■HONG KONG
Police to go green
Hong Kong is set to become the second place in the world after Japan to use electric police patrol cars when the first batch enters service later this year, a media report said yesterday. Mitsubishi will initially supply 10 of its iMiEV cars to the territory’s government with three earmarked for police use, the South China Morning Post newspaper said. The others will be used by government departments and agencies. The car, which has zero emissions by using a lithium-ion battery and an electric motor, has a top speed of 130kph and can travel 160km after an eight-hour charge using a household plug.
■AUSTRALIA
Wheel falls off airliner
A nose wheel fell off a Boeing 737 belonging to budget airline Virgin Blue while it was taxiing for takeoff at Melbourne Airport, news reports said yesterday. Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association secretary Steve Purvinas said that Saturday’s incident showed the need for safety checks before all flights. A ground engineer noticed the lost wheel and alerted the pilot. Virgin Blue said it had checked all 737s.
■AUSTRALIA
Man loses it over late lunch
A court has jailed a man who set fire to his own house in a fit of anger after his wife failed to make him lunch, a report said yesterday. Rajah Theivendradas, 54, was jailed for four years over the incident in which he poured petrol on a staircase and set it alight, AAP news agency reported. His wife and daughters, aged 21 and 16, suffered superficial burns as they escaped through the flames, the report said. The court heard Theivendradas had been drinking heavily the day before the incident in May last year and had also had a heated row with one of his daughters.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Lifeguards rescue 40 people
Lifeguards say a dramatic rescue operation saved dozens of children after a sandbank collapsed and plunged 40 people into freezing waters in Wales on Saturday. Three lifeguards led efforts to rescue 36 children and four adults who fell into the sea when the banking was washed away in Tenby. Coast guard officials said on Sunday that the volunteer lifeguards had undoubtedly saved lives. The group had been on a walk, but became stranded on a sandbank that is often swept away as the tide comes in. An air ambulance and two ambulance crews treated several of the group for minor injuries.
■UNITED STATES
Famous name a hindrance
Sharing a name with someone who lives in your area isn’t usually a big deal — unless your name is Neil Armstrong. Thirty-eight-year-old Neil Allen Armstrong, a financial services professional from Symmes Township in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, says he constantly gets calls and packages from autograph seekers, school children and reporters. He tries to explain he’s not the 78-year-old Neil Armstrong who was the first man to walk on the moon and lives in nearby Indian Hills. But people don’t always believe him. Armstrong, the non-astronaut, says he has never met his namesake but would welcome the opportunity.
■RUSSIA
Drunk driver kills four
Four people were killed when a drunk driver plowed into a store in Perm, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday, citing local traffic police. “On Sunday evening the driver of a Mitsubishi car, in a state of alcoholic intoxication, lost control and collided with a store in Perm,” a traffic police spokesman was quoted as saying. The car hit three women and two six-month-old babies, he said. One of the babies, one of the women and two passengers from the vehicle died, while the other victims as well as the driver were admitted to hospital with injuries, Interfax reported.
■ITALY
Five hurt in vigilante clash
At least five people were injured and two arrested after clashes between left and right-wing citizens’ patrols, reviving a controversy over government plans to use the patrols to back up security forces. The fighting occurred late on Saturday in the town of Massa, in Tuscany, when a group of youths called the “Antifascist Proletariat Patrol” took to the streets against the right-wing “SSS,” which has begun patrols. A scuffle broke out between the rival groups and police officers who intervened, leaving at least five people injured, police said. Following the arrest of two of their leaders, members of the left-wing group blocked Massa station for two hours on Sunday and held a demonstration outside police headquarters.
■UNITED STATES
Bird song watchers watched
For years, an unusual event has been held at a Queens park in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of New York City on Sunday afternoons with scant attention from outsiders. Birds whistle songs at each other, as people watch — and keep count. The first bird to tweet a certain number of songs is considered the winner. The bird singing races at the park have drawn increased scrutiny recently from law enforcement, as federal officials target illegal smuggling of finches from Guyana. Authorities also suspect the men bet on the races, which would be illegal. The people who flock to the races, mostly Guyanese immigrants, argue that it is simply a harmless cultural past time.
‘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