■ MYANMAR
Gambari expresses worry
UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari said yesterday that recent reports of arrested dissidents were "extremely disturbing" and called on the junta to halt its crackdown immediately. "It runs counter to the spirit of mutual engagement between the UN and Myanmar," Gambari said after meeting the Thai foreign minister at the start of a six-nation tour to seek Asia's help in resolving the crisis. Rights groups have said that four of the country's most prominent political activists were arrested over the weekend. Gambari said the reports were "extremely disturbing and these actions must stop at once."
■ CHINA
Miners' bodies recovered
The bodies of 16 workers buried alive after an explosion in a mine have been found, state media reported yesterday. Rescue workers were still searching for three more miners trapped after Saturday's explosion in Jiangxi Province, but there was little hope they were alive, Xinhua news agency reported. The blast in the Jianxin mine, which has a history of problems due to high concentrations of gas, happened while 283 miners were working in the pit, it said. A November 2003 explosion at the mine killed 49, while in August last year five workers died in another blast.
■ CHINA
Mother kills children
A woman apparently threw her children -- who were tied up -- from the 24th floor of a Hong Kong apartment building before jumping to her own death, police and media reports said yesterday. The 12-year-old girl was found dead on Sunday with her hands and legs tied together, while her nine-year-old brother also had his hands bound, police said in a statement. The woman, whose husband is terminally ill with cancer, then threw herself off the building, reports said. Police were treating the deaths as murder and suicide. The family lived in Tin Shui Wai, dubbed the "city of sadness" for its high levels of domestic violence and poverty.
■ NORTH KOREA
Tourists fall off bridge
Twenty South Korean tourists were injured yesterday when they fell off an iron suspension bridge at North Korea's Mount Kumgang tourist resort, officials said. Six were seriously injured, South Korean tour operator Hyundai Asan said, adding the accident took place near a waterfall at the scenic mountain resort on the east coast. "The 20m-long bridge tilted due to a loose fastening bolt, sending 20 tourists falling about 7m," a Hyundai Asan spokesman said. "Fourteen people received treatment at a hospital in the resort, while six others were being transported across the border to a South Korean hospital," he said.
■ PAKISTAN
Family feud leaves 16 dead
A bereaved father led an armed group that opened fire on his daughter's in-laws, killing 16 people including three children, police said on Sunday. The father and his associates attacked the in-laws as they gathered on Saturday at their home south of Multan city to break their fast for the holy month of Ramadan, police said. The shootings were an apparent revenge attack for the deaths of four members of the father's own family including his daughter last year, local police official Sheikh Abid Akhtar said. Police later surrounded the gunmen in a sugarcane field, where a standoff was ongoing. "No one has been arrested so far," Akhtar said.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Editor fears arrest
The Johannesburg Sunday Times said on Sunday that it expected its editor and a journalist on its staff to be arrested this week after reporting allegations that the health minister was a drunk and a thief. The newspaper said its editor, Mondli Makhanya, and reporter, Jocelyn Maker, would be "hauled off to Cape Town in connection with charges of theft and for contravention of Section 17 of the National Health Act." The statute makes it an offense to gain access to a person's confidential medical records. The paper claimed in August that during a two-day stay in a medical clinic for shoulder operations, Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang "threw drunken tantrums, abused nurses and washed down medication with wine and whiskey." The minister has so far failed to deny the allegations.
■ ZIMBABWE
Bread shortage continues
Bakeries remained closed on Sunday and shop shelves were empty of bread despite a 300 percent rise in the official price of a loaf. The state Sunday Mail said the National Prices and Incomes Commission allowed the bread price to increase to 100,000 Zimbabwe dollars on Friday as part of a review to help businesses remain viable. The rise came after the government slashed the price of bread by more than a half in June to curb inflation. Bread and other basics then disappeared from store shelves as businesses were forced to sell their goods below costs. The National Bakers' Association said chronic bread shortages would continue despite the price rise until flour supplies improved. "Only a few bakers have flour stocks ... the rest are likely to remain closed," said Vincent Mangoma, chairman of the association.
■ EGYPT
Four dead in ferry crush
Rescue workers recovered four bodies, but at least seven people were still missing on Sunday after a crush sent passengers boarding a ferry spilling into the Nile, the interior ministry said. An unidentified ministry official told the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) the dead included three children. Five people were slightly injured in the accident in the province of Minya, some 200km south of Cairo, he said. Minya Governor Fouad Saadeddin said seven people were unaccounted for. He said the final death toll would not be known until after the completion of rescue efforts, which were suspended once darkness fell. MENA quoted Saadeddin as saying a large number of passengers were trying to get on the ferry when a ramp linking it to the river bank collapsed. Security officials said one of the boat's railings also collapsed, sending more people into the water.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Brits beat French at conkers
Less than 24 hours after England beat France in the semi-final of rugby's World Cup, an Englishman added insult to injury by beating a player from France in another competition on Sunday -- the annual World Conker Championships. Each player has a conker -- horse-chestnut tree nuts -- hanging on its string. Players take turns at hitting their opponent's conker in an effort to destroy it. On Sunday, English train driver Ady Hurrell won the World Conker Championships by defeating runner-up John Ingram, an antiques dealer based in Dordogne, France. "This is brilliant, especially after the rugby last night," Hurrell said after his victory. "It's nice to beat the French in the final."
■ UNITED STATES
Veteran's remains returned
The remains of a US Marine killed in the Korean War will be returned home nearly six decades after his death. Donald Morris Walker was 19 when he was killed on Dec. 7, 1950, fighting at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea, where outnumbered US forces faced a Chinese onslaught in one of the war's bloodiest battles. He was buried in an area that the Marines evacuated and that fell under North Korean and Chinese control. It isn't clear where Walker will be interred, but his niece Carolyn Stewart of Louisville, Kentucky, said she wants her uncle buried at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.
■ IRAQ
Reporter shot to death
An Iraqi correspondent working for the Washington Post was shot to death on Sunday while on assignment in Baghdad, the newspaper said. Salih Saif Aldin, 32, who wrote under the name Salih Dehema for security reasons, was killed in the neighborhood of Sadiyah, a statement said. It said details of the incident were still unclear. Aldin began working for the newspaper in early 2004 as a special correspondent in his hometown of Tikrit, and later moved to the capital, "where he played an instrumental role of the Post's coverage of Iraq," the newspaper said.
■ UNITED STATES
Sri Chinmoy dies at 76
Sri Chinmoy, the genial Indian-born spiritual leader who used strenuous exercise and art to spread his message of world harmony and inner peace, died on Thursday at his home in Jamaica, Queens, where he ran a meditation center. He was 76. The cause was a heart attack, said representatives of his organization, the Sri Chinmoy Center. Chinmoy spread his philosophy through his own way of life, exercising and creating art and music. He drew attention by power-lifting pickup trucks and public figures like Muhammad Ali and Sting. He said he had drawn 16 million "peace birds." He slept only 90 minutes a day, he said, and when he was not traveling to perform in concerts and spread his message, spent the time meditating, playing music, exercizing and making art.
■ IRAQ
At least 27 die in blasts
A bomb in a parked car struck worshippers heading to a Shiite mosque in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least nine people, while the death toll rose to 18 in a coordinated suicide truck bombing and ambush north of the capital. A US soldier was also struck by a roadside bomb during combat operations in southern Baghdad. Relatives and rescue workers pulled bodies from under piles of concrete bricks and rubble in the Sunni city of Samarra, where a suicide truck bomber detonated his explosives late on Saturday. At least 18 people were killed and 27 wounded, police said. The car bombing in Baghdad tore through a minibus that was to carry passengers to the Imam al-Kadhim shrine in the northwestern Kazimiyah district.
■ UNITED STATES
Anglers catch huge shark
Six friends went to a fishing tournament looking to catch some grouper. They caught a 383kg shark instead. The fight by Adlee Bruner and friends to pull the 3.4m mako shark onto the boat from the Gulf of Mexico took more than an hour on Saturday. But when they made it back to land, it was a record for the decades-old Destin Fishing Rodeo. Bruner and his fishing buddies were on a 16m charter boat with Captain Robert Hill, about 115km southwest of Destin, Florida. "It was like Jaws," Hill said.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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