■ CHINA
Houses fall into mine tunnel
Several houses fell into a collapsed coal mine, killing at least 12 people, state media reported yesterday. Xinhua news agency said another person was missing and two were injured when the tunnel collapsed in Shanxi, bringing down five houses. Workers had been extending a mine tunnel under a residential area in Yangquan City when the buildings toppled into the collapsed tunnel on Monday, the report said. It did not say if the people who died were in the houses or the tunnel.
■ AUSTRALIA
Gold miners trapped
Fifty-four gold miners were trapped underground yesterday after a fire broke out, but more than half of them were quickly evacuated, the mine operator and local media said. The miners took refuge in underground emergency shelters following the fire in a truck engine at the Kanowna Belle gold mine near the Western Australian city of Kalgoorlie. The fire was quickly extinguished, the Barrick Gold Corporation said. Thirty-seven workers had so far been evacuated and the rest were expected to come out of the mine later yesterday, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
■ KAZAKHSTAN
Web sites blocked
The government has blocked access to a number of opposition Web sites in a move Internet users condemned yesterday as a crackdown on freedom of speech. State news outlets rarely mention President Nursultan Nazarbayev in a negative light and Internet journalism has boomed as the main venue for political debate. Late on Tuesday, the government blocked two main opposition outlets, kub.kz and geo.kz, the sites' operators said. Kub, in a note posted on another domain, linked the closure to its publication of sensitive telephone transcripts last week.
■ UNITED STATES
Mongolia pact inked
The State Department with great fanfare on Tuesday signed an agreement with landlocked Mongolia that will allow Mongolian ships to be boarded and searched if they are suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction. This despite the fact that Mongolia has no navy and lies thousands of kilometers from open waters. Still, its tiny merchant marine is recognized as one of 32 "flag of convenience" countries by international authorities. The shipboarding pact is designed to cover Mongolian-flagged ships in international waters that might be used by other countries, such as North Korea, to disguise illegal weaponry cargos, officials said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Case dropped against mother
Prosecutors dropped their case yesterday against a mother accused of killing her four young children over a five-year period. Two of Carol Matthey's newborn children were found dead in their cribs in 1998 and 2000. A third infant died after collapsing outside a supermarket in 2002; the fourth child, aged three, died after falling from a table in 2003. Coroners determined that the first two children died of sudden infant death syndrome, while the third likely died of a rare blood infection. Police began investigating the deaths in 2005 and charged Matthey with suffocating her four children. Matthey, 26, was due to face trial in the Victoria State Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to the charge. But prosecutors abruptly abandoned their case yesterday after a judge ruled that much of the evidence against Matthey was inadmissible.
■ BAHRAIN
US sailors shot to death
The US navy identified two female sailors yesterday killed in a shooting incident two days earlier and said a critically wounded third sailor had what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Seaman Anamarie Sannicolas Camacho, 20, of Panama City, Florida, and Seaman Genesia Mattril Gresham, 19, of Lithonia, Georgia were shot and killed at 5am on Monday, the navy said. The third sailor, whom sources who declined to be named said is male, was also not named by the navy. The two dead sailors were killed at the navy's base in Bahrain, the home of the US fifth fleet. About 3,000 staff live and work on the base, and generally keep a low profile.
■ GERMANY
Flamingos killed in zoo
Keepers at Frankfurt's famed zoo said on Tuesday that four of their flamingos were killed by intruders who ripped three of the bird's heads from their bodies. A fourth bird was found strangled to death, police said, adding that the birds were killed inside their enclosure by an intruder who sneaked into the zoo between Monday night and Tuesday morning. The zoo counts several flamingos among its menagerie of animals that includes rhinoceros, lions, elephants, giraffes and scores of different birds, insects and reptiles.
■ ISRAEL
Jerusalem church set afire
A church in central Jerusalem was set afire before dawn yesterday and suffered extensive damage, police said. Holy books in the sanctuary were also burned, police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. Those who set the building afire apparently threw something flammable inside the windows, Ben-Ruby said. No suspects have been arrested, he said. The church formerly belonged to a local Baptist community, but is now shared by several congregations, including a group of Russians and some Messianic Jews. The church had been set afire in the past. It is located on Narkiss Street, a main road in central Jerusalem that runs near ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods.
