■ United States
Quake hits Tonga
A strong 6.2 magnitude quake struck approximately 10km beneath the ocean south of Tonga, the US Geological Survey said on Sunday, but no threat of a tsunami was seen. The quake, which occurred at 1:50am, was approximately 270km south of Nuku'Alofa, the capital of the South Pacific island nation. The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a tsunami warning, saying the quake was "small and deep." A magnitude 6 quake is capable of causing severe damage.
■ New Zealand
Player saved by doctor mates
A cricket team comprised entirely of doctors dashed to the aid of a colleague when he collapsed after bowling an over in a social match in Christchurch. Mike Pearcy, president of the Sydenham Cricket Club, said the doctors "really got stuck in" resuscitating Richard Sainsbury, who had stopped breathing, and providing medical care until an ambulance arrived on Saturday."[They] were working on him and telling him to hang in there. I have never seen anything like it," Pearcy said yesterday. "It was a horrible thing ... but a tremendous outcome."
■ Bangladesh
Shooter in fracas
A Bangladeshi court has ordered a judicial inquiry into an alleged police assault on the country's champion shooter which ruled him out of December's Asian Games in Qatar, police said yesterday. Asif Hossain Khan, 22, was allegedly beaten up by police last week during a fracas about a car that had been parked illegally by a senior police officer's wife. Police said they acted in self defense after Asif and other shooters assaulted officers. Dhaka's chief metropolitan magistrate ordered a judicial inquiry on Sunday into the incident after the shooting federation filed a case accusing 40 police officers for allegedly taking part in the assault.
■ Australia
Firefighters asked to spy
As Australia braces for a scorching summer wildfire season, firefighters are being forced to spy on their own ranks amid suspicions one-in-five bushfires are lit by firefighters. Firebug suspects have been listed by police in New South Wales state, where wildfires have already destroyed homes during an unexpectedly hot early spring in which temperatures are already touching 30oC. The size of the state's 70,000-strong, mostly-volunteer, bushfire fighting service made checking the criminal records of all personnel almost impossible, police said. But state bushfire chief Phil Koperberg said commanders were watching up to 30 suspects for certain telltale signs.
■ Samoa
Karaoke sex-trafficking
Two Chinese have been indicted by a US federal court on sex-trafficking charges following allegations they had held two young compatriots as virtual sex slaves in their American Samoan karaoke bar. Wang Shengji, 35, and her business partner Kuo Fu Sheng, 39, appeared in the US Federal Court in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Friday after allegedly enticing two 24-year-old women from China in late March with the promise of shop work. The indictment against the Chinese pair said they threatened the young women with starvation during their five-month ordeal, with Wang telling them "No sex, no food." The victims were allegedly forced to have sex with customers at the Bai Lai Karaoke Bar in Pago Pago.
■ Saudi Arabia
Clerics slam horoscopes
Powerful clerics have warned media against publishing "forbidden" horoscopes, which are hugely popular despite a clerical ban. "This is astrology, which is forbidden and is considered as a form of magic," a committee of senior clerics said in a statement published on state news agency SPA on Saturday. "The committee reminds Muslims and journalists in particular that it is their obligation to take advice from God, His Prophet and the clergy," it said, adding that all schools of Islamic law forbid such practices. "Believing that a certain star can be the cause of happiness or misfortune is a superstition from the pre-Islamic age," the clerics said.
■ Iran
Tehran reiterates warning
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to impose retaliatory sanctions on world powers if Iran is penalized by the UN Security Council over its nuclear program, state media reported. "We will also impose sanctions on them," Ahmadinejad told reporters late on Sunday in response to a question about a decision by the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany to discuss the prospect of sanctions. He did not specify what kind of retaliatory action this would involve. "In the past 27 years they have always threatened us with sanctions and during this time they did everything they could," he said. "They do their thing and in return we will do ours."
