■INDIA
Bridge collapse kills five
Five people were killed and another 15 injured when a section of a partially constructed New Delhi metro bridge gave way suddenly early yesterday, Anuj Dayal, spokesman for the Delhi Metro Rail Corp told reporters. The accident occurred when a pillar supporting a part of the carriageway collapsed, he said. “It appears that there is a problem in the design of the pillar of the bridge,” he said. “Two of the injured are in a serious condition” while some workers had been discharged after first aid.
■HONG KONG
Filipina battling swine flu
A Filipina maid was fighting for her life in hospital yesterday in the territory’s most severe case of swine flu so far, Department of Health officials said. The 37-year-old woman arrived from the Philippines on June 28 and fell ill shortly afterwards. She was admitted to hospital five days ago and tested positive for swine flu on Friday. Her pregnant employer was also admitted to hospital for observation after she complained of flu symptoms, officials said.
■SOUTH KOREA
Choir contest canceled
A world choir contest has been canceled after more than a dozen Indonesian participants were found to have swine flu, health authorities and organizers said yesterday. Fourteen people — 13 Indonesians and one South Korean —attending the contest tested positive for the A(H1N1) influenza virus on Saturday and yesterday, the health ministry said. It forced organizers to call off the rest of the contest, which was to run until Thursday in South Kyeongsang Province. Organizers were working yesterday to send home hundreds of foreign contestants. “We feel really sorry that we had to cancel this great event. But it’s inevitable for the sake of public health,” said Kang Mal-rim, an organizer of the South Kyeongsang Province government.
■MALAYSIA
Pickpocket gang nabbed
Police have detained 23 Philippine nationals, believed to be part of a pickpocket syndicate that has been active in Kuala Lumpur, reports said on Saturday. Police arrested eight men and six women as they were targeting a victim at a shopping complex on Thursday, the Star daily reported. Police caught five other syndicate members at another shopping complex, the paper said. Police formed a task force to investigate the pickpocket cases after receiving at least five reports daily over the past week, a senior officer said. Five more syndicate members, including the leader, were still being sought.
■AUSTRALIA
Asylum seekers stopped
The navy stopped a boat carrying more than 70 suspected asylum seekers about 32km northwest of Christmas Island, where the government detains and processes refugee applicants, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said in a statement. The 73 passengers were being held yesterday on the island, which is about 2,575km northwest of Western Australia. There nationalities were not given.
■CHINA
Flash flood kills hikers
Seven hikers were killed and a dozen more are missing after being swept away by a flash flood in a scenic gorge near Chongqing on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. About 400 rescuers worked overnight at the Tanzhangxia Gorge to locate 16 injured members of the 35-person group.
■GREECE
Migrants’ camp destroyed
Bulldozers escorted by riot police yesterday leveled a camp at the port of Patras, where hundreds of migrants had lived in growing tension with city residents, a photographer said. About 100 police took part in the early morning operation in the camp occupied by mainly Afghan migrants that left standing only the migrants’ makeshift mosque and a tent used by volunteer doctors. The camp was mostly empty as many migrants had apparently been forewarned, but police took away around 100 people including some 30 minors who were boarded on buses and taken to a local hotel according to officials.
■SPAIN
Five people gored by bulls
Five runners have been gored and six have received other injuries at a packed weekend running of the bulls at the San Fermin festival. One man was caught in the chest and legs when a large bull became separated from the pack on the slippery cobblestone streets leading to the bullring. The bull, a Miura weighing 575kg, jerked the bleeding runner upward and then rolled him along the ground in the entrance to the ring. The sixth running of the bulls was held two days after a 27-year-old man was gored to death, the first such fatality since 1995.
