■ China
Man hacks five to death
A man wielding a machete hacked to death a woman and four children and seriously injured two other children in Yingxue Village, Guangxi Province, the Beijing News said yesterday. Friday's rampage by Liang Jiqian, 52, was so sudden that he was able to kill the woman, 38, and four children aged six to seven before being apprehended by police, the newspaper said. It gave no explanation for the attack but said Liang had recently lost his wife to illness and was furious because other children taunted his handicapped 10-year-old son.
■ China
Dress rules spark criticism
The Shanghai Normal University has banned "super-short" skirts on its teachers, citing the need to maintain a certain distance from the students, the Beijing Times said yesterday. Only days after the new rules were announced at the university, they have triggered a heated debate among its more than 200 female teachers, the paper said. Some of the teachers have complained that they, too, have a right to be fashionable and a number of students support them, according to the paper. "We like teachers with personality, and especially teachers who dare show their personality," one unidentified student said.
■ China
Miners killed in explosion
Twenty-seven miners were killed and five others were still missing yesterday after a gas explosion in a Shaanxi Province coal-mine on Saturday, state media said. The gas blast occurred at 4:20pm in Wayaobao Township Coal Mine in Yanan City, as 39 miners were working beneath the shaft, the Xinhua news agency reported. Only seven miners managed to escape.
■ Hong Kong
Children plead with Tsang
Nearly 600 schoolchildren have delivered a letter to Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) pleading with him to tackle the city's worsening air pollution, a news report said yesterday. Every pupil in Beacon Hill primary school wrote a letter to Tsang asking him to do something to halt the pollution. The letters were delivered to his office and handed to a policeman by a delegation of 15 pupils on Friday, the Sunday Morning Post newspaper reported. A spokesman for the chief executive's office told the newspaper Tsang was on leave and could not say if he would read the letters upon his return.
■ Japan
Half fear another war: survey
Almost half of Japanese fear the country could face war again, with North Korea's nuclear program and China's massive military build-up considered major threats to peace, according to a government survey published yesterday. The Cabinet Office survey, published in all major Japanese newspapers yesterday, said 45 percent of respondents believe Japan may become caught up in a war -- up 1.8 percentage points from a 2003 survey -- while only 16.5 percent disagreed. The survey said that 63.7 percent of respondents cited North Korea's nuclear threat as a possible cause of regional conflict, followed by terrorist attacks and the rapid modernization of China's military.
■ Indonesia
Search on for terror chief
Security forces fanned out across central Indonesia in search of Southeast Asia's terror chief yesterday, as investigators questioned two suspects arrested in a raid on his hideout. Malaysian fugitive Noordin Top, believed to be behind a string of suicide bombings in Indonesia, has eluded police for years and slipped through their fingers once again early on Saturday. Despite months of surveillance he was not in the safe house in Binangun, a village in Central Java province, when it was overrun by elite anti-terror police. "A team of forensic experts have searched the scene and hundreds of police personnel have been deployed," said deputy spokesman for the national police, Anton Bahrul Alam.
■ Thailand
Thaksin may run for premier
Thaksin Shinawatra, forced to step aside as prime minister in the wake of a months-long political crisis, could run for premier again if new elections are called, the acting prime minister said yesterday. Thaksin's party won controversial snap elections that he called earlier this month to end two months of mass street protests against his rule. But his victory was undermined by an opposition boycott and a strong protest vote. He announced two days later that he would not become prime minister in the new government.
■ North Korea
US accused of more spying
North Korea accused the US of stepping up aerial espionage activities over its territory during high-level inter-Korean talks in Pyongyang last month, state-run media reported. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Saturday that US spy planes, including U-2s, had flown an average of more than five missions a day over North Korean airspace last month, totaling 160 sorties for the month. "Tens of reconnaissance planes carried out their aerial espionage activities during the North-South Korean high-level talks from April 21-24," KCNA said in a report monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
■ Serbia
Mladic faces extradition
Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic could be handed over to the international tribunal in The Hague on May 10, the special coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, Ehrard Busek, said in a German newspaper at the weekend. "The latest information that I have received is that Belgrade now plans to hand him over on May 10," Busek told newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. The international community had given authorities until yesterday to hand over Mladic, who has been indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal for genocide, other war crimes and crimes against humanity during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.
■ United Kingdom
Largest cruise liner docks
Britons had their first glimpse of the world's largest cruise liner on Saturday when Freedom of the Seas sailed into the southern port of Southampton. Equipped with an ice rink, boxing ring, climbing wall, surfing pool, golf course and six-story shopping center, the mammoth liner is three times the size of the Titanic and longer than the Eiffel Tower. The 160,000 tonne ship with its 15 passenger decks is in Southampton for a few days before setting sail for New York.
■ Egypt
One killed in gunfight
Security forces killed one person and captured four early yesterday in a gun battle in the center of Sinai while investigating bomb attacks in the resort of Dahab and north Sinai, security sources said. Two people involved in the gunfight escaped, the sources added. However, separate security sources said that one man was killed and no one was captured. Details of the shootout were not immediately available. Bomb attacks killed 18 people in Dahab last Monday, and on Wednesday two men died after blowing themselves up in attacks on a multinational peace force and a police station, both based in the north of Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
■ United States
Explosive promotion
A newspaper promotion for Tom Cruise's upcoming Mission: Impossible III got off to an explosive start when a county arson squad blew up a news rack in Santa Clarita, California, thinking it contained a bomb. The confusion: the Los Angeles Times rack was fitted with a digital musical device designed to play the Mission: Impossible theme song when the door was opened. But in some cases, the red plastic boxes with protruding wires were jarred loose and dropped onto the stack of newspapers inside, alarming customers. Sheriff's officials said they rendered the news rack in this suburb 56km north of downtown Los Angeles "safe."
■ France
Immigration bill protested
More than 5,000 people marched through Paris on Saturday to protest a tough immigration bill that critics say will favor only skilled immigrants. The country's top Roman Catholic official, who met with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, said the government may soften the bill when the parliamentary debate on it starts tomorrow. "There is a balance to be found between irresponsible laxism and a nearly xenophobic firmness," said Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard after a meeting with Villepin that was also attended by the head of the country's Protestants, Jean-Arnold de Clermont.
‘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
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