■ HONG KONG
No buyer for large diamond
Global auction house Sotheby’s failed to hammer off a 72.22-carat “D” flawless white diamond at its Asian sales last week in a possible sign of weakness in the global diamond trade. The large diamond, which had a pre-sale estimate of US$10 million to US$12 million, attracted a final bid of HK$73 million (US$9.24 million) that fell short of the reserve price and went unsold, Sotheby’s press officer Rhonda Yung said. The diamond was later sold to a private buyer for an undisclosed sum, Sotheby’s said. Yung added that several international buyers had bid for the stone, but “confusion over exchange rates” had caused the auctioneer to retract some bids and may have dampened buyer enthusiasm. The Sotheby’s stone was the third largest “pear-shaped” diamond ever auctioned globally.
■ INDONESIA
Alert raised for volcano
Authorities have raised the alert level for a volcano near the country’s third largest city following increased volcanic activity, a volcanology center official said yesterday. More than 100 volcanic tremors were recorded from Mount Papandayan in West Java on Wednesday, although there were no visible signs it would erupt soon, said Estu Kriswati from the volcanology center in the nearby city of Bandung. “The volcano has shown increased activity since April 9 but it reached its peak yesterday,” she said. Scientists have raised the alert to yellow, two notches below the highest red alert.
■ THAILAND
Martial law to be lifted
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej vowed yesterday to lift martial law, imposed after the 2006 coup, in most of the kingdom after his party swept to victory in last year’s polls. Samak, whose People Power Party is closely allied with ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, said the restrictions were no longer needed. “At today’s [Thursday’s] meeting of the National Security Council, we agreed to lift martial law rule in 179 districts of 31 provinces,” he told reporters. Martial law will remain in the three southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, which are in the grip of a separatist insurgency, he said.
■ CHINA
Ministry lodges CNN protest
The Foreign Ministry summoned CNN executives to lodge a protest as Beijing seeks an apology from the US news network for statements made by a commentator. CNN said Jack Cafferty was referring to China’s leadership and not China’s people on April 9 when he said: “I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.” But the Chinese government did not accept that explanation. A ministry spokesman said Cafferty’s “vile remarks” had “maliciously attacked the Chinese people and seriously violated the professional ethics of journalism,” a report yesterday in the state-run China Daily newspaper said.
■ THAILAND
Human smuggler surrenders
The driver of a truck in which 54 illegal immigrants from Myanmar suffocated last week has surrendered and confessed to working for a human smuggling network, Thai police said on Wednesday. Suchon Bunplong, 38, turned himself in Tuesday after a six-day manhunt, police Colonel Kraithong Chanthongbai said. “He was scared he would be killed by the others involved [in the network], so he surrendered for his own safety,” Kraithong said. He said police were searching for two other suspects.
■ ROMANIA
Man found with lion at home
Media say a man in Bucharest was rearing a lion in his back garden until neighbors decided they had heard enough roaring and called police. Rompres state news agency says police found a caged three-year-old lioness, as well as two deer, a stag and two peacocks roaming the garden of the man’s home in the southern village of Pietrosita. The agency’s report on Wednesday says the 28-year-old man is being charged with illegal possession of wild animals and could be sentenced to up to a year in jail. The daily Evenimentul Zilei newspaper says the lioness will be taken to the Bucharest zoo, but that police will let the man keep the peacocks and his dogs.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Neanderthals speak out
Neanderthals have spoken out for the first time in 30,000 years, with the help of scientists who have simulated their voices using fossil evidence and a computer synthesizer. Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, used new reconstructions of Neanderthal vocal tracts to work out how they would have sounded, NewScientist.com reported on Wednesday. The conclusion is that Neanderthals spoke, but sounded rather different to us. Specifically, the ancient humans’ lacked the “quantal vowel” sounds that underlie modern speech and which provide cues that help speakers understand one another.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Teen to be tried for murder
A 17-year-old male youth was to appear in court yesterday charged with the murder of Liverpool schoolboy Rhys Jones. The 11-year-old was shot in the neck in the Croxteth area of the Merseyside city in August last year after returning from soccer practice, fueling fears of rising youth crime and gang violence. The 17-year-old was charged on Wednesday along with five other suspects. All will appear at Liverpool Magistrates Court. Police charged three youths, aged 15, 16 and 17, and two men, Melvyn Coy, 24 and Gary Kayes, 25, with assisting an offender. The 16-year-old was also charged with possession of a firearm. All those charged were detained after a series of dawn raids involving more than 100 officers in Croxteth.
