■ China
Mine disaster covered up
An underground flood trapped 44 miners in a coal mine and nine mine managers were detained after apparently trying to conceal the scale of the disaster, the government said yesterday. State television said the flood on Thursday in the Xinjing Coal Mine in Shanxi Province was the biggest accident so far this year in the disaster-plagued mining industry, which suffers thousands of deaths annually. Mine managers failed to report the true size of the disaster, saying only five miners were missing, Xinhua news agency said.
■ China
Fishermen rescued
Beijing has rescued more than 300 Vietnamese fishermen missing after a typhoon swept through the South China Sea but also recovered 21 bodies, state television said yesterday. Rescuers found the survivors on 22 Vietnamese ships near the Pratas islands, off the southern coast of Guangdong Province, the report said, adding it was the largest international marine rescue operation ever mounted by the country. It was unclear where the 21 bodies were found. Typhoon Chanchu, the strongest on record to enter the South China Sea in May, the start of the storm season, left a trail of destruction in China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
■ Japan
PM won't promise pullout
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday refused to say when the country's troops would leave Iraq, saying the government was still discussing whether and when to pull out, despite a media reports suggesting a July withdrawal. Media reports said yesterday Koizumi planned to discuss Japan's troop withdrawal at a summit with US President George W. Bush next month.
■ Hong Kong
Push for traditional script
Campaigners have launched an online petition to encourage the UN to publish official documents in the ancient Chinese script used in the city, a report said yesterday. More than 150,000 people have signed the petition calling for the return of traditional Chinese characters in UN documents, after the organization switched to so-called simplified Chinese in the 1970s, the Sunday Morning Post reported. China devised the simplified system in the 1950s to boost literacy, but the then foreign-controlled southern territories of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Taiwan, retained the ancient traditional script. The UN began using the modernized Chinese after it switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Hong Kong has three official languages -- English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
■ Thailand
Cup prostitutes warned
Thai sex workers, eager to cash in on World Cup fever in Germany next month, have been warned that they will face many risks in pursuit of their goals, media reports said yesterday. Empower Foundation, a Thai sex workers' rights advocacy group, issued the warning to its members after learning that several working women from Chiang Mai were planning to visit Germany next month under the impression it would be easier for them to get tourist visas during the World Cup match from June 9 to July 9. "Although prostitution is legal in Germany, only Germans are allowed to work in the industry," Portip Pakwai, an Empower spokeswoman, told the Nation newspaper. She also warned members that Thai women often fall victim to local mafias when pursuing their trade in Germany, and advised them to always keep with them the telephone number of the Thai embassy and photocopies of their passports.
■ Cambodia
Fearing AIDS, boy suicides
A teenage boy hanged himself after complaining of itches, and then became hysterical and obsessed with the belief he had contracted HIV/AIDS, police said yesterday. Chok district police chief in southern Kampot province, Khieu Sokhon, said Seak Sith, 17, had pleaded with his father to take him to hospital, saying he could not live with the condition, but his father shrugged it off as part of growing up and refused the request. "It's a tragedy. All boys his age get itches and aches. But the boy did not have much education, and he was sure it was AIDS. He went to his brother and borrowed a cattle rope, and he was found hanged by it soon afterwards. There do not appear to be any suspicious circumstances," Sokhon said by telephone.
■ Malaysia
Reef damaged
The government has ordered an investigation into an incident in which coral reefs off the dive haven of Sipadan island were seriously damaged by a barge, leaving divers and environmentalists reeling. Chief Minister Musa Aman of Sabah state ordered the immediate investigation after the ship last week levelled reefs over an area reports described as at least the size of two tennis courts. WWF-Malaysia said the damage was a "terrible occurrence" that underscored the ongoing destruction of reefs in the Semporna coastal area of Sabah state, located on Borneo island. "Sipadan is considered to be a world treasure for its dramatic undersea landscapes, steep drop-offs and abundant wildlife," said WWF-Malaysia Marine Coordinator Ken Kassem in a statement released yesterday.
■ United States
Clinton warns on warming
Former president Bill Clinton said on Saturday that global warming is a greater threat to the future than terrorism and that the US and other countries must "get off our butts" and do something about it. Clinton, speaking to the graduating class at University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, said the US must pursue policies that make "more partners and fewer enemies" and use "institutionalized cooperation" before there is catastrophic damage from global warming. "Climate change is more remote than terror but a more profound threat to the future of the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren I hope all of you have," Clinton said.
■ Brazil
Sao Paulo death toll raised
Police raised the death toll to 109 suspected criminals killed in confrontations with police since a wave of gang attacks rocked Sao Paulo, while lawyers and rights defenders pressured the government to release the names of the dead. The state security secretariat raised the number of suspected criminals killed by two in a statement issued on Saturday but declined to explain the new figure. The total number of people killed since violence began on May 12 is 172. Sao Paulo state Governor Claudio Lembo has balked at identifying those killed during the weeklong series of attacks on police and counterattacks against suspected gang members.
■ United States
Five killed in mine blast
A coal-mine explosion in southeastern Kentucky early on Saturday killed five people, authorities said, making this the deadliest year for US coal country since 2001. The explosion happened at about 1am at the Darby Mine No. 1 operated by Kentucky Darby LLC, federal Mine Safety and Health Administration administrator Ray McKinney said. Four of the dead miners were found 1,000m underground in a mine that was 3,400m deep, McKinney said. The fifth body was retrieved near an exit. There was one survivor, miner Paul Ledford. "One walked out on his own," MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere said.
■ United Kingdom
Asylum-for-sex case probed
A British immigration officer was suspended from his job on Saturday after a newspaper alleged he offered to help an 18-year-old Zimbabwean woman with her asylum application in exchange for sex, the Home Office said. "A Home Office official has been suspended pending a full investigation," a spokesman for the ministry said. "The Immigration and Nationality Directorate [IND] expects the highest levels of integrity from its staff and any suspicions of corruption are investigated." The Observer newspaper said the 53-year-old man, based at the IND's Croydon office, had offered to coach the teenager before her asylum interview so she could give the right answers.
■ Colombia
Mines kill four soldiers
Four soldiers were killed by rebel land mines on Saturday and the country's main port city was left without electricity after the guerrillas bombed power installations, authorities said. The attacks came a little more than a week before President Alvaro Uribe, popular for his US-backed military crackdown on Marxist rebels, is expected to win reelection next Sunday. The mining attack occurred in Antioquia Province where the army is combating guerrillas.
■ Cyprus
Cypriots go to the polls
Greek Cypriots voted to elect a new parliament yesterday. It is the first election since Greek Cypriots rejected a UN peace plan in 2004 to reunify the island. Cyprus has been divided into a Greek-Cypriot controlled south and a Turkish occupied north since Turkey's invasion in 1974 in response to an abortive coup by supporters of union with Greece. Polls have suggested the election could see gains for the center Democratic Party headed by President Tassos Papadopoulos, who is widely blamed by the international community for the rejection of the peace plan.
■ Gaza Strip
Assassination attempt foiled
Palestinian security forces said yesterday they had foiled an attempt to kill a top commander loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, a day after another of his allies was wounded in a suspected assassination bid. A bomb was found outside the Gaza Strip home of Rashid Abu Shbak and defused, a Palestinian Preventive Security Service officer said. "We believe the device was meant to be detonated when the chief left his house for work," the officer said. "We believe this was an assassination attempt." He did not name suspects. Shbak is a member of Fatah, the long-dominant Palestinian faction ousted by Islamist Hamas militants in a January vote.
■ Ireland
Hunger strikers ejected
Police safely removed Afghan hunger-strikers on Saturday night from a Dublin cathedral, where they had spent a week demanding asylum -- and warning they would kill themselves if officers came near. The threats proved groundless as police swept into St. Patrick's Cathedral and hauled out approximately 40 protesters -- all males aged 17 to 45 -- without a struggle. Justice Minister Michael McDowell defended his government's refusal to negotiate with the Afghans calling it blackmail that no democracy could tolerate. Police surrounded the cathedral after McDowell authorized them to end the protest.
■ Italy
Craftsmen lacking guts
Craftsmen who make strings for violins, cellos and other musical instruments are challenging an EU ban on the use of animal gut because of fears of BSE. The Aquila company, the leading producer of strings in Italy, says it is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough raw material to make its products since the EU outlawed the use of sheep and cow intestines to halt the spread of mad cow disease. "This ban makes no sense. You can't eat a violin string -- you wouldn't want to," said Aquila's Mimmo Peruffo. The company has been forced to turn to a gut supplier in Argentina, a country the EU rates as risk-free, to continue production.
■ France
Elton John loses it again
British pop star Elton John launched an expletive-laden tirade against the press in Cannes late on Saturday while presenting an award to an actor during the annual film festival. As John presented the Chopard Trophy to Canadian actor Kevin Zegers, who co-starred in the film Transamerica with Felicity Huffman. "I sincerely believe he will be a huge star and a great actor for many, many years to come." Then, as photographers called out during his address, he added: "If you saw Transamerica ... I'm talking ... you fuckwit, fucking photographers you should be shot, you should be all shot. Thank you." After handing the award to a smiling Zegers, he added: "They are a nightmare."
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of