■ China
China not a threat: Powell
Former US secretary of state Colin Powell said yesterday that China is not a military threat to the US. He also urged Beijing to do a better job explaining the benefits of cheap Chinese imports to US consumers. Speaking to a business conference in Hong Kong, Powell said China's increasing spending on its military does not make it a threat to the US. "The threat comes from the capability to execute these plans and the intention to do so," he said. "My analysis in the last four years is that China has no such intention. China wishes to live in peace with its neighbors and the US," he said.
■ Indonesia
Bali beaches polluted
Serious pollution from heavy metals and other chemicals is threatening the beaches on Bali, the Jakarta Post said yesterday. A study by the school of medicine at the University of Udayana in Denpasar, showed pollution by substances such as ammonia, nitrogen dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, lead and copper. Levels of lead in the water at some beaches reached up to 1,700 times the tolerable level in the rainy season, and up to 2,900 times the tolerable level in the dry season, according to the study. The most polluted beaches were some of the most popular, such as Tanjung Benoa, Nusa Dua, Legian and Kuta.
■ Afghanistan
Cholera outbreak spreading
More than 2,000 cases of cholera have been detected in Kabul in recent weeks, and at least eight people have died, said Fred Hartman, technical director for a USAID-backed health and development program,.yesterday. He said the city is on the verge of an epidemic. The Health Ministry on Monday confirmed up to 300 cases, but claimed there had been no fatalities.
■ United Kingdom
Saudi monarch sued
A British-based wife of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd is suing the ailing monarch for a slice of his vast wealth in a divorce settlement, a report said on Monday. Janan Harb, 57, is suing the 82-year-old king for a share of his estimated ?32 billion (US$57.6 billion) fortune, London's Evening Standard newspaper said, printing her picture after her lawyers overturned an appeal court ruling keeping the case secret. Harb, one of King Fahd's three wives, first filed a case against the Saudi sovereign in January last year under Britain's Matrimonial Causes Act, claiming he had "failed to provide reasonable maintenance for her."
■ New Zealand
Two rescued from yacht
Two Canadians were rescued early yesterday after spending two nights tossed on a stricken yacht by gale force winds and huge seas in the South Pacific, New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Center reported. The agency said that another rescue mission had been launched after an air force search plane spotted flares fired from a yacht called Ciru, which capsized south of Fiji with a Swedish man and a New Zealand woman aboard. John Dixon, a spokesman for New Zealand's Maritime Safety Authority, said that the Canadians were safe and well when they were taken from their yacht, the Scot Free.
■ Japan
Deserter returns to US
Charles Jenkins, the US soldier who deserted to North Korea in 1965, left Japan yesterday for his first visit to the US in 40 years to see his 91-year-old mother. Jenkins, 65, left Narita airport with his Japanese wife whom he met in Pyongyang and their two North Korean-born daughters on a commercial flight. The former sergeant, clad in suit and tie, did not speak to reporters at the airport but issued a statement asking the media to respect their privacy during their weeklong visit. "This has been a very emotional and special time for me," he said in the statement.
■ Sweden
New EU deadline requested
Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said yesterday the deadline for EU states to ratify the bloc's new constitution should be extended after French and Dutch voters rejected the treaty. "The timescale for ratification should be extended, it is virtually excluded that the current treaty can be ratified by October 2006," Persson told the Swedish parliament's EU affairs committee ahead of a summit of EU leaders in Luxembourg this week. A new deadline should not be set but rather leaders should take up the question again, perhaps in a year, he said.
■ Italy
Dictator's digs now a museum
For 62 years it has lain empty, an object of morbid curiosity and an uncomfort-able reminder of Italy's fascist era. Now the villa in Rome where Benito Mussolini lived with his family will become a museum housing a collection of work by artists of the Roman School of roman-ticism. City authorities hope the new lease of life for the grand villa on the Via Nomentana, where Il Duce lived for 18 years, will lay the ghosts of the past to rest. Villa Torlonia was designed in 1802-06 by Giuseppe Valadier for the banker Prince Giovanni Torlonia. Mussolini took it over in 1925, paying a nominal rent of one lira a year to the prince's descendants.
■ Germany
Iraqis arrested
Three Iraqi citizens living in Germany and suspected of supporting militant group Ansar al-Islam were detained in raids by police yesterday morning, German prosecutors said. In a statement, prosecutors said Dieman A.I. from Nuremberg, Kawa H. from Munich and Najat O. from Buehl had been taken into custody after raids on 24 sites in at least three German states. Ansar al-Islam is a militant group operating in Kurdish-held northern Iraq. The US State Department has described the group as having links to al-Qaeda.
■ Germany
From lottery-winner to thief
A German man who won a fortune from the lottery eight years ago appeared in court Monday on 69 counts of breaking and entering. The 49-year-old defendant, who was not named by the court in the German town of Meiningen, won 1.5 million German marks (US$915,230) playing the lottery in 1997 but had spent every cent by late 2003. Because he had become accustomed to high living that he could no longer afford, the man allegedly turned to a life of crime. Arrested in December, the defendant is accused of repeatedly breaking into homes and businesses in the area and smashing car windows to snatch wallets and other valuables.
■ Iran
More bombs explode
Three small explosions shattered windows and injured at least two people in the southeastern city of Zahedan, state media said yesterday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, but authorities were investigating possible political motives linked to presidential elections this Friday. The Zahedan area, near Iran's borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, has also been the scene of clashes in the past between police and drug smugglers. One blast occurred at about 4:30am and two went off earlier, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
■ South Africa
Mbeki fires deputy
South African President Thabo Mbeki has told his deputy Jacob Zuma, implicated in a corruption trial, that he will be fired, a source close to Zuma said yesterday. "Confirmed. He [Mbeki] is firing him," said the source, who declined to be identified. Mbeki had given Zuma no reason for sacking him, but would explain the move in a televised address to a special joint sitting of parliament scheduled for 2pm yesterday, the source said. "He [Mbeki] said he will explain all that in a speech to the nation," the source said. Zuma's former financial adviser Schabir Shaik was convicted this month of corruption in a High Court ruling.
■ United States
Slippery scalpels cause fear
Sometime last year, elevator workers at two North Carolina hospitals drained hydraulic fluid into empty soap containers and capped them without changing the labels. Not long afterward, medical staff complained that some of their surgical tools felt slick. But it was not until January that nearly 4,000 patients learned that for two months their surgeons had unknowingly used instruments washed in the slippery fluid instead of soap. Duke assured patients that the mix-up created little chance of medical problems, but a federal agency determined both hospitals -- Durham Regional Hospital and Duke Health Raleigh Hospital -- had endangered patients. Since the problem became public, at least one patient has sued the elevator company complaining of severe infection.
‘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