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World News Quick Take

■CHINA

Man jumps from gate

Beijing police and news reports say a man jumped from the city’s Tiananmen Gate and injured himself. The Xinhua news agency said the man jumped from a terrace on Sunday afternoon and landed on a stairway. He was taken to a hospital. Tiananmen Gate is where former Communist Party chief Mao Zedong (毛澤東) declared the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and addressed mass rallies by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s.



■AUSTRALIA

World’s oldest blogger dies

An woman described as the world’s oldest Internet blogger died at the age of 108 after posting a final message about singing “a happy song” in her nursing home. Olive Riley had posted more than 70 entries on her blog from Woy Woy on the east coast since February last year, sharing her thoughts on modern life and her experiences living through the entire 20th century. Born in the outback town of Broken Hill on Oct. 20 1899, she lived through two world wars and raised three children while doing various jobs, including ranch cook and barmaid.



■CHINA

Beijing warns drivers

Beijing warned drivers that might consider violating Olympic traffic restrictions that they will be caught by a high-tech surveillance network, local media reported yesterday. In a bid to improve air quality and ease traffic on the capital’s congested roads for the Games that start next month, Beijing will ban cars on alternate days from July 20, depending on whether their license plates end in odd or even numbers. Authorities had installed more than 10,000 “smart” devices, at regular intervals on major roads, the Beijing News said.

■PHILIPPINES

Quake rocks northern islets

A strong earthquake rocked a group of islands between the northern Philippines and Taiwan, causing aftershocks but no reports of damage or casualties. The US Geological Survey said Sunday night’s undersea quake in the Luzon Strait, centered about 115km northwest of Basco town in Batanes islands, registered 6.1. It was followed by a 4.6-magnitude aftershock. The Philippine seismological agency put the magnitude of the first quake at 6.0 and said it struck at 10:58pm on Sunday. The sparsely populated rocky islands are frequently shaken by temblors.



■PHILIPPINES

Tropical depression looms

The weather bureau is warning residents in the country’s north to brace for possible flash floods and landslides as a tropical depression approaches. The low pressure area is packing winds of 55kph but is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm by the time it nears Basco town in the northernmost Batanes islands on Thursday. A typhoon last month killed more than 500 people across the country, not including more than 850 passengers and crew who died inside a ferry when it capsized off central Sibuyan island on June 21.



■INDONESIA

Men jailed in Myanmar

The foreign ministry said yesterday it was seeking more detailed information on the condition of 10 Sumatran fishermen reportedly detained in Myanmar in February for violating territorial waters. “We have a directorate of protection in the Indonesian embassy in Myanmar that will follow up any information on Indonesian citizens being detained in Myanmar,” ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said. The Aceh Fishermen’s Association called on the ministry to provide legal aid for its members who face two-year jail sentences, the Jakarta Post reported. The fishermen were among the 15 Acehnese on board two fishing vessels, KM Rahmad and KM Melois, who went missing in Indonesian waters bordering Myanmar in February. The whereabouts of the other five were still unknown, the report said.



■NEPAL

Rebel officers surrender

Hundreds of police in western Nepal who mutinied and held hostage seven senior officers surrendered to the government yesterday. The surrender followed growing indications that the government was prepared to use force to end the revolt in the town of Nepalgunj, about 400km west of Kathmandu. On Sunday, the government deployed thousands of armed police and parts of the Army’s special forces around the police barracks a day after it had been seized by about 500 junior-ranked police. Late on Sunday, the Cabinet gave the go-ahead to use force to quell the rebellion and bring those responsible for leading the mutiny to justice. The mutinying police were demanding better food rations and clothing and an end to ill treatment of the lower ranks by officers.



■AUSTRALIA

Seven arrested in drug raid

Seven people have been arrested in Melbourne after US authorities seized A$31 million (US$30 million) in drugs hidden in a shipment of foot spas and massage chairs from Canada. Australian Federal Police said yesterday that authorities removed 93kg of ecstasy, 46kg of cocaine and 27kg of methylamphetamine (ice) from the container in May, then monitored its arrival in Australia. Six Australians and one Canadian were arrested on Saturday.

■GREECE

Five injured in train collision

A passenger train with hundreds of people on board collided with a cargo train early yesterday, injuring six people, authorities said. About 500 passengers were on board the train traveling from the northern city of Thessaloniki to the Athens when it crashed with carriages of a cargo train heading in the opposite direction, the Greek Railway Organization said. It said five passengers and the train driver were injured. The fire department said its rescue crews were trying to cut the train driver from out of the wreckage, and that of the injured passengers, three were lightly hurt.



