■NORTH KOREA
N Korea says Wen to visit
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) will pay an “official goodwill” visit North Korea from Sunday to next Tuesday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch yesterday. The dispatch didn’t provide details, but Wen’s trip comes after the North has taken a series of conciliatory gestures toward South Korea and the US after months of tension on its nuclear and missile programs. Earlier yesterday, Yonhap news agency reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could announce some concrete denuclearization measures during Wen’s visit.
■SINGAPORE
Superjumbo turned back
A Singapore Airlines plane carrying 444 passengers from Paris to Singapore was forced to return to the French capital on Sunday afternoon because of engine problems, the carrier said yesterday. The problem on the Airbus A380 jet was detected around two-and-a-half hours into flight out of Paris, it said. “An engine message was reported in the cockpit and following checklist procedures, the affected engine was shut down,” an airline spokesman said. “While the aircraft is able to operate with three engines, the pilots decided to return to Paris as a precaution due to the long flight.”
■NEW ZEALAND
Hillary tops ‘live’ poll
Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary topped a recent poll to find the “greatest living New Zealander,” despite dying last year, it was reported yesterday. He was named by 15 percent of respondents to the Research New Zealand poll, even though he died in January last year. “It showed how beloved Sir Edmund was,” Research New Zealand director Emanuel Kalafatelis said. “To find a new hero to match his legendary status is tough.”
■HONG KONG
Tsang hospitalized
Financial Secretary John Tsang (曾俊華) is in hospital after having a heart attack but is expected to make a full recovery, the government said yesterday. Tsang had just returned on Sunday from the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, which he had attended as part of the Chinese delegation. Tsang had an operation involving balloon angioplasty which “went very smoothly” the statement said.
■NORTH KOREA
Crackdown on foreign films
The government has tightened its crackdown on foreign films after an elite college student was arrested for downloading and watching a bootleg file of a South Korean blockbuster, a defector group in South Korea said yesterday. The student in Pyongyang was caught on Sept. 5 while watching a digital copy of Haeundae with his dorm friends, the North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said in a newsletter posted on its Web site. The student allegedly acquired a file of the film at a relative’s house in Chongjin and downloaded it onto his college computer, it said. The case prompted authorities to launch an extensive probe aimed at preventing the spread of the movie, the group said, quoting a “correspondent” in the North. The inspection revealed that tens of thousands of North Koreans have secretly seen foreign films, it said. The digital copy of Haeundae, a disaster flick which drew more than 10 million viewers in South Korea, was first leaked by an audio technician in Seoul.
■COLOMBIA
FARC urges prisoner swap
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) said on Sunday they will free two hostages in a unilateral gesture that could set the stage for a comprehensive exchange of prisoners held by both sides in the country’s 45-year-old guerrilla war. Soldiers Pablo Moncayo and Josue Calvo are locked up in secret jungle camps. They and 22 other kidnapped members of the security forces are being used as leverage by the Marxist rebels, who want to negotiate the freedom of hundreds of their fighters held in jails. “With this gesture of a unilateral release we reaffirm our willingness to advance in an exchange of all prisoners of war, whether they be held by the guerrillas or the state,” FARC said in a statement. Moncayo, grabbed in 1997, has become a symbol of the suffering of kidnap victims since his father Gustavo Moncayo began a campaign for his freedom, wrapping himself in chains and walking throughout the country. Calvo was kidnapped earlier this year.
■COLOMBIA
Top cartel member nabbed
Police struck a blow against the country’s top drug cartel by capturing a trafficker accused of smuggling about 100 tonnes of cocaine to the US, officials said on Sunday. Juan Rivera was arrested in Cali after a six-month manhunt. He is wanted for extradition by US courts in Florida and was second in command of the Norte del Valle cartel.
■UNITED STATES
Guardsman hosts gun social
A candidate to be South Carolina’s next National Guard leader skipped the fiery speeches for firepower, launching his campaign with what he called a “machine-gun social.” The Greenville News reports some 500 people came out to a shooting range on Saturday for Republican Dean Allen’s political rally. Attendees paid US$25 for barbecue, a clip of bullets for target practice and the chance to win a semiautomatic AK-47. South Carolina is the only state that elects its adjutant general.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number