■ Pakistan
Torrent of water kills 35
At least 35 people returning from a pilgrimage in Pakistan were killed when the tractor-trolley they were in was swept away by a torrent of water gushing down a hill, police said yesterday. Up to 10 others were missing after the vehicle was swept away late on Friday in central Dera Ghazi Khan, some 80km west of Multan, senior police officer Salman Chaudhary said. "We have found bodies of 35 people, mostly women and children, who met the accident late Friday," he said.
■ Australia
Teenagers convicted
Two teenagers were found guilty yesterday of murdering two Thai-born prostitutes who were bound and thrown alive into a crocodile-infested river in northern Australia. A jury unanimously convicted Ben William McLean and Phu Ngoc Trinh, both 19, on two counts of murder each over the deaths of the women, who were based in the Northern Territory capital of Darwin. They were both given mandatory life sentences, with a non-parole period to be set in May. The trial heard that sex workers Phuangsri Kroksamrang, 58, and Somjai Insamnan, 27, were bound with cable ties and thrown alive into the Adelaide River in March last year.
■ China
Pandas to be microchipped
The government will implant microchips in its captive panda population in a bid to improve protection and prevent inbreeding among the endangered species, state media said yesterday. Data such as age and pedigree will be stored and used together with the implanted chips in a nationwide operation later this year, Xinhua news agency quoted a State Forestry Administration official as saying. The information stored on the chips will improve the managed reproduction program and help trace the bears once they are returned to the wild, the unnamed official said. At the end of last year, China had 163 pandas in captivity and an estimated 1,590 in the wild.
■ Afghanistan
Hungry wolves attack
At least four Afghans have been devoured by wolves driven down from the hills in search of food during the worst winter in a decade, family members said yesterday. Villagers in Naka, a remote settlement in southeastern Paktia province, found little more than remains and bloodied, shredded clothes when they went looking for 27-year-old Sher Gull and Gull Nawaz, 32. "They had planned to go to another village to participate in a funeral ceremony. We are sure they were killed by wolves," Sher Gull's grieving father Haje Baz Khan said in his mud-brick house. Two other people from the mountainous Mosa Khel district of neighboring Khost province were also killed by wolves, locals said.
■ Japan
Princess weds commoner
The only daughter of Japan's Emperor Akihito, Princess Sayako, was formally engaged to an urban planner yesterday following a traditional ceremony held at the imperial palace. Dressed in a long, white dress embroidered with cherry blossoms, the 35-year-old princess, accompanied by Akihito and Empress Michiko, accepted a marriage proposal from commoner Yoshiki Kuroda, the royal household said. Sayako is due to marry her 39-year-old fiance, who works at the Tokyo metropolitan government, later this year. After the ceremony, Sayako said: "I would like to express my deep gratitude to both the emperor and the empress for blessing us." The families exchanged gifts of sea bream, three bottles of sake and two sets of silk, the official said.
■ United Kingdom
Ex-spook to challenge Blair
A former British counter-intelligence officer announced Friday that he intends to stand against Tony Blair, in the contest for the parliamentary seat currently held by the prime minister in Sedgefield in the northeast of England, at the UK general election widely expected to be in early May. David Shayler will be representing neither left nor right. He said he would campaign on three issues: Blair's credibility and ability to lead "in the light of his lies over the war;" the prime minister's support of "the illegal invasion of Iraq," which had put the lives of the British people at greater risk from terrorism; and Blair's "attacks on democratic rights." He said "if Blair were an American or French president, the electorate would have a chance to remove him from power."
■ United Kingdom
Suspicious moped blown up
Heidi Brown was told she could park her new scooter outside the vehicle registration office while she waited to get license plates. To her horror, it was blown up by the army after someone reported that it might be a bomb. Police in Ipswich, eastern England, confirmed on Thursday that a moped had been blown up in a controlled explosion after local businesspeople "raised concerns" that it could be a bomb. "We weren't able to identify whose vehicle it was because there were no license plates on it," said a spokeswoman for Suffolk police.
■ United Kingdom
Ozone over Britain thinning
Scientists warned on Friday that levels of protective ozone over Britain are approaching record lows. According to a monitoring center in Germany, the ozone layer above Britain was reduced to half its normal thickness on Friday, and could get worse by yesterday. Markus Rex, head of an ozone monitoring program in Potsdam, said a combination of the coldest Arctic winter on record and the current high pressure weather system over the north Atlantic had created ideal conditions for ozone loss.
■ United Kingdom
No terrine for composer
Queen's composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, is as comfortable with culinary invention as musical creation. So when a swan flew into power lines near his home on the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland and died, he recovered the carcass, informed the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds of the bird's demise, and prepared to make some fresh swan terrine. But the composer's intentions landed him in trouble, as police descended on his house on the Orkney island of Sanday, removed the swan he planned to cook, and cautioned him.
■ Germany
Lottery winner goes to work
The nation's biggest individual lottery winner had no time to celebrate after becoming 20.4 million euros (US$27 million) richer, because he was too worried about being late for work. When the salesman, who was not identified by WestLotto, arrived Thursday to buy his weekly lottery ticket at a shop in the industrial Ruhr area he was told last week's 12-euro ticket that he hadn't bothered to check had won the jackpot. The man's reaction left the lottery operator dumbfounded. "After he was told he had won the jackpot, he said he didn't have time to chat because he would get into trouble with his boss," a lottery spokesman in the western city of Muenster said. Instead, he rushed off to catch a bus to work.
‘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
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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in