■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.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
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