■INDIA
Wild elephants kill three
A herd of nearly 150 hungry elephants rampaged through a village in the remote northeast, trampling to death a young family as they slept in their hut, a resident and a wildlife official said. The elephants destroyed four homes in Assam state’s Karbi Anglong village on Friday night, resident Rimi Marak said. A farmer, his wife and their five-year-old daughter died in the incident, he said. The herd left a nearby forest reserve in search of food nearly two weeks ago, state forestry officer M.K. Dhar said. Forest guards tried in vain to drive the elephants back using firecrackers and lighting torches, Dhar said. The region is home to about 5,000 wild elephants, whose natural habitat has been increasingly diminished by human development. Conservationists say wild elephant attacks have killed more than 700 people in Assam in the past 17 years.
■NEW ZEALAND
Leader breaks arm
The arrival of the Lunar Year of the Ox did not bring any luck to Prime Minister John Key, who broke his right arm falling at a celebration in Auckland, his office said yesterday. Key — who was born in a year of the ox, 1961 — fell when leaving the stage by some stairs at a Lunar New Year event at showgrounds in suburban Greenlane on Saturday morning. A doctor confirmed that his arm was broken in two places and a cast was applied, a statement said.
■CHINA
Moderate earthquake strikes
A 4.5-magnitude earthquake struck the southwest late on Saturday, the US Geological Survey said, with local media reporting some material damage. The quake hit at 8:41pm in the border area between the provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou, at a depth of 10km, the USGS said. The Guizhou Metropolitan News, a local newspaper, said there were no immediate reports of injuries, but described unspecified damage to buildings.
■SOUTH KOREA
Lee replaces security chiefs
President Lee Myung-bak replaced the country’s security and police chiefs before a possible Cabinet reshuffle. Lee named Public Administration and Security Minister Won Sei-hoon as the head of the National Intelligence Service, the presidential office said in a statement in Seoul yesterday. Kim Suk-ki, currently the city’s police chief, will helm the National Policy Agency, the statement said.
■MACAU
Interpol wants Ho relative
A relative of chief executive Edmund Ho (何厚鏵) was wanted by Interpol, in the latest twist in the city’s biggest graft scandal. The international police organization has issued a “red notice” for Chan Lin-ian, brother-in-law of Ho’s brother, and his wife Lam Man-i, over suspected money laundering. Arrest warrants for the pair had also been issued by authorities, the Interpol Web site said. A red notice means that the persons concerned are wanted by national jurisdictions and that Interpol will assist the national police forces in identifying or locating them with a view to their arrest and extradition. Chan, 53, had been implicated in the corruption case of former public works minister Ao Man-long (歐文龍), who was jailed last year for 27 years on 57 counts of bribe-taking, money laundering, abuse of power and other charges, the Sunday Morning Post said. Chan’s company, Shun Heng Construction, came under investigation last year after it allegedly provided kickbacks to Ao over three public works projects it undertook between 2003 and 2006, the newspaper said.
■BRAZIL
Araujo steals the show
Rio closed its main fashion event of the year with less attention to the clothes than the model — a transgender actress. Patricia Araujo received a standing ovation after parading along the runway for the Complexo B brand late on Friday to end the week-long event in a city that delights in shocking the prudish with each year’s Carnival celebration. Complexo B designer Beto Neves said he invited Araujo to amaze the public. “In fashion, the cool thing is to surprise,” he told the O Dia newspaper. Globo Television’s Web site called the 25-year-old Araujo “the star” of the show’s final day and model Isabeli Fontana told O Dia that Araujo “is the greatest.” Tall and slim, the dark-haired Araujo entered the catwalk wearing a long fur coat and quickly unveiled a short black-and-white dress to the applause of the hundreds of guests at the event. “I love to be mobbed by the press,” she told O Dia afterward. “I’ve always dreamed of being famous.” Her legal name is Patricia Oliveira, but she is known by the stage name of Araujo.
■CUBA
Kirchner visits Cuba
Argentine President Cristina Kirchner’s trip to Cuba yesterday was intended to strengthen “friendship and cooperation” between the two countries, an official statement released on Saturday said. The visit, postponed last week because of Kirchner’s health problems, will serve to “strengthen the ties of friendship and cooperation that characterize relations between the governments and people of both nations,” said the statement, published on the front pages of Cuba’s nationwide newspapers Granma and Juventud Rebelde. Over her three days in Cuba, Kirchner will hold official talks with Cuban President Raul Castro and meet other Cuban officials, along with tours of sites of historic and social importance, the statement said. The trip will be the first official visit by an Argentine leader in 23 years. After Cuba, Kirchner is set to meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas on Wednesday.
■UNITED STATES
Soldier reunited with dog
Army Specialist Gwen Beberg has been reunited with Ratchet, the puppy she bonded with after saving him from a burning trash pile in Iraq. Beberg returned to her Minneapolis home on Saturday after being stationed in Kentucky since she returned from Iraq. She and another soldier rescued the then four-week-old puppy in May and an animal rescue group arranged his trip to Minnesota in October. The dog stayed with Beberg’s parents until her return. The soldier calls Ratchet her “fuzzy little love” that always lifts her spirits. The US military initially blocked the dog from leaving because it said US troops could not be responsible for its transportation. The dog was put onto a charter flight instead.
■CANADA
Teens with firearms arrested
Police on Saturday arrested two teenagers who were allegedly planning a shooting spree at a university and a church in the central Canadian province of Manitoba. The suspects, a boy and a girl, both 17, intended “to harm a number of persons at random.” “This included students, adults, church parishioners and pretty much anyone that was going to get in their way,” Winnipeg police spokeswoman Jacqueline Chaput told CBC television news. Police discovered the plot and arrested the teenagers after finding firearms that had been stolen some months ago from a Winnipeg home.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
Trinidad and Tobago declared a new state of emergency on Friday after authorities accused a criminal network operating in prisons across the country of plotting to kill key government officials and attack public institutions. It is the second state of emergency to be declared in the twin-island republic in a matter of months. In December last year, authorities took similar action, citing concerns about gang violence. That state of emergency lasted until mid-April. Police said that smuggled cellphones enabled those involved in the plot to exchange encrypted messages. Months of intelligence gathering led investigators to believe the targets included senior police officers,
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
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