■INDIA
Ritual performed for storks
Scores of Buddhist villagers in the country’s northeastern state of Assam performed a unique funeral ritual for more than 800 endangered storks that died after a tree where they were nesting fell, a news report said on Monday. The Asian openbill storks died when the 200-year-old banyan tree that served as their colony crashed last week into a pond inside a Buddhist monastery some 300km east of state capital Guwahati, the IANS news agency reported. The villagers, most of them farmers, considered the banyan tree sacred and believed that the storks were their guardian angels.
■CHINA
Authorities target bad blood
Agents who collect or supply blood that causes death or serious illness face stricter punishments starting yesterday in an attempt by authorities to crack down on the illegal sale of blood. Those found guilty of collecting or supplying blood that causes at least five people to contract AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C or syphilis, or that leads to severe anemia or organ malfunction, could face 10 years to life in prison, said a statement by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate carried by the official Xinhua News Agency. Unhygienic blood-buying rings were responsible for infecting thousands of people with HIV/AIDS in rural areas of central China during the mid-1990s.
■CHINA
Patient goes on rampage
A 20-year-old man angered at recent surgery killed one person and wounded five in a stabbing rampage at two hospitals in eastern China, state press said yesterday. The man, surnamed Zhou, entered a hospital in the city of Hangzhou, near Shanghai, with a pair of tailor’s scissors on Monday afternoon, stabbing two staff members before fleeing, the Beijing News said. Shortly after, he went to a nearby clinic where he attacked doctors and nurses, killing one person and injuring three others, it said. Zhou was unhappy about a surgical procedure he underwent in July, it said, without giving other details. He was arrested by police.
■INDIA
Workers kill boss: report
Sacked workers allegedly beat to death the local chief executive of an Italian company that had laid them off, media reports said yesterday. Scores of former employers at auto parts maker Graziano Transmissioni attacked chief executive Lalit Kishore Choudhary after a meeting to discuss a long-running labor dispute, local newspapers reported. “A total of 40 injured from both sides have been admitted,” Mahesh Sharma, a doctor at Kailash hospital in New Delhi, told the Indian Express. “Half a dozen are in the intensive care unit.” Choudhary, a 47 year-old father with one son, was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, reports said.
■INDONESIA
Rebels arrested over flag
Police have arrested 18 suspected rebels in the country’s easternmost province of Papua for hoisting a separatist flag, officials said yesterday. The detainees allegedly raised the “Bintang Kejora,” or “Morning Star” flag on a street outside the office of the independent Papuan Customary Council in Papua’s Timika Kwamki Baru sub-district, about 100m from a police precinct station. Besides nabbing 18 men, the police also confiscated a number of home-made spears and knives during a raid on houses in the neighborhood, the state-run Antara news agency reported. Timika’s district police chief said the men were would be prosecuted under subversion laws.
■BRAZIL
Gunmen kill 15 people
Hooded gunmen killed 15 people on a ranch owned by an alleged drug trafficker on Monday, in what police described as an apparent settling of scores. Five assailants invaded the ranch of a man known to police by the nickname “Polaco,” federal police officer Claudio Cesar said by telephone from Guaira city. The alleged trafficker and two of his sons were among the dead. Five more people were wounded, Cesar said, two of them seriously. The gunmen apparently fled by boat to neighboring Paraguay. Police in both countries were searching for the suspects, Cesar said.
■UNITED STATES
Elvis museum on sale
The Elvis Is Alive Museum is once again for sale on eBay. The museum’s collection includes photographs, books, FBI files, DNA reports and other memorabilia that aim to support the theory that Elvis Presley never died. Its owner, Andy Key of Mississippi, says military duties will keep him away from home for at least five months. Key set a minimum starting bid of US$15,000 on the listing, which ends on Friday. He bought the museum on eBay last year for US$8,300. Key told the St Louis Post-Dispatch that he hopes someone local buys the contents of the museum and continues running it in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
■PUERTO RICO
Tempest kills four
Heavy rains drenched the country on Monday as a slow-moving tropical disturbance lingered, killing four people, flooding streets and neighborhoods and forcing public schools to close. Firefighters and rescue crews spent much of the day helping people stranded in deluged towns along the island’s southern coast, where scores of residents took refuge in shelters. Families abandoned their homes by boat in a submerged neighborhood in Combate, a small southwestern town. The mayor of the town of Penuelas said burial vaults popped up out of the drenched ground in the municipal cemetery, disgorging a few coffins. More than 60cm of rain fell in 24 hours in Patillas county in southeastern Puerto Rico, said Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila. At a news conference, he warned that 30cm more could fall in the next 24 hours.
■UNITED STATES
Veteran reporter dies
Nancy Hicks Maynard, the first black female reporter at the New York Times who, with her husband, became publisher of the Oakland Tribune and the founder of a renowned institute that trains minority journalists, has died. She was 61. Maynard died on Sunday, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education said. She had been ill for several months. “She was a fearless, astute champion of diversity in news media,” A. Steve Montiel, a former president of the institute, said in a statement posted on the site. “We’ve lost a leader who made a difference.” After marrying Washington Post reporter Robert Maynard in 1975, the couple helped found the nonprofit institute that bears their name to train minority journalists.
■UNITED STATES
Mars rover eyes big crater
After conquering one Martian crater, the NASA rover Opportunity is setting out to explore a far bigger one measuring about 21km. Whether the six-wheel rover will get there is another story. It must drive 11km across the equatorial plains — equal to its total distance traveled since landing in 2004. “We may not get there, but it is scientifically the right direction to go anyway,” chief scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University said in a statement on Monday.
ANGER: Unrest worsened after a taxi driver was killed by a police vehicle on Thursday, as protesters set alight government buildings across the nation Protests worsened overnight across major cities of Indonesia, far beyond the capital, Jakarta, as demonstrators defied Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s call for calm. The most serious unrest was seen in the eastern city of Makassar, while protests also unfolded in Bandung, Surabaya, Solo and Yogyakarta. By yesterday morning, crowds had dispersed in Jakarta. Troops patrolled the streets with tactical vehicles and helped civilians clear trash, although smoke was still rising in various protest sites. Three people died and five were injured in Makassar when protesters set fire to the regional parliament building during a plenary session on Friday evening, according to
‘NEO-NAZIS’: A minister described the rally as ‘spreading hate’ and ‘dividing our communities,’ adding that it had been organized and promoted by far-right groups Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country yesterday that the center-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis. “March for Australia” rallies against immigration were held in Sydney, and other state capitals and regional centers, according to the group’s Web site. “Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the Web site said. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration.” The group also said it was concerned about culture,
Australia has announced an agreement with the tiny Pacific nation Nauru enabling it to send hundreds of immigrants to the barren island. The deal affects more than 220 immigrants in Australia, including some convicted of serious crimes. Australian Minister of Home Affairs Tony Burke signed the memorandum of understanding on a visit to Nauru, the government said in a statement on Friday. “It contains undertakings for the proper treatment and long-term residence of people who have no legal right to stay in Australia, to be received in Nauru,” it said. “Australia will provide funding to underpin this arrangement and support Nauru’s long-term economic
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
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