■ JAPAN
Okinawa crash sparks fire
A small plane carrying four US airmen burst into flames after an emergency landing on Okinawa, leaving its pilot with minor injuries, officials said on Saturday. The four-seater Cessna 172 landed in a sugarcane field in Nago during a private flight on Friday, catching fire as soon as it hit the ground, cracking its nose cone, Okinawa police official Hideki Taira said. The pilot, identified only as a 45-year-old airman from Kadena Air Base, suffered a broken jaw, Taira said. The three others were rescued without injuries. Police interviewed the men on Saturday to determine the cause of the accident, Taira said, adding that investigators believe the plane ran low on fuel while it was returning to the base. The aircraft belonged to the Kadena Air Base Aero Club, a US Air Force organization at the base. The Mainichi Shimbun said police have obtained a search warrant to determine whether unsafe actions had been taken during the flight. The plane cut a power line when it crashed, temporarily blacking out hundreds of households.
■ JAPAN
Major dies on Iwo Jima
An army major collapsed while visiting a World War II tunnel on Iwo Jima and later died, the first death on the island since the war, officials said on Saturday. The 45-year-old major was last seen fixing the entryway to the Senda Bunker while visiting on Thursday, said an official from the Ground Self-Defense Forces Fuji School, where the major was an instructor. He was found slumped on the ground by other instructors who had gone further into the tunnel, the official said. The major was airlifted to a defense hospital in Tokyo where he was pronounced dead, he said. An autopsy was under way to determine the cause of his death.
■ AUSTRALIA
Dog saves kittens from blaze
A dog was hailed as a hero yesterday after it risked its life to save a litter of newborn kittens from a house fire, rescuers said. In a case which gives the lie to the saying about “fighting like cats and dogs,” the terrier cross named Leo had to be revived with oxygen and heart massage after his ordeal. Fire broke out overnight at the house in Melbourne, where he was guarding the kittens. Fire fighters who revived Leo said he refused to leave the building and was found by them alongside the litter of kittens, despite thick smoke. “Leo wouldn’t leave the kittens and it nearly cost him his life,” fire service Commander Ken Brown told reporters.
■ AUSTRALIA
Bees can count to four
Researchers have discovered that honey bees can count to four, a report said yesterday. A researcher from the University of Queensland put five markers inside a tunnel and placed nectar in one of them, ABC radio reported. Honey bees placed in the tunnel flew to the marker with the food, and would still fly to the same marker stripe when the food was removed. “We find that if you train them to the third stripe, they will look subsequently in the third stripe,” researcher Mandyam Srinivasan said. “If you train them to the fourth stripe, they will look the fourth stripe and so on. But their ability to count seems to go only up to four. They can’t count beyond four.”
■ CHINA
Giant Mao statue erected
A university campus has erected the country’s tallest statue of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), state media reported yesterday. The 20m high stainless steel statue was unveiled at Chongqing Medical University in honor of the man who established the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Beijing Morning Post said. “To set up statues of Mao Zedong has been a university campus tradition for decades,” the paper quoted a spokesman as saying. “The purpose of the statue is to encourage and give confidence to our teachers and to instill national character and patriotism in our students.”
■ PHILIPPINES
Rebels overtake prison
Rebels disguised as drug enforcement officials infiltrated a prison, overpowered the guards and freed seven of their comrades being held for murder, police said yesterday. The New People’s Army rebels claimed to be handing a prisoner in to the facility in Lucena, south of Manila, provincial police chief Fidel Posadas said. Once inside the gates however, they overpowered the guards and sprang seven comrades whom they called “political detainees,” Posadas told DZBB radio. The fleeing rebels threw grenades and fired at police, wounding two of them and two other civilians, he said. He said the jail guards failed to follow proper procedures and allowed the men inside without verifying their identities.
■ INDONESIA
Child marriage probed
A child protection agency is investigating reports of a marriage between a Muslim cleric and a 12-year-old girl, the Jakarta Post reported yesterday. The newspaper said the 43-year-old cleric from Central Java allegedly married the girl with her parents’ consent in August and planned to marry two more girls, aged seven and nine. The government-backed Indonesian Child Protection Commission plans to question the cleric, the girl, her parents, the cleric who married them and witnesses of the marriage. Under law, a woman must be at least 16 years old to marry. Marriage with a minor carries a maximum of five years.
■ GABON
Group warns of ritual killing
Thirteen ritual murders have been recorded since last month, activists said on Saturday, accusing authorities of not doing enough to stop the killings. “In Libreville, we have a total of five cases and in the interior eight cases since September,” said Jean-Elvis Ebang Ondo, head of the Association Fighting Against Ritual Crimes. Ebang Ondo — whose son was kidnapped in March 2005 and his mutilated body later found — said it was possible the figure only represented the tip of the iceberg as the organization did not have a nationwide network. The group said the murders are carried out to obtain blood and body parts. But authorities say the problem has been exaggerated and fed by rumors.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Man charged in murders
Police said yesterday they had charged a man with the gruesome murders of a Chinese couple in Newcastle. A police spokeswoman said Guang Hui Cao, 30, was charged with killing Xi Zhou and her boyfriend Zhen Xing Yang, both 25, whose hacked and mutilated bodies were discovered at their flat in August. The suspect will appear before a court in Newcastle today. No further details were available. Police had previously said they were looking into the possibility that the couple may have been killed because of their involvement in “fraudulent activity.”
