■ CHINA
Policemen held over deaths
Six policemen have been arrested for their part in a melee outside a nightclub in Harbin that led to a young man’s death, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, citing police officials. The policemen came to blows with the victim and several people outside the nightclub, after driving their car “too fast” near the entrance, Xinhua said on its Web site. An official from the publicity office of the Heilongjiang Public Security Bureau confirmed the report and said the off-duty policemen had been drinking at a banquet before going to the club, but were not drunk and not the aggressors.
■ CHINA
Family sues over milk
The family of a six-month-old baby whose death on May 1 has been blamed on toxic milk filed suit on Monday against Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co, one of the nation’s largest dairies. It is the first to be filed over a child who died from drinking the tainted milk and asks for almost US$160,000 in damages. The Yi family’s lawyer, Dong Junming, said he turned the lawsuit in at Lanzhou’s No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court where clerks told him they would notify him yesterday as to whether it would be accepted. At least two other lawsuits have been filed against Sanlu in recent weeks by parents of children suffering from kidney stones. It is not clear if courts will allow these suits to progress.
■ INDIA
Bus accident kills 23
At least 23 people were killed and 41 injured when a speeding bus rammed into a stationary truck in the northeastern state of Assam yesterday, police said. The accident took place in the early hours on a highway in Dhubri district. “Fifteen passengers died on the spot due to the tremendous impact. The victims included six children and five women,” district police chief Parathasarthi Mahanta said by telephone. The bus was transporting laborers to work at brick kilns in a neighboring district, police said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Remains found in crocodile
Police said they had found human remains in the stomach of a giant crocodile captured in a remote area where a fisherman went missing late last month. Arthur Booker, 62, disappeared on Sept. 30 after he went to check crab pots while holidaying with his wife near Cooktown in the so-called “Cape Crocodile” region of far north Queensland. Police said late on Monday that forensic tests had determined material taken from the stomach of a 4.5m crocodile captured in the area where Booker was last seen came from a human male. They said more detailed DNA analysis was needed.
■ RUSSIA
Hungry bears force curfew
Dozens of brown bears searching for food have forced two villages in a mountainous southern region of the country to impose a curfew, news agencies reported on Monday. The inhabitants of Yailyu and Bele would no longer be able to leave their villages without an armed guard during the day and must stay in their homes at night, the reports quoted officials as saying. Bears have left the forest because of a lack of berries and nuts this year and have terrorized villagers for days, killing cattle, destroying fences and attacking people, RIA Novosti news agency said. The two villages are located in an Altai mountains national park and the decision to impose the curfew “was taken by the park’s scientific council,” Sergei Varganov, the chief forest warden, was quoted as saying. The reports said that up to 20 bears roam the two villages at night.
■ FRANCE
Actor dies aged 37
Guillaume Depardieu, the troubled son of renowned French film star Gerard Depardieu who gained praise for his own career as an actor, died on Monday. He was 37. Guillaume Depardieu died at Raymond-Poincare hospital in Garches, west of Paris, from complications related to a sudden case of pneumonia, the Paris area hospitals authority said. Family lawyer Jean-Yves Lienard said the actor had been repatriated to France on Sunday from Romania, where he contracted a pulmonary illness while filming. Guillaume Depardieu won the prize in 1996 as the most promising young actor at the Cesar awards _ France’s equivalent of the Academy Awards — for his role in the film Les Apprentis (The Apprentices). As a teenager and young adult, Guillaume Depardieu faced problems with drugs, alcohol and violence that led to convictions for traffic violations, insults and narcotics. He had a public falling-out with his father in 2003. That year, Guillaume Depardieu had his right leg amputated to end years of pain from a bacterial infection that followed a motorcycle accident in 1996.
■ GREECE
Quake rattles northeast
An earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale shook the northeast of the country early yesterday, but there were no reports of injuries or damage. Seismologists at the Athens Geodynamic Institute said the underwater quake took place at 5:06am and had an epicenter just northeast of Athens, about 40km northeast of the island of Evia near Mandouri. The institute corrected their original measurement of the quake, which was 6.6. Two smaller earthquakes took place a few minutes later, and seismologists predicted many more aftershocks would follow. The quake startled people out of their beds in Athens, in Haldika, the capital on Evia and the nearby town of Mandouri. Municipal officials on Evia said there were no reports of injuries or damage.
■ COLOMBIA
Masterpiece found in hotel
A small engraving of “incalculable value” by Spanish master Francisco de Goya has been discovered in a Bogota hotel room a month after it was stolen from a traveling exhibit in the city, police said on Monday. The work, entitled Tristes Presentimientos (Sad Premonitions) was discovered after investigators followed an informant’s lead to the hotel room, said Bogota police chief Rodolfo Palomino. The engraving was stolen from an exhibition put on by the Gilberto Alzate Avendano Foundation. Palomino said the work was found wrapped in a sheet, in its original frame, which helped police authenticate the discovery. No suspects have been arrested.
■ UNITED STATES
Bridge to get safety net
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge may soon be rigged with a safety net to deter people from jumping to their deaths from the world-famous landmark, official records showed on Monday. The Golden Gate Transportation District has voted in favor of installing the net pending the results of studies into its environmental impact, according to a statement on the district’s Web site. The plastic-covered steel net would extend 6m on either side of the bridge and would cost between US$40 million to US$50 million, local media reported. It is likely to be several years before the netting is installed, reports said. The Golden Gate district voted 14 to 1 in favor of installing the netting at a meeting on Friday attended by around 50 people including psychiatrists, suicide prevention experts and relatives of suicide victims.
■ UNITED STATES
Parkinson’s study released
People with Parkinson’s disease are more likely to have low vitamin D levels, according to the latest study illustrating how getting too little of the “sunshine vitamin” may be detrimental. In a study published on Monday in the journal Archives of Neurology, researchers examined vitamin D blood levels of about 300 people in their mid-60s, a third of them with Parkinson’s, a third with Alzheimer’s disease and a third healthy. They found that 55 percent of those with Parkinson’s had low vitamin D levels, compared with 36 percent of the healthy people and 41 percent of those with Alzheimer’s disease. The study was published the same day that a leading US pediatricians group recommended that children get double the amount of vitamin D previously recommended because of growing evidence of the vitamin’s importance in preventing disease.
■ UNITED STATES
Execution appeal rejected
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal from an Ohio prisoner who argued he is too obese to be executed. Richard Cooey was scheduled to be put to death yesterday. The court denied his request for a stay without comment on Monday. Cooey is 170cm tall and weighs 121kg. State officials said prison staff examined Cooey’s veins and found no problems that would interfere with the execution. Cooey had one more appeal pending before the court. It argued Ohio’s method for lethal injections could cause an agonizing death and violated the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Cooey, 41, raped and killed two college students in 1986.
■ UNITED STATES
State of emergency declared
Two huge wildfires driven by strong Santa Ana winds burned into neighborhoods near Los Angeles, forcing frantic evacuations on smoke and traffic-choked highways, destroying homes and causing at least two deaths. Around sunset, residents were warned to stay on alert as winds of more than 97kph were forecast. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. More than 1,000 firefighters and nine water-dropping aircraft battled the 1,900-hectare Marek Fire at the northeast end of the San Fernando Valley, and the 2,000-hectare Sesnon Fire at the west end. Winds blew up to 72kph with gusts reaching 113kph at midday. They were forecast to diminish in the evening before roaring over 97kph after 11pm. Residents downwind were warned to remain alert into the night.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in