■CONGO
Opposition boycotts poll
The opposition has called for a boycott of yesterday’s presidential vote and made accusations of fictitious voting lists in the Central African country overshadowed by its much larger neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Longtime President Denis Sassou-Nguesso faces 12 opponents but six of them — including main challenger Mathias Dzon — are calling for voters in the oil-rich nation to stay home. Sassou-Nguesso claimed power in 1979 after a coup and ruled until a 1992 election defeat. He seized power again in 1997 with help from Angolan troops. In 2002, he rewrote the Constitution to give more power to the presidency and was re-elected.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Knowledge of Bible drops
Knowledge of the Bible is in decline in Britain, with fewer than one in 20 people able to name all Ten Commandments and youngsters viewing the Christian holy book as “old fashioned,” a survey said yesterday. Forty percent did not know that the tradition of exchanging Christmas presents originated from the story of the Wise Men bringing gifts for the infant Jesus, while 60 percent could not name anything about the Good Samaritan, the Durham University study found. Youngsters were particularly disillusioned, telling researchers that the Bible was “old fashioned,” “irrelevant” and for “Dot Cottons” — a reference to the church-going EastEnders’ character, the National Biblical Literacy Survey 2009 showed.
■SYRIA
Prehistoric flints found
A Swiss archeological mission has found prehistoric flints and skeletons dating back 200,000 years in the desert of Palmyra, local media reported yesterday. The joint Swiss-Syrian team, which has now finished its dig at Al Koum, near Palmyra, said it had found a series of items dating back between 100,000 and 200,000 years, including peculiarly molded flints, which prove the ability of the Transitional Age Homo sapiens to properly use flint tools, Al Thawra Daily reported. The paper quoted the director of antiquities in Palmyra as saying that the most important findings was the remains of a giant camel, double the size of a modern-day camel and which suggests that this kind of camel was native to the region and not imported.
■MEXICO
Three police officers killed
Three federal police officers were killed and 18 were wounded on Saturday in attacks attributed to the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel in at least six different cities, police said. The onslaught on six federal police (PFP) bases in the western state of Michoacan was seen as retribution for the arrest on Friday of top La Familia member Arnoldo Rueda. After the arrest, gunmen “tried to rescue him and clashes began, in which 18 PFP members were wounded,” PFP regional chief Rodolfo Ruz told reporters. The three officers who died, Cruz said, were not on base, but in a vehicle close to a car crash on a road when they were attacked by an armed group traveling in a separate vehicle.
■UNITED STATES
Body found in air-con duct
A female body stuffed inside an air-conditioning duct was found on Saturday in a Manhattan skyscraper where a cleaning woman was last seen four days ago. Police discovered the corpse, hidden in a utility room duct, just before 9am as they began searching the 26-story tower for 46-year-old Eridania Rodriguez. The remains have not been officially identified, but police spokesman Paul Browne said investigators presumed the body was that of the Dominican-born Rodriguez, who had been missing since Tuesday night. A medical examiner was on the scene trying to confirm the find and determine how the woman died. Authorities believe she was murdered, but haven’t identified a suspect.
■HAITI
Five killed in boat accident
At least five people were killed when a boat capsized off the coast on Saturday, local authorities said, adding that 26 people aboard the vessel were rescued, but dozens more were missing. The search for bodies and possible survivors was called off for the day because local authorities lacked the necessary equipment, civil protection official Jean-Michel Sabbat said. Five bodies were picked out of the water, Sabbat said, updating an earlier toll that put the number of dead at six. The 26 people that were rescued were taken to Saint-Michel Hospital in Jacmel, a port town close to the shipwreck, he added.
■ARGENTINA
Six more die of swine flu
The Health Ministry reported six new swine flu deaths on Saturday, bringing to 94 the number of people killed by the A(H1N1) virus in South America’s worst-affected country. The number of confirmed infections with the virus rose to 2,929, Argentine Health Minister Juan Manzur said. Argentina is the world’s third worst-affected country in the global pandemic, behind only Mexico, with 121 confirmed deaths, and the US, where the Centers for Disease Control said on Friday the death toll stood at 221.
■UNITED STATES
Robber picks wrong car
Authorities say a parolee who robbed a Michigan bank was caught when he tried to hitch a ride from an undercover police detective. Mark White was arraigned on Friday on charges that include bank robbery and making a false bomb threat. He is being held at the Saginaw County Jail on US$755,000 bond. It was not clear whether White had an attorney. Authorities told the Saginaw News that White flagged down Saginaw Township Detective Scott Jackson on Wednesday after the bank robbery a few blocks away.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia