■ SUDAN
Flood aftermath kills 48
The UN said on Tuesday that massive flooding since mid-June had caused 48 deaths from acute diarrhea and totally or partially destroyed over 62,000 houses. As many as one million people could be affected by the torrential seasonal rains that have caused flash floods in the east, south and center of the country, a government statement also warned. There have been nearly 700 cases of acute diarrhea, causing 48 deaths, in the eastern region of Kassala on the border with Ethiopia, the UN office for coordination of humanitarian affairs said in a statement. Acute diarrhea is caused by poor hygiene conditions as well as by contaminated waters in flooded zones.
■ SUDAN
Explosives seized in suburb
Security services have seized large quantities of explosives in a suburb of the capital, Khartoum, and arrested 20 people for interrogation, the justice minister said on Tuesday. Police and security forces seized "huge quantities" of cylinders used to produce various explosive devices, 18 sacks of ammunition containing hundreds of bullets and four cylinders filed with explosive material, one of which was ready for use, Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi was quoted as saying by the official news agency, SUNA. The raid took place in Hatana, a quiet suburb north of Omdurman -- one of the three town districts that form the capital -- he said.
■ GERMANY
Six men found murdered
Six Italian men, aged 16 to 39, were fatally shot in the western town of Duisburg, a police spokesman said yesterday. Five bodies were found in two cars near the train station at 2:30am and a sixth victim died in an ambulance, police spokesman Hermann-Josef Helmich said. All six were shot in the head, Helmich said. Police did not know yet who could have committed the killings or what the motive might have been, he said. "A witness heard the shots and stopped a police patrol car which was incidentally driving nearby," police spokesman Reinhard Pape said.
■ GREECE
Missing swimmer rescued
A man swept out to sea by strong currents last week while swimming at a beach was rescued alive after three days in the water, authorities said on Tuesday. The 43-year-old man was found semiconscious in the sea late on Monday by holiday-makers at a beach near Aigio, some 180km west of Athens, the Merchant Marine Ministry said. His wife had declared the man missing on Friday, after he failed to return from a swim at a beach some 25km east of Aigio. The man, who was not identified, was treated in hospital for hypothermia.
■ RUSSIA
Man detained for video
Police detained a man yesterday for the suspected distribution over the Internet of a video showing the apparent murder of two men by neo-Nazis, Interfax reported, quoting an Interior Ministry source. The man was held in the town of Maikop, capital of the Adygeya Republic in south. The three-minute film purported to show the beheading of one man and the shooting of another as part of a neo-Nazi promotional video. It is still uncertain if the video material is authentic. The grainy video shows two men posing before a swastika and two others being tied up before apparently being killed in turn.
■ UNITED STATES
Oliver back behind bars
For the second time in two weeks, Oliver, a nine-year-old capuchin monkey at the Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo in Mississippi, escaped his cage. "I know he wasn't happy when we caught him the last time," zoo manager Kirk Nemechek said. He had spent US$300 on new locks for the cage Oliver shares with Baby, another of the park's five capuchins. The locks were installed Friday. On Monday, Oliver got out of his cage, the new locks on the ground. At 2pm on Tuesday the zoo got a tip-off and sent zookeepers and police officers to round up the escapee. Nemechek said he would try titanium locks next.
■ UNITED STATES
Deputy nabs his wife
An off-duty sheriff's deputy in Nevada was pulled over and charged with driving under the influence -- by her husband. Charlotte Moore, 36, a jail deputy and 11-year veteran, was driving her 2004 Pontiac Grand Am when she was pulled over by her husband, Elko County Sheriff's Deputy Mike Moore, a police report said. She allegedly left before being administered a portable breathalyzer test, the Elko Daily Free Press reported. Mike Moore pulled her over again and called the Elko Police Department for backup. He left shortly after another officer arrived.
■ UNITED STATES
Sex tourist pleads guilty
A retired Florida truck driver who traveled to Asia to engage in sex acts with children as young as eight years old has pleaded guilty to travel with intent to engage in illicit conduct, the US attorney's office in Detroit said on Tuesday. Karl Kaechele, 64, was arrested in 2005 at Detroit Metropolitan Airport as he returned from a 90-day trip to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. He faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced on Nov. 15.
‘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