■PHILIPPINES
Lightning hits three farmers
Three pineapple growers were killed by lightning in a southern town, a police report said yesterday. Nine other plantation workers of Del Monte Philippines Inc were also hurt when lightning struck them late on Thursday in Manolo Fortich town in Bukidnon Province, 840km south of Manila. Police said the victims were harvesting pineapples when lighting struck them. The three died instantly while the nine injured suffered third-degree burns.
■HONG KONG
Tax arsonist charged
A 51-year-old man was charged yesterday with arson after allegedly setting fire to the territory’s tax headquarters and fleeing with his trousers on fire. The Chinese suspect, whose dramatic attack on Thursday led to 600 people being evacuated from the Inland Revenue offices in the central district, was due to appear in court later yesterday, police said. Security has been tightened at the offices after the arsonist walked in, emptied a bottle of petrol over two counters and set them on fire before fleeing with his trousers ablaze.
■HAWAII
Japanese stay out of fray
The Japanese consulate says it will not interfere with billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto at the request of his neighbors in Kahala who contend that he is allowing his properties to fall into disrepair and blight a posh neighborhood. Deputy consul general Hajime Kido calls the dispute commercial in nature. Thus, he says, the Japanese government will not get involved. He says that it is the city council’s task to resolve the matter. Kawamoto bought about 20 homes in the exclusive area just outside Waikiki for about US$115 million after selling about 160 Oahu homes he bought in the 1980s.
■THAILAND
Gunmen kill two soldiers
Suspected Muslim separatists gunned down two government soldiers on a motorcycle patrol in southern Thailand yesterday, police said. The gunmen opened fire from the back of a truck with assault rifles, killing the two privates in the province of Pattani, one of the most violent areas of the Muslim south, police colonel Narucha Suwanalapha said. The victims were members of a four-man patrol, Narucha said.
■MALAYSIA
Police beat Filipinos
Illegal Filipino workers expelled from Sabah state have been severely beaten by police, a fact-finding body said yesterday. Thousands of Filipinos, including women and children, remained in detention centers “and suffering from inhumane conditions,” said Luzviminda Ilagan, a member of the Philippines House of Representatives and of the Fact-Finding Committee on Sabah Deportees. Ilagan urged the government to provide the deportees with aid to ensure they would not return as illegal immigrants to Sabah.
■CHINA
Respiratory ailments dire
Tens of millions of people will die from respiratory illness and lung cancer over the next 25 years in China if nothing is done to reduce smoking and fuel burning indoors, scientists warned. In an article published in the Lancet, the periodical predicted 65 million deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 18 million deaths from lung cancer between 2003 and 2033 from smoking and biomass burning at home. Those figures would account for 19 percent and 5 percent respectively of all deaths in China during that period, researchers said.
■SPAIN
ETA bombs courthouse
A small bomb exploded yesterday outside a court in the northeastern Basque region following a warning call from the armed Basque separatist group ETA, causing material damage but no injuries, local media reported. The bomb went off at 1:15am in the town of Tolosa about half an hour after a man speaking in the name of ETA called Basque traffic department DYA to warn of an imminent blast, public television TVE said. It had been left in a rucksack on the steps of the court.
■NORWAY
Some Nobel Prize facts
Some curious facts about the Nobel Prizes, which will be announced starting next week in Stockholm and Oslo: Less than 5 percent of all Nobel laureates are women. Only two physics winners are women. Age is not a factor. US economist Leonid Hurwicz became the oldest Nobel laureate last year at age 90. Briton Lawrence Bragg is the youngest. Bragg was 25 when he shared the physics prize in 1925 with his father. Two Nobel winners have turned down the prize. French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre declined the literature prize in 1964, citing his principle of rejecting all official honors. Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was so enraged by the 1936 prize going to German pacifist and dissident Carl von Ossietzky that he barred Germans from accepting future Nobels. Finally, Indian pacifist Mahatma Gandhi never received the peace prize, even though he was the 20th century symbol of nonviolence.