■GREECE

Anti-rape campaign begins

An anti-rape campaign has been launched by the UK’s Foreign Office (FCO) in resorts in Greece following alarm at the numbers of attacks on female British tourists. More rapes and sexual assaults are reported by British nationals in this country than in any other tourist destination, FCO research showed. British consular officials were made aware of 39 cases of rape last year, compared with 17 in 1998. The country is visited by 3 million British annually and many of the attacks on British female visitors are carried out by fellow Britons. This year’s campaign has involved thousands of posters, postcards, beer mats and leaflets.



■SUDAN

Many killed in stampede

A stampede killed 23 people at a soccer stadium on Sunday as a graduation ceremony for youth embarking on their national service was being held, police and hospital officials said. “Crowds trying to get into Khartoum stadium led to the deaths of 23 people. The majority of them are women and children and 36 people were injured who are now in Omdurman Hospital,” police said in a statement. Relatives flocked to the stadium in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman to watch youth graduate after their basic training before the onset of their one-year obligatory military service.



■RUSSIA

Dancers blinded by laser

Dozens of young revelers were blinded by a laser show at a dance music festival near Moscow last week and doctors fear the damage may be irreparable, the Kommersant newspaper reported yesterday. “More than 30 people between the ages of 16 and 30 have ended up in hospitals in the capital with the same diagnosis — damaged retinas — since July 7,” the report said, quoting doctors. One doctor told Kommersant: “All of them have burnt retinas, you can see scars on them. The loss of eyesight in some cases is up to 80 percent and it’s unlikely it can ever be restored.”



■UNITED KINGDOM

Government tackles stabbing

Prime Minster Gordon Brown was to face questions over his government’s plans to tackle knife crime at his monthly press conference yesterday, following a spate of stabbing deaths in the past week. Brown has pledged to announce new crime-fighting initiatives after four fatal stabbings in one day in London brought the total killed with knives in the capital this year to more than 50. The government is expected to unveil its £100 million (US$198.4 million) Youth Crime Action Plan today. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said on Sunday that those convicted of carrying knives would be made to visit hospital emergency wards in an attempt to confront them with the reality of stab wounds.

■UNITED STATES

Mormon excommunicated

The creator of a calendar that featured shirtless Mormon missionaries was excommunicated on Sunday after a disciplinary meeting with local Church leaders in Las Vegas. Chad Hardy said he bore no ill will toward the council of elders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Men on a Mission, which had sold nearly 10,000 copies at US$14.99 each, included pictures of 12 returned missionaries wearing black slacks, but not their trademark white shirts, in modest poses. An excommunicated person is removed from official Church rolls, but are still welcome at Church services.



■UNITED STATES

ABC praised for gays on TV

The marriage between the gay characters Kevin and Scotty in the season finale of ABC’s Brothers & Sisters helped the network win the highest praise on Sunday from an advocacy group that pushes for more visibility of such characters on television. It was the first wedding of two gay or lesbian characters in a prime-time scripted series, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said. ABC has had other historic moments, including introducing a gay character to Soap in 1977, having a gay teen in My So-Called Life and Ellen DeGeneres coming out on Ellen as well as in real life.



■UNITED STATES

Cop accused of sexual abuse

The Silverton, Oregon, police officer who shot and killed an Irish citizen while responding to a burglary complaint last month has been detained on accusations he sexually abused a girl, Marion County authorities said. Officer Tony Gonzalez, 35, was arrested on Sunday and is being held without bail on multiple counts of sexual abuse, Deputy District Attorney Matt Kemmy said. Kemmy said the shooting and the alleged sex abuse are not believed to be related.



■UNITED STATES

Texas oil tycoon dies at 90

Roy M. Huffington, an oilman who played a major role in developing Indonesia’s oil and natural gas sector and later served as a US ambassador to Austria, has died. He was 90. Huffington died on Friday while traveling out of the country, according to the funeral home George H. Lewis and Sons. Huffington also founded the Huffington Foundation, which donated millions of dollars to Houston charities, and also served as the chairman of the New York-based Asia Society for more than seven years in the 1980s. Huffington served in the US Navy during World War II and upon his return, became a field geologist for Humble Oil Co.



■UNITED STATES

WWII dog tag returned

Nearly six-and-a-half decades after a gunner’s B-24 bomber was shot down over France during World War II, a twisted dog tag and a ring found last year at the crash site have been handed over to his family in Vermont. They are items Felix Shostak was believed to have been wearing when he flew his last mission on Aug. 18, 1944, to attack a German fighter base in northern France. On July 5, a member of the Vermont Army National Guard delivered the artifacts to the family. Even though the details of the bomber’s crash were well documented, the Shostaks never knew for sure what happened to Felix. In 1951, a letter from the Department of the Army told them they might never know because his remains weren’t found at the crash site. The Army kept looking, but found nothing.


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