■ NEW ZEALAND
Storm hits North Island
What weather forecasters warned would be “no ordinary storm” blasted New Zealand yesterday, bringing down power lines, toppling trees and ripping roofs from houses with gale force winds and torrential rains. Winds gusting to 165km an hour were recorded at Cape Brett in the Bay of Islands and news reports said that power supplies to at least 65,000 homes had been cut and it was too dangerous for linemen to fix them. The storm blasted the most populated part of the country and forecasters predicted it would spread right down the 1,100km-long North Island to the capital Wellington and last 24 hours. Officials warned people to leave the center of Whangarei, the Northland region’s biggest city with a population of about 50,000, as floodwaters swollen by high tides threatened.
■ BANGLADESH
Train collision kills two
At least two people were killed and 18 injured as two inter-city trains collided head-on near the frontier town of Laksham in eastern Bangladesh, media reports said yesterday. One of the dead passengers was identified as Mohammad Mohiuddin, a 43-year-old local farmer, who was traveling on one of the trains, the daily Bangladesh Observer said. The newspaper, quoting railway officials, said that the accident happened when the steaming Upukul Express, traveling from the capital Dhaka, crashed into another express train coming from the southern port city of Chittagong. Senior railway official Ramzan Ali said Friday’s crash could have been caused by drivers missing signals. The body of another man remained unidentified until late on Friday, sources in the state run railways said. Locals joined in the rescue operation, the daily Ittefaq said.
■ JAPAN
Foreign activist dies
Han Jong-sok, a Korean immigrant who started a one-man war against the now-defunct Japanese system of fingerprinting foreign residents, has died, his family said on Friday. He was 79. Han, who worked as an executive of an ethnic Korean organization in Japan, succumbed to respiratory failure at a hospital in Tokyo on Thursday. Han, who was born in Korea when it was under Japanese rule, in 1980 became the first to refuse to obey a law requiring that foreigners, not Japanese, attach their fingerprints to identification papers. The fingerprinting requirement was abolished in 2000 after more than 10,000 foreign residents joined Han in their refusal. In a new twist to the controversy, Japan adopted a law in 2006 to fingerprint and photograph foreign visitors at airports in a US-led drive to fight terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Heavy rains kill seven
Mudslides and flash floods caused by days of heavy rain have left seven people dead and six missing in South Korea, officials said yesterday. Four people were killed in Chunyang village in the southeastern county of Bongwha, where hundreds of others were forced to evacuate after floodwaters and mudslides hit their homes, the National Emergency Management Agency said. Most of the missing were also in the county, which has received more than 230mm of rain since Thursday, officials said.
■ AUSTRALIA
ATM bomb blasts bank
Thieves blasted an automatic teller machine (ATM) out of the wall of a bank in Brisbane with such force that the building itself might have to be demolished, news reports said yesterday. Police said Friday’s explosion was so strong it blew the ATM into the street and damaged other buildings. The thieves were less successful in actually opening the ATM. They fled without stealing any cash.
■ HONG KONG
Hungry sisters call police
Two hungry sisters, aged seven and 10, dialed police after being left home alone in the Choi Hung area of the city, a media report said yesterday. Police later arrested their father, 38, for suspected child abuse, the South China Morning Post said. The two girls were taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for examination although they showed no signs of injury. Police said the girls’ father had asked a neighbor to take care of them on Thursday morning before he went out. The two sisters were later taken back home even though their parents had not yet returned. An officer said the 10-year-old girl telephoned the 999 emergency number at about 1am on Friday, telling police that “she and her younger sister were hungry and there were no adults at home.”
■ AFGHANISTAN
Taliban commander killed
Security forces killed a key Taliban commander in the northern part of Afghanistan while another insurgent was killed in Kapisa Province, officials said yesterday. The Interior Ministry said a Taliban commander identified as Mullah Usman was killed during an operation conducted by Afghan forces in Kalafgan district of northern Takhar Province late on Friday. “Mullah Usman was killed when militants under his command attacked a police checkpoint in Kalafgan district last night,” the ministry statement said. It said Mullah Usman was the most senior Taliban commander in the northeast region of Afghanistan.
■ SENEGAL
French lose at Scrabble
To compete in the Scrabble competition, 32-year-old Elisee Poka spent five days in a bus traversing pot-holed roads. To prepare for the game, he carried a diary in his satchel, spending every spare moment committing words to memory. His French competitors used computers to spit out anagrams. But in spite of all their advantages, France lost to an African player for the third year in a row this week in the one-on-one duel at the Francophone World Scrabble Championship. “We have far less means than the French players,” says Poka, who as a child in Ivory Coast made his own Scrabble set out of wood because he couldn’t afford a store-bought one. “But we keep on beating them.”