■ GERMANY
Man feeds parents to pigs
Prosecutors in Germany called for life imprisonment on Wednesday for a farmer accused of murdering his parents and feeding his dead neighbor to his pigs. Prosecutors in Kassel, central Germany, accuse the 32-year-old of creeping up behind his father in the cowshed and beating him to death before strangling his mother in her sleep four years later. The defendant claims he is innocent and that his father was killed after being kicked by a cow. He is accused of killing his parents to get his hands on the family farm.
■ SPAIN
Bomb blamed on extremists
A bomb blast outside the office of Spain’s ruling Socialist party in Bilbao yesterday, blamed on Basque separatist group ETA, caused serious damage to the building but no casualties, police said. “There is notable material damage,” a local police spokesman said. Two police officers were lightly injured. A police patrol discovered a suspicious suitcase in front of the building in the city in Spain’s northern Basque region “about one hour before” the blast, the spokesman said, adding that officers evacuated the area. At 5:30am the traffic service DYA received a phone call warning of a blast at 6am. Calls to DYA have traditionally been used by ETA to warn of imminent explosions in the Basque country.
■ UNITED STATES
Web site creates candidate
Fed up with the flaws of presidential hopefuls Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain? An innovative Web site using Wikipedia-like collaborative software has given people around the world a chance to design the perfect, although unfortunately fictional, candidate for the country’s presidency. Wikicandidate08.com lets contributors edit previous entries about the fictional candidate, changing their sex, name and photo, as well as their political agenda and response to events in the news. The site began with an imaginary candidate based on satirical comedian Stephen Colbert. The project was launched by Cornell University researchers who want to explore the benefits and disadvantages of “online civic participation.”
■ UNITED STATES
Court convicts Cambodian
An accountant was convicted on Wednesday of orchestrating a failed attempt to overthrow the Cambodian government with a handful of rebel fighters who attacked government buildings in 2000. Yasith Chhun, a US citizen of Cambodian descent, was convicted of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, conspiracy to damage or destroy property in a foreign country and other charges. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison when he is sentenced on Sept. 8. The Cambodian government welcomed the ruling. Chhun headed a group known as the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, which accused Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen of rigging elections so he could stay in power.
■ UNITED STATES
Officials raid poultry plants
Nearly 300 people were arrested on Wednesday in immigration and identity theft raids at poultry plants in five states. More than 100 people were arrested on immigration violations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Moorefield, West Virginia, with 45 arrests in Mount Pleasant, Texas, on charges of false use of Social Security numbers. More than 25 people face administrative charges for immigration violations in Live Oak, Florida. More than 20 were arrested in Batesville, Arkansas, on federal warrants for alleged document fraud or identity theft. “We knew in advance and cooperated fully,” said Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry company.
■ CANADA
BSE strain identified
A case of mad cow disease discovered in December involves an “atypical” strain of the infection also reported in Europe, officials said on Wednesday. The country’s 11th case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) provides evidence that multiple strains of the affliction exist around the world, said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The agency said that, as in many atypical BSE cases, the diseased animal was more than 13 years old, compared with an average of six years old for those infected with the BSE strain involved in most cases.
■ CHILE
Education minister ousted
Lawmakers ousted Education Minister Yasna Provoste on Wednesday for failing to prevent a scandal involving subsidies to private schools. The vote also bars Provoste from public office for five years. Provoste is not accused of any personal wrongdoing, but opposition legislators said she should be held accountable for the alleged mishandling of government funds. Subsidies were paid to schools that overstated the number of their students. Bachelet’s administration called the ouster politically motivated.
‘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