■ CHINA
Four panda cubs born
Four giant panda cubs have been born within just 14 hours, giving a rare boost to the population of the endangered species, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday. Nine-year-old Qiyuan gave birth to a pair of twin female cubs late on Saturday at the Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Center in Sichuan Province, Xinhua said. Little more than an hour later, eight-year-old Chenggong gave birth to another cub. Eight-year-old Zhuzhu gave birth on Sunday.
■ PHILIPPINES
Fragments found in probe
Investigators found fragments that appear to bolster the theory that an oxygen tank exploded on a Qantas jet, forcing it to make a dramatic emergency landing with a car-sized hole in its fuselage, an official said yesterday. Neville Blyth, a senior investigator from the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, told a news conference that a valve and other small fragments would be tested to determine if they came from the tank. He said the fragments were found close to where the missing tank was stored beneath the passenger cabin. The jet had to make an emergency landing in Manila on Friday.
■ JAPAN
Porn peddlers busted
Tokyo police arrested 11 people yesterday on suspicion of selling pornography and confiscated a record of more than 130,000 videos, some depicting sex with children, officials and reports said. Police arrested 53-year-old Takahiro Oyama and 10 others for the attempted distribution of nearly 133,000 pornographic DVDs and videocassettes, a police official said. Oyama told police he made ¥1.56 billion (US$14.4 million) in five years of selling sex tapes through the Internet and via mail order, public broadcaster NHK said. Japan banned the production and sale of sexually arousing material involving children below 18 in 1999 after coming under international criticism for being a major producer of child pornography.
■ PHILIPPINES
Deal reached with MILF
Manila and Muslim rebels have agreed to sign a crucial accord on an expanded Muslim homeland next month after ironing out the kinks in Malaysian-brokered peace talks, officials said yesterday. Government negotiator Rodolfo Garcia reached the agreement with his Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) counterpart in Malaysia after working out differences in the process to set up a future Muslim homeland, presidential peace process adviser Hermogenes Esperon said. The two sides agreed to sign the accord early next month, he said.
■ JAPAN
Heavy rains cause problems
Heavy rain caused floods and mudslides in the center of the country yesterday, prompting the evacuation of more than 50,000 people, officials said. The downpour overflowed the banks of the Asano River, sending brown water gushing into Kanazawa city, flooding houses and leading officials to issue the evacuation order, a city spokesman said. “We haven’t had such heavy rain for years,” he said. Heavy rain also fell in nearby Toyama Prefecture, where a 53-year-old man was seriously injured after being covered by a mudslide while driving near a tunnel, a police official said. More than 100mm of rain fell in the region, the national weather agency said.
■ UKRAINE
Storms, floods kill 13
Severe storms and floods in the Carpathian Mountains killed 13 people in Ukraine and another five people in neighboring Romania, officials said on Sunday. Two other people were missing in Ukraine. Five days of heavy rain near the Prut and Dniestr rivers caused floods that damaged more than 21,000 houses, Ukraine’s Emergency Ministry said in a statement. Ukrainian officials evacuated more than 8,000 people and reported that over 300 towns and villages were left without electricity. The government said damage is estimated at more than US$300 million.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Cameron gets his bike back
Opposition leader David Cameron has been reunited with his stolen bicycle thanks to a tabloid newspaper and a supporter of the rival Labour Party, the paper reported on Sunday. The Conservative party leader, often photographed riding his bike to work at the House of Commons, realized that it was stolen after he left it outside a supermarket near his west London home on Wednesday evening. The Sunday Mirror said it located the bicycle — dumped in a nearby street — with the help of 60-year-old resident Ernest Theophile, who enlisted neighborhood youths to trace it. Theophile was identified by the paper as a staunch supporter of Britain’s left-leaning Labour Party. “You never want to see anyone have their bike nicked [stolen] — not even a Tory,” he was quoted as saying.
■ GERMANY
Scientists tout obesity cure
Tests on animals show that a traditional herbal remedy could usher in a cure for obesity and heart disease, German scientists said. They believe that the herbal extract could be incorporated into a food supplement which may not only reduce obesity, but also lessen the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. In a paper delivered at the current meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology in Marseille, France, Nils Roos from the Max Rubner Institute in Germany, says the extract is from Tabebuia impetiginosa, commonly known as Pink Ipe, a deciduous tree, native to Central and South America, and related to magnolias. Roos and his team have shown that Tabebuia extract can reduce levels of triglycerides.
■ YEMEN
Suicide bomb kills officer
Al-Qaeda in Yemen has claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb that killed a policeman in eastern Yemen. In a statement posted on Sunday on an Islamic Web site, the terror group said Friday’s attack was carried out by “martyr Ahmed bin Said bin Omar al-Mishjari” against “slaves and the apostate guards” in Hadramawt Province. The policeman was killed when a suicide car bomber rammed a vehicle into the Interior Ministry’s regional headquarters. Eight others were injured.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Fire destroys Grand Pier
A fierce fire has destroyed a historic seaside pier in western England, quickly reducing the major tourist attraction to a flaming wreck. The Grand Pier, built in 1904, is listed as a historic monument. Its entertainment complex includes rides, a go-cart track, a bar and a cafe. Television footage showed a fire spreading quickly through the partly wooden structure, sending a massive column of smoke into the clear sky above Weston-super-Mare, a resort town 225km west of London. There were no immediate reports of any casualties.
■ Jamaica
Sand goes missing
Police are investigating the theft of more than 500 truckloads of sand from a private beachfront property. Deputy Mines Commissioner Laurie Henry says authorities have submitted samples of sand from nearby areas they believe was stolen from the beach in the northwest parish of Trelawny. The 26-hectare property owned by a development company lies near a protected environmental area that includes mangroves and a limestone forest. Police Corporal Patrick Chin said on Friday that no one has been arrested. Those found guilty could face up to a year in prison. Illegal sand mining is common in the island’s eastern region. The sand is often sold and used in construction.
■ United states
Flooding hits New Mexico
About 300 people were evacuated from homes, campgrounds and a recreational vehicle park in New Mexico on Sunday and a helicopter was sent to rescue others after flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Dolly. The Rio Ruidoso went over its banks about midnight, said Tom Schafer, Ruidoso’s emergency management coordinator. A police helicopter was sent to rescue people reported to be standing on buildings and vehicles, state Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson said. A dive team was also sent to rescue people from the flooded areas, he said. Earlier, four people were rescued after being trapped by rising water, but no one was seriously injured, Schafer said.
■ United states
Cops nab Hollywood star
Indiana Jones co-star Shia LaBeouf was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving on Sunday after an early morning car accident in which he was injured, authorities said. The 22-year-old actor was driving a pickup truck that was involved in a collision at a street intersection in Hollywood, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sergeant Scott Wolf said. “It was immediately apparent to officers responding on the scene that LaBeouf was intoxicated and he was subsequently placed under arrest,” Wolf said.
■ United states
Obama sees doctor
Barack Obama, back home after a tour of Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe, saw a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical Center on Sunday night to deal with a sore hip. “His hip has been sore from basketball for a few weeks, so he’s going to see an orthopedic doctor,” Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said. As he left the hospital, Obama told reporters: “I had small X-rays. Everything’s OK. I think I’m going to be good in about a week.” Obama is a lifelong basketball player, and he squeezes in a game every now and then on the campaign trail. At one stop during his overseas trip, he shot baskets with US troops in Afghanistan.
■ United states
Pardoned ex-soldier dies
A day after the Army formally apologized for the wrongful conviction of 28 black soldiers in a riot and lynching in Seattle in 1944, one of the soldiers died. Congressman Jim McDermott says 83-year-old Samuel Snow died on Sunday. Snow came to Seattle to hear the formal apology delivered on Saturday by Ronald James, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs. But he missed the ceremony at Discovery Park because he was admitted to Virginia Mason Hospital with an irregular heartbeat. Snow’s son, Ray Snow, says receiving the long-delayed honorable discharge left his father at ease.
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
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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