■ RUSSIA
Men arrested over bombing
Authorities detained two men in the southern republic of Ingushetia yesterday in connection with the bombing of a train between Moscow and St Petersburg in August, the Interfax news agency reported. "While checking documents the two rebels were arrested," Interfax quoted an unidentified security source as saying. Russian prosecutors have previously said nationalists were the most likely culprits for the bombing that derailed the main passenger train between Russia's two largest cities on Aug. 13. No one was killed in the bombing.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Bodies found in burning car
Two bodies have been found in a burning car parked in a lay-by in Leicestershire, police said yesterday. Police were called late on Tuesday to reports of a blazing car next to the A47 at Earl Shilton, a small town a few kilometers southwest of Leicester. The scene was cordoned off and forensics officers were examining the area. "At this stage the incident is being treated as suspicious by police while the full circumstances are established," Leicestershire Constabulary said in a statement. "A full examination of the scene is set to start in daylight." No more details of the victims were released. Detectives appealed for witnesses.
■ UNITED STATES
Sculptor rebuilds world
It took Finnish-born sculptor Eino roughly four months to rebuild the world. His US$1 million stone sculpture, Spaceship Earth, mysteriously collapsed in December at Kennesaw State University. The artwork was intended to remind future generations of the Earth's fragility. After working since the end of June to rebuild the globe, he said this week he is putting the finishing touches on it. "It really looks nice," said Eino, who uses only one name. Eino had called the work Spaceship Earth to honor environmentalist David Brower, a leader of the Sierra Club. It depicted a bronze figure of Brower standing atop the globe. When the 159 tonne, 6.7m sculpture collapsed, inadequate adhesive was initially blamed. But Eino said he has reason to suspect it was the work of vandals.
■ CANADA
In-custody death probed
A coroner's inquest will be held into the death of a Polish immigrant after police used an electric stun gun on him at Vancouver International Airport. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Robert Dziekanski, 40, was out of control, yelling, throwing things and banging on windows. He died on Oct. 14 after police used the stun gun on him in an attempt to subdue him. A preliminary autopsy report showed there were no signs of trauma, disease or any other obvious cause of death, and officials are waiting for results of toxicology and other tests.
■ United States
Doctors sniff out smokers
A simple device for detecting carbon monoxide in the blood may help doctors get an honest answer out of patients who smoke, researchers said on Monday. The device, called a pulse cooximeter, is typically used to test for carbon monoxide in firefighters. "We were trying to just solve a little problem," said Sridhar Reddy, a lung specialist in St. Clair, Michigan, who presented the study at the American College of Chest Physicians in Chicago. "You can ask them [patients] directly, do you smoke. But once they say they don't smoke and they lie about it, they will never volunteer that information."
■ United States
Gay-wedding prayers passed
Delegates representing Episcopal churches in the San Francisco Bay area approved three sets of prayers that clergy can use to bless same-sex couples, in opposition to their faith's leaders pledging not to authorize special rites for gay unions. The diocese is believed to be the first in the country to make the such rites available to its members, said Sean McConnell, a spokesman. During the annual convention of the Diocese of California, about 500 lay delegates and clergy members also approved a resolution challenging last month's decision by bishops to stop approving gay bishops to combat a split in the global Anglican community.
■ United States
Champion suffers jaw ache
Lingering jaw pain will keep Japanese eating champion Takeru Kobayashi from competing on Sunday in the Krystal Square Off IV World Hamburger Eating Championship, a spokesman for the restaurant company said on Monday. The upcoming hamburger eating contest in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will still match Joey Chestnut and Pat Bertoletti, the top ranked Major League Eaters in the world, and 11 other competitors, for the cash purse of US$35,000. Kobayashi, 29, won all three previous Krystal Hamburger Eating Championships. He had a wisdom tooth extracted in June.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
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