■ IRAN
Ahmadinejad falls sick
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fallen ill because of his heavy workload, a close associate told the state news agency late on Saturday. Parliament member Mohammad Ismail Kowsari, a close ally of the president, told IRNA that Ahmadinejad was feeling under the weather because of the strain of his position. “The president will eventually heal and continue his job,” Kowsari said. “Every human being can face exhaustion under such a workload.” The president reportedly works a 20 hour day.
■ DENMARK
Toddler hits mom with car
A young mother sustained broken bones and other injuries on Saturday when her two-year-old son accidentally started up her car, police said. The boy apparently managed to turn on the ignition while his mother was putting something into the trunk of the car. Since the car was in reverse gear, the vehicle ran over the woman. Neighbors helped free her before emergency services arrived, news agency Ritzau reported. She sustained broken arms, legs and chest injuries but they were not life-threatening, police said. The accident happened in Stovring, south of Aalborg.
■ FRANCE
Mother confesses to killing
A woman confessed to killing her three-year-old son on Saturday, police said, after the boy was found dead in a hotel earlier in the day. “She admitted that she killed him,” squad chief Bertrand Lodde said of the 26-year-old woman, who was being held for questioning. “She seems to be in shock. She did not give any particular reason.” The circumstances surrounding the boy’s death were unclear. The woman and her son had arrived at a hotel on Saturday afternoon in Toulon-sur-Allier, where she rented a room. Shortly after the boy’s death, the woman called police. She was waiting for the officers downstairs at the hotel when they arrived, according to Lodde, and said only that the boy was in the room. The boy’s body did not seem to have any signs of violence.
■ UNITED STATES
SUV crash kills five
Five people died in a fiery car crash in Tennessee, including four high school cheerleaders who had hours earlier been cheering on their football team. A sport utility vehicle (SUV) carrying the cheerleaders collided with an oncoming car late on Friday night on a wet, foggy highway in Scott County, northwest of Knoxville, authorities said. A passenger in the car was also killed. Investigators believe the crash was caused in part by the slick and foggy conditions, and a preliminary report indicated none of the girls in the SUV was wearing a seat belt, said Laura McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol. The car’s driver and a 10-month-old child, Aiden Wilson, were also injured and taken to a hospital.
■ UNITED STATES
‘W.’ actress killed
A television newswoman who had a small role in the movie W. died several days after she was found beaten in her home in Little Rock, Arkansas, hospital officials said. Anne Pressly, 26, died on Saturday at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Margaret Preston said. Pressly was beaten around the head, face and neck. She had been unable to communicate with her family or police while being kept sedated in the intensive care unit. She was discovered last Monday morning a half-hour before she was to appear on ABC affiliate KATV’s Daybreak program.
■ UNITED STATES
House explodes
A gas leak ignited an explosion that destroyed an Ohio home while its owner was out running errands. Mansfield Fire Captain George Rippey said the home exploded on Saturday afternoon. The force of the blast knocked out the windows and doors of a neighboring home and threw debris across the street in the northern town of Mansfield. No one was injured in the explosion. Rippey said the home’s occupant, Keith Phillips, was out buying an electric heater for the home when the explosion occurred. Phillips told authorities that his furnace had been acting up on Friday night, and that he had shut off gas to it. Authorities are investigating how the leak started and what caused the gas to ignite.
■ BOLIVIA
Morales to undergo surgery
President Evo Morales said he would soon undergo nasal surgery to ease persistent head and ear aches. Morales has canceled several appearances in recent days for health reasons. The 49-year-old president told reporters on Saturday that doctors have recommended nasal surgery to correct his problem. He did not give details on his condition or what type of operation is planned. Morales said he was consulting his Cabinet to pick a date for the procedure. According to the Constitution, Vice President Alvaro Garcia would be in charge while Morales is incapacitated.
■ UNITED STATES
Merl Saunders dies
Merl Saunders, a jazz and rock keyboardist who collaborated with iconic acts including Miles Davis and the Grateful Dead, has died. He was 74. Saunders died on Friday at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco of complications caused by a stroke, his son said. “We loved him very much — and we know that you, his fans, did too,” his family said in a statement posted on Saunders’ Web site. Some of Saunders’ most famous music was made in the 1960s and 1970s when he teamed up with the Grateful Dead’s lead guitarist and singer, Jerry Garcia.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was