■AUSTRIA
Vege Orchestra turns 10
The Vegetable Orchestra has been playing with its food for 10 years, delighting audiences from Belfast to Hong Kong with its self-made cucumberphones, celery bongos, pepper trumpets and leek violins. Drawing inspiration from electronic music artists such as Germany’s Kraftwerk or John Cage, the dozen musicians from Vienna carve and chop their own instruments to create a truly organic sound. With around 200 performances under its belt, the one-of-a-kind orchestra just celebrated its 10th anniversary with a concert at Vienna’s prestigious RadioKulturhaus.
■GREECE
Monastery land deal halted
Greece’s government said on Friday it had revoked a series of land-swap deals with an Orthodox monastery that allegedly cost taxpayers tens of millions of euros. Greece’s top public prosecutor has ordered an investigation into the deal, which prompted a minister to resign last month, adding to the troubles of embattled Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. The swaps started after 1999, when the government recognized a claim to public land in northern Greece by the 1,000-year-old Vatopedi Monastery. The monastery is on the autonomous monastic community of Mount Athos in northern Greece.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Sci-fi driver loses license
A court has suspended the license of a truck driver who careened down a highway while watching episodes of Battlestar Galactica on a laptop computer atop his dashboard. Police say Benjamin Trotman drove for 40km in northern England last December with one eye on the road and the other on the cult sci-fi show. A traffic officer who pulled him over found the show still playing on his computer. Trotman’s lawyer claimed he had been looking at Google Maps while listening to the sound from the show. But Trotman pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at an earlier hearing.
■UNITED STATES
Election dolls pulled
Election-year novelty dolls of Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain and Senator Hillary Clinton have been ordered off the shelves of Walgreen drugstores nationwide because of customer complaints about the battery-operated figures. The 34.3cm tall dolls moved as they sang parodies and recited messages that were not approved by the presidential candidates. Walgreen Co spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce told the Grand Rapids Press for a story published on Friday that some customers were offended by what the dolls said or did. The Clinton figure referred to itself as a “broad” in one song parody. The Obama doll was sold in a box that proclaimed, “The senator from Illinois gets down and funky!”
■MEXICO
Tijuana death toll hits 39
Residents of the Mexican border city of Tijuana found five bodies, with their hands and feet tied and heads wrapped in tape, on Friday, police said, bringing the total to 39 killed there this week. Police recovered the bodies, in the Mesa de Otay sector of the city bordering the US, after calls from residents. Gangland-style murders have escalated in the past week in the city across the border from San Diego, including the discovery of eight bodies on Thursday, and a pile of 12 bodies found nearby on Monday, local officials said.
■COLOMBIA
Strike frees 2,000 suspects
More than 2,000 people who had been arrested over the past month in Colombia walked free due to a strike by employees of the country’s court system, justice authorities confirmed on Friday. Workers went on strike on Sept. 3 demanding a pay rise, a review of the process through which judges and public prosecutors are selected and an increase in the numbers of court workers. Justice authorities said 2,017 people have been freed because the relevant proceedings could not be carried out as the law requires. While many suspects in crimes have walked free, many people remain in jail despite having served their terms, because they are waiting for a judge to sign their release.
■UNITED STATES
Elvis is Alive to die
The Elvis is Alive Museum will not live, at least not for now. Andy Key tried to sell the museum in Wright City, Missouri, twice on eBay. He received no bids by the time the auction ended on Friday. He did get one bid at his first asking price of US$15,000, but it turned out to be from a child playing on a computer, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Key bought the museum on eBay last year for more than US$8,000. He says military duties will keep him away from home and he can’t operate it. The collection includes photos, books, FBI files, DNA reports and other memorabilia that aim to support the theory that Elvis Presley never died. Bill Beeny, a Baptist minister who started the museum in 1990, says he has no plans to buy it back.
■UNITED STATES
Atheists slam prayer day
The largest group of atheists and agnostics in the US is suing US President George W. Bush, the governor of Wisconsin and other officials over a federal law designating a National Day of Prayer. The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued on Friday in US district court, arguing that the president’s mandated proclamations calling on Americans to pray violates a constitutional ban on government officials endorsing religion. The day of prayer, held each year on the first Thursday of May, creates a “hostile environment for nonbelievers” the lawsuit said.
‘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
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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