■ Latvia
Government wins election
The ruling coalition narrowly managed to win enough seats to form a majority government in the Baltic state's general elections. Led by Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis, the three-party coalition won 51 seats in the Saeima (parliament), six more seats than it currently has, the Central Election Commission said on Sunday. The center-right three-party coalition gathered 44.8 percent, according to results posted on the commission's Web site. It is the first time in Latvia that a sitting government has maintained its grip on power since the country broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991. The opposition took the remaining 49 seats, with the right-wing New Era party mustering 18 seats, and the Harmony Center, a left-wing force that represents the ethnic Russian minority, received 17 seats.
■ Brazil
More troops join search
The government on Sunday sent an extra 80 troops to join a search in the Amazon rain forest for victims of the nation's worst airplane disaster, which killed 154 people. The troops reinforced 37 soldiers who have been combing the remote area in the north of Mato Grosso state where a Boeing 737-800 of low-cost airline Gol crashed on Sept. 29. Soldiers have recovered 129 bodies, the air force said in a statement on Sunday. A total of 61 bodies have been identified, including three of the five children who died in the crash.
■ United States
Pumpkin record smashed
Despite heavy rains that stunted pumpkin growth, a Rhode Island farmer has set what could be a new record for the largest pumpkin in the world. Ron Wallace's pumpkin weighed 676kg at Saturday's weigh-off competition, heavier than the Guinness World Record-holding 661kg pumpkin grown last year by Larry Checkon in Pennsylvania. "Pumpkin growing is a lot of work," Wallace said.
■ United States
Internment chair for UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles, celebrated the arrival of the nation's first scholar to hold an academic chair dedicated to studying the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. A large group of prominent scholars, artists, business and political leaders gathered on Saturday at a university reception for Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, whose family was detained in the wartime camps. Hirabayashi will hold the Aratani chair, funded by a donation of US$500,000 from George and Sakaye Aratani, at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Professors holding the chair must teach at least one course on issues related to the internment program that relocated 120,000 people, and organize or assist public education programs on the subject.
■ United Kingdom
Reid to address prison crisis
Home Secretary John Reid was considering urgent action yesterday to address an overcrowding crisis in Britain's prisons. The prison population has almost hit its capacity of around 80,000 inmates and Reid is now looking at what measures can be taken to deal with the problem. Using police cells is one option to free up space; others include transferring foreign inmates to their home country to serve their sentence or moving prisoners to open jails. Longer sentences, high reconviction levels and more short jail terms have pushed prison population numbers to record highs.
■ Cuba
Raul denies Fidel is dying
President Fidel Castro is far from dying, interim leader Raul Castro said on Sunday after reports that his brother suffered from terminal cancer. "He is not dying as some media in Miami are saying, but is getting better all the time," said Castro, interim leader since his brother underwent intestinal surgery on July 31. "He has a telephone by his side and uses it more each day, which says that he is working," Raul Castro said. "He is resting, but works each day a little more."
■ United Kingdom
Watchdog probes police
Police and prosecutors are facing allegations of exaggerating evidence against the only person to be arrested in the UK in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US, the Times said yesterday. The Independent Police Complaints Commission, a police watchdog, has opened an inquiry into the conduct of the Anti-Terrorism Branch of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service over the arrest of Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian man who was arrested in the days following the 9/11 attacks. He was held for five months before magistrates rejected all accusations held against him. Raissi will go to the High Court today to seek an apology and compensation from the Home Office.
■ Gaza Strip
Haniyeh slams peace plan
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh says his Hamas-led government will not recognize Israel and has problems with a widely touted Arab peace plan because it does. Haniyeh, addressing an Iftar feast at the end of a day of Ramadan fasting, said Hamas and the government "will not recognize or normalize" relations with Israel. He also said the main problem with the Arab peace plan, presented in 2002 by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by an Arab summit, is that it recognizes Israel in exchange for an Israeli pullout from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Haniyeh said he still hopes for a unity government with Fatah.
‘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