■ FRANCE
Teen bank robber caught
A 16-year-old girl suspected of holding up seven banks was formally charged with armed robbery on Friday, a prosecutor said. The teen was arrested on Wednesday as she was fleeing the scene of a robbery at an HSBC bank branch near Paris. Investigators believe the girl played a crucial role in six other robberies since the beginning of the month, threatening staff with a gun to force them to open security doors for masked accomplices.
■ GERMANY
Bad doctor put behind bars
A doctor who injected vaccines into large numbers of patients so he could collect insurance payouts was sent to jail for 30 months on Friday on 46 counts of assault. “This was business-scale jabbing,” Judge Matthias Schwab said. The doctor, 59, had taken no interest in patients’ health, only in the money. At a retrial in Mannheim, the court heard that patients did not know they were being vaccinated and were never asked in advance if they might be allergic to the vaccines. They were instructed to roll up their sleeves and accept an injection “to feel better.” The doctor then collected payments from their insurance funds.
■ DENMARK
Tunisian duo kept in custody
An appeals court ruled on Friday that two Tunisian nationals held on suspicion of planning to murder a newspaper cartoonist should remain in custody. The court upheld a previous ruling by a district court that the two were to be kept in custody until Aug. 12 on the grounds they remain a “threat to state security.” The pair were detained in February when security police said they foiled a plot to kill Kurt Westergaard, who in 2005 drew a controversial cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb as a turban.
■ IRAN
Mass execution planned
A mass execution of 30 people convicted of murder and drug trafficking is being planned, a press report said yesterday. “Thirty people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, illegal relationships ... will be executed on Sunday at dawn,” the Aftab newspaper quoted Tehran’s prosecutor’s office as saying. It would be the largest mass execution in the country in recent years. Human rights groups have accused the country of making excessive use of the death penalty, but Tehran insists it is an effective deterrent that is carried out only after an exhaustive judicial process. Amnesty International reported last year that Tehran applied the death penalty more often than any other country apart from China, executing 317 people during the year. Capital offenses in the Islamic republic include murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery.
■ UNITED STATES
Shipping resumes after spill
Some shipping has resumed on a section of the Mississippi River that was closed after an oil spill on Wednesday, a US Coast Guard spokesman said on Friday. Portions of the estimated 1.59 million liters of fuel oil that spilled into the river after a ship struck a barge had been cleaned up. Following the fuel oil spill, a 160.9km section of the river near New Orleans was closed to shipping. About 100 vessels were stopped by the closure.
■ COSTA RICA
Texan deemed refugee
A Texas woman wanted by the FBI for international parental kidnapping has been awarded refugee status and cannot be extradited to the US. A court on Friday ordered the release of former Fort Worth, Texas nurse Chere Lyn Tomayko, who had been in prison since September awaiting extradition to the US. In December 1996, a US judge gave joint custody of a daughter, Alexandria Camille Cyprian, to Tomayko and her ex-boyfriend Robert Cyprian, with the condition that Alexandria live in Tarrant County, Texas. Tomayko moved to Costa Rica the following year with Alexandria, then 7, and another daughter. Tomayko, who is now married to a Costa Rican doctor, told authorities she moved because she had been physically abused by Cyprian.
■ CANADA
Teen buried in hot asphalt
A 15-year-old boy working on a construction site just north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, died on Friday after he was buried under a mountain of searing-hot asphalt, fire officials said. The boy was part of a paving crew working on a parking lot. “I believe [the truck] dumped off way too much asphalt unexpectedly,” fire chief Wallace Drysdale said. Drysdale said he was among the first on the scene, and “we just saw the hair sticking out” of the mound of asphalt. He said that crews could only work digging the boy out for four or five-minute intervals because their feet were burning from the heat.
■ BOLIVIA
Morales suspects foul play
President Evo Morales on Friday voiced suspicions about the crash of a helicopter he used last week that killed five people, saying the incident was “probably not accidental.” Morales flew aboard the Super Puma last Sunday and was scheduled to use it again on Monday to travel from La Paz to the northern city of Cobija, Defense Minister Walker San Miguel said. But the helicopter, lent to Morales by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, crashed one hour after Morales got off. The four Venezuelan military personnel and one Bolivian major aboard were all killed in the crash. Morales’ comments at a political rally bolstered his supporters’ claims that it was an attempt to harm the leftist leader.
■ SPAIN
King, Chavez make up
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Spanish King Juan Carlos shook hands and made up on Friday in their first meeting since the monarch told the president to “shut up” at a summit in November. Venezuela could supply Spain with cheap oil in return for investment in technology under terms of a deal discussed by the two sides. Chavez joked “Why don’t we go to the beach?” as he met the smiling king in sunshine on the island of Majorca. Chavez flew to Madrid later on Friday to discuss a deal with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for Venezuela to supply 10,000 barrels of crude oil per day to Spain at US$100 per barrel in exchange for technology and infrastructure investment, a spokesman for the prime minister’s office said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion