■SOUTH KOREA
Landslide kills two
A landslide at a construction site killed two workers yesterday and trapped four others in a large, caved-in pit, a news report said. About 150 police and rescue workers using cranes and other equipment were trying to save the trapped workers at the site in Pangyo, south of Seoul, Yonhap news agency reported. The accident happened early yesterday when an H-shaped beam supporting a side of the 22m deep, rectangular pit collapsed. Four other workers were injured in the cave-in. Construction began at the site in September to build a nine-story chemical research center.
■HONG KONG
YouTubers love a hissyfit
A video of a hysterical passenger screaming at airline staff and writhing on the floor after missing a flight has become a YouTube hit. By yesterday, the three-minute clip of the furious woman had racked up close to 40,000 hits in three days. The video starts with the screaming woman running towards the departure gate and bouncing off a female security guard, after she learned that her flight has been closed. She then starts banging a desk before collapsing to the floor and rolling around, while maintaining a high-pitched wail. The footage, entitled “A woman missed her flight at the boarding gate HKIA” appears to have been shot with a mobile phone from behind the staff desk. The woman was traveling on a Cathay Pacific flight to San Francisco on Feb. 4, a Cathay spokeswoman said.
■PHILIPPINES
Manila to talk with MILF
The government is poised to resume peace talks with Muslim separatist rebels, months after fresh fighting left more than 300 dead, an official said yesterday. The government is ready to reopen negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), presidential peace adviser Avelino Razon told DZBB radio. Malaysia has been brokering the talks, which began in 2003 shortly after the MILF agreed to a ceasefire. But it pulled its peace monitors off troubled Mindanao Island last year because of the slow pace of progress.
■CHINA
Fireman honored as ‘martyr’
A fireman killed in a spectacular inferno that engulfed the new state-run central TV station has been laid to rest as a “revolutionary martyr,” state press reported yesterday. Zhang Jianyong’s (張建勇) funeral at Beijing’s Babaoshan revolutionary cemetery on Saturday was attended by some of the country’s best-known TV celebrities, the Beijing Morning Post reported. Zhang was killed while fighting a blaze last Monday, caused by illegal fireworks, which engulfed a building attached to the new headquarters of China Central Television.
■MALAYSIA
Police make huge drug bust
Police found 84kg of cannabis worth more than 345,600 ringgit (US$100,000) while investigating complaints related to an abandoned vehicle, a news report said yesterday. The cannabis was recovered early on Saturday from the trunk of an old car that was believed to have been abandoned for more than a year in a car park in central Petaling Jaya City. Following the discovery, police later raided an apartment nearby where a 21-year-old man was arrested with 2.4kg of cannabis, district police chief Ariunaidi Mohamed said. “He was in the midst of destroying the drugs when my officers raided the unit,” Mohamed was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper. Initial investigations showed that the drugs were brought in from a neighboring country.
■CROATIA
Half-kilometer sausage made
People on Saturday cooked up what they claim to be the world’s largest sausage, measuring 530m. Hundreds of locals gathered in the main square of Vinkovci in the country’s east and grilled the giant sausage, made with 400kg of pork, 10kg of salt, 2.5kg of spices and 3.5kg of garlic bought for a local farm, the town hall said. Organizers said the sausage was the world’s largest and could feed as many as 3,000 people, but adding it was merely “training” for next year when they plan to produce a sausage measuring 1,000m. The Guinness Book of Records said the longest-ever sausage made so far measured 392m and was made in Romania in December.
■ITALY
New twist in murder trial
An American student accused in the stabbing death of her British roommate had a scratch on her neck hours after the killing, a witness testified at the murder trial. Prosecutors allege Meredith Kercher was the reluctant object of a sex game that ended violently on Nov. 1, 2007, when the British woman was fatally stabbed in the neck. Laura Mezzetti, an Italian who shared an apartment with Kercher and defendant Amanda Knox, told the court on Saturday that he saw the scratch on Knox’s neck, below her chin, the following day at the police station where they were waiting to be questioned but said she didn’t point it out at the time because she thought investigators would notice themselves.
■VATICAN
Pope to visit Middle East
Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to go ahead with a visit to Israel is “courageous” given the never-ending strife and bloodshed in the Middle East, the Vatican’s spokesman said on Saturday. “There are continuing tensions in a region prone to conflict, including recently a war that devastated the Gaza Strip and profoundly wounded its people,” Father Frederico Lombardi said on Vatican radio. “The peace process has hardly made any decisive steps. Shadows and mistrust repeatedly darken the dialogue that is well underway between the Jewish world and the Catholic church.” News media reports said the pope would go to Jordan and then Israel and the Palestinian territories on May 8 to May 15, stopping in Amman, Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem.
■IRAQ
Man swallowed lighters
A man traumatized by the 1991 Gulf War has been operated on after having swallowed 52 lighters, doctors and his sister said on Saturday. The 48-year-old man, who took part in the invasion of Kuwait that triggered the war, was admitted to hospital in Kirkuk last week with strong abdominal pains, Delchad Saber said. An X-ray showed foreign objects in his stomach ... and 52 lighters were removed, after which he was transferred to the psychiatric wing of the hospital. “This is a rare case,” Saber said. The patient’s sister said the man has living like a recluse at home in the city, which itself is rife with violence in war-torn Iraq, ever since the conflict over Kuwait.
■GAZA
Aid convoy departs
A convoy of more than 100 vehicles loaded with aid bound for the Palestinian territory left London on Saturday. The convoy, including 12 ambulances and a fire engine, is bearing more than £1 million (US$1.4 million) in aid. The vehicles will travel 8,000km through France, Spain and North Africa, crossing from Egypt into Gaza at Rafah early next month. The convoy was organized by the Viva Palestine umbrella group.
■UNITED STATES
Cops give roses for guns
Police in South Carolina gave away roses on Valentine’s Day. All you had to do to get one was turn in a gun. Hoping to get weapons off the streets with the “Guns for Roses” program, authorities in two central South Carolina cities set up a program where anyone who turned in a gun received a free rose and a gift card for an electronics chain store. At a Columbia church, five cars lined up to give away guns before the exchange had even started. At the end of the day, Columbia area police had collected 191 weapons and police in Sumter collected 32. A handgun was worth a US$100 gift card, while a rifle or shotgun netted a US$50 gift certificate. One man turned in six handguns, worth US$600 in gift cards, Richland County sheriff’s spokesman Lieutenant Chris Cowan said. Cowan did not immediately have a total value for gift cards given out. Sumter Police Chief Patty Patterson said her program gave out US$550 in gift cards for long guns and US$2,100 for handguns. There was no amnesty for those turning in the guns. The weapons were being checked to see if they were stolen, names and addresses were jotted down and ballistics tests would also be done to see if the firearm was used in a crime.
■UNITED STATES
Thieves steal 400 roses
There’s a little less romance for Valentine’s Day in Louisville, Ohio. Thieves made off with the entire inventory of roses at Catherine Elkins’ florist shop. Elkins says the criminals broke into her Cottage Floral & Gifts shop early on Friday and stole all 400 roses. They also took vases and decorations. And she can’t even fill online orders because they also ran off with her computer. Elkins says Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day are the two biggest holidays of the year for her business.
■UNITED STATES
Man moves getaway car
A man in Washington state made sure a pair of burglars did not get away with his three flat-screen TVs — he moved their getaway car. Patrick Rosario was in the basement of his Bellevue home on Tuesday when he heard the burglars upstairs. The Seattle Times said the 32-year-old Rosario, who had been laid off from his job as a Washington Mutual bank manager, called police while he sneaked out of the house. He saw a white van sitting in front of his house with the motor running and the keys in the ignition and he got in and drove it to a friend’s house. Police say the burglars left the TVs, a laptop and a jewelry box by the door and took off on foot. The sheriff’s office said no arrests had been made.
■UNITED STATES
Boar-croc unveiled for kids
Imagine meeting a crocodile with huge tusks like those of a wild boar. Paleontologist Paul Sereno did meet one, or at least the remains of the ancient creature, and he gave a crowd of excited youngsters in Chicago a first public glimpse on Saturday. Sereno calls it the boar-croc for its looks, since he hasn’t yet published an article on it with a scientific name in the official literature. The University of Chicago researcher found the skull in the Sahara Desert, which many thousands of years ago was moist and supported all sorts of animals. The boar-croc doesn’t fit in any known order. It has a crocodile-like snout, but adds horns and three sets of canine teeth like those of a wild pig adapted for eating meat, he said. So why does a paleontologist trot out his latest find before an official publication? Saturday was family day at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Sereno wanted to interest youngsters in his line of work.
‘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