party -- the Conservatives -- have also promised a free vote.
■ Mexico
Butterflies disappearing
The Mexican government said that 75 percent fewer Monarch butterflies have appeared at wintering grounds here, largely blaming conditions in the US and Canada for the decline. The steep drop may have been due to cold weather and intensive farming practices -- including genetically modified crops -- in areas of the US and Canada where the butterflies spend the summer and reproduce, the Environment Department said Wednesday. The report marks the first time in recent years that Mexico has blamed other countries -- rather than its own continuing problems with illegal logging of central Mexico fir forests that make up the winter nesting grounds -- for declines in the butterfly population.
■ Guatemala
GM corn given as aid
Environmental groups said Wednesday they have discovered that genetically modified corn never approved for human consumption is being handed out as UN food aid to Guatemala. A study backed by the international group Friends of the Earth found that samples of World Food Program grain shipments included StarLink, a corn withdrawn from the market in the US because of concerns it could provoke allergic reactions. Discovery of StarLink corn in consumer products in the US prompted several high-profile supermarket recalls of cornmeal, corn dogs, taco shells, soup and chili mixes in 2000 and 2001. The grain sent to Guatemala was intended for human consumption.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema