■ China
Storm prompts evacuation
Authorities evacuated thousands of residents along the east coast and recalled ships to harbors as the region braced for the arrival of Typhoon Ewiniar, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Some 7,600 people have been moved to schools or temporary shelters in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, Xinhua said. Evacuations were also under way in the coastal cities of Taizhou, Zhoushan and Wenzhou, Xinhua said without giving any figures.
■ China
Capital swaps to natural gas
The last batch of 6,000 inner city households in Beijing have been converted to natural gas, the Beijing News said yesterday, as China tries to clean up its polluted capital ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The Beijing Coke-Oven Plant, built in 1958 to pump coal gas to the capital's urban areas for cooking and heating, will shut down for good next weekend. While natural gas is used in the city center, coal is still widely used in households on the fringes of the city.
■ Pakistan
Organ `taken' during surgery
A surgeon accused of stealing a kidney from a patient during an operation to remove a gall bladder has been arrested, police said on Saturday. Mohammad Kashif complained to police that he went in for the gall bladder operation on May 7 and ended up minus one kidney. Police arrested the surgeon on Friday in Karachi. "We are investigating the matter as we are keen to know why the doctor removed the kidney and where it has gone," senior police officer Zubair Mehmood said. "We would like to know if the kidney has been sold and if there is a recipient," he said.
■ Australia
Girl feared killed by croc
An eight-year-old Aboriginal girl was feared killed in a crocodile attack as she collected water from a river in the remote Arnhem Land region, police said yesterday. "She was fishing with family and it is believed she went to the river's edge to collect water when she was taken by the croc," a police spokeswoman said. The attack happened on the Blythe River, between Maningrida and Ramingining, about 500km east of the northern city of Darwin on Saturday. Parks and wildlife rangers and members of the police tactical response section were on the way to the region to search for the girl and the crocodile.
■ India
Shiv Sena party riots
Police fired tear gas yesterday at rioting Hindu nationalists in Mumbai after the protesters attacked a police station, set a tourist bus on fire and blocked roads. Angry members of the hard-line Shiv Sena party took to the streets, after the grave of party founder Bal Thackeray's wife, Meenatai, was desecrated overnight. Police fired tear gas to clear the mob and let fire engines through to douse the flames that gutted the purple and green bus. There were no reports of injuries. "Meenatai ... is like a mother to us and we will not tolerate any attempt to insult her memory," senior Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi told reporters after visiting the site. Vandals reportedly smeared mud over a statue at her grave.
■ Thailand
King recovering after fall
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch, is recovering from minor injuries suffered in a fall last month, the royal palace said. The 78-year-old king stumbled and fell while exercising on June 24, injuring his back and shoulder, a palace statement said late on Saturday. "His condition has gradually improved and doctors recommend the king take some rest and refrain from official duties for some time," the statement said.
■ China
Baby run over repeatedly
A newborn baby left in the middle of a busy street in Fuzhou was run over by a number of cars before being discovered by shocked residents, state media said yesterday. The baby was wrapped in a red plastic bag and abandoned before dawn on Friday near a marketplace, the Beijing News reported. Workers at the market noticed the plastic bag as it was repeatedly squashed by passing vehicles but assumed it contained garbage, it said. After about an hour, when the bag tore open and a tiny arm fell out, they realized the bag contained a baby, the paper said. Authorities assumed the baby, whose sex was not given, had been left by its parents and police were taking DNA samples in the hope of tracing them, it said. Doctors had not yet been able to conclude if the baby died before or after being dumped on the street.
■ Philippines
Boy's kidnappers foiled
A schoolboy kidnapped by gunmen in the south was reunited with his parents yesterday after a local mayor tricked the suspects into believing their ransom demand would be met. Chris Kurt Degracia, 11, was seized by three gunmen who barged into his classroom near the town of Parang on June 23, overpowering teachers and school staff who tried to stop them. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of between 5 million pesos (US$94,300) and 10 million pesos. But police swooped on the ransom pick up point and rescued the boy.
■ United Kingdom
Murder rate increasing
The number of homicide victims rose to an average of 737 per year between 1997 and last year compared with 601 per year between 1990 and 1996, according to figures published in the Sunday Telegraph. Separate statistics, also compiled by the Home Office and obtained by the newspaper under a Freedom of Information request, revealed that only one in seven people caught with knives is jailed. Deaths by stabbing have averaged 228 per year since 1997, a rise of nine percent from the previous seven years.
■ UAE
New Guggenheim planned
The Guggenheim foundation announced on Saturday that it had commissioned US architect Frank Gehry to build a new branch of the Guggenheim modern and contemporary art museum in Abu Dhabi. The new museum will be larger than any of the existing Guggenheim museums and construction is expected to be finished in five years. It will display its own major collection of contemporary art and exhibit works from the Guggenheim Foundation's global collections, according to a prepared release issued by the Abu Dhabi government.
■ Cyprus
Leaders in peace moves
Leaders of the ethnically divided island agreed on Saturday to a framework for resuming peace talks, a key element in Turkey's bid to join the EU. In a major breakthrough in a process stalled for more than two years, the two sides' leaders agreed a timetable for the start of negotiations and a set of principles to govern the reunification of Cyprus, which was split when Turkey invaded it in 1974. Greek Cypriots represent Cyprus in the 25-member EU and could use their veto to prevent Turkey, now negotiating membership, from joining the bloc. "This is a very historic occasion," UN Under Secretary-General Ibrahim Gambari told reporters after hosting a meeting between President Tassos Papadopoulos, the Greek Cypriot leader, and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat.
■ Mexico
Ex-president gets reprieve
A federal judge threw out genocide charges on Saturday against former president Luis Echeverria, ruling that a 30-year statute of limitations had run out, his lawyer said. Echeverria, 84, had been under house arrest on charges that he masterminded a student massacre as interior secretary in 1968. He went on to become president from 1970-1976. The charges were the first to have been filed against a former Mexican president.
■ United States
Car slams into crowd
An 89-year-old man driving through a crowd at a summer festival in New London, Connecticut, panicked after striking a pedestrian and lurched his station wagon through the throng, injuring 27 people, two seriously, city officials said. The driver, Robert Laine, was not injured. The accident happened near a train station during the city's Sailfest summer festival, where a crowd had gathered on both sides of warning gates as a train passed. Once the train departed and the gates lifted, the pedestrians and the car both began to cross. Mayor Elizabeth Sabilia said as Laine was driving across the tracks his car struck a pedestrian. ``He panicked,'' she said. The car then lurched through the crowd, which witnesses said was about four-or five-people deep.
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