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World News Quick Take

■INDONESIA

Rains may trigger slides

Heavy rain threatened to trigger more landslides and hamper delivery of desperately needed aid yesterday on the island of Sumatra, where thousands of people were buried by last week’s powerful earthquake. The Meteorological and Geophysics Agency warned that remote areas could see strong winds and storms for the next two days, worsening the plight for those made homeless and creating dangerous conditions on roads already blocked by mud and felled trees. Satellite images showed continuing moderate to heavy rain in west Sumatra Province, which was struck by a 7.6-magnitude quake on Wednesday.



■NEW ZEALAND

Snow strands motorists

Hundreds of stranded motorists faced a second night in emergency shelters yesterday after an estimated 1m snowfall on central North Island. A state of emergency was declared in the lakeside town of Taupo when about 900 motorists were forced to abandon their cars after being trapped by the unseasonal springtime snowfall, described as “a freak weather occurrence.” Police said the 145km stretch of highway between the east coast port of Napier and the lakeside town of Taupo was expected to remain closed for a second night because of abandoned vehicles blocking the road. Two stretches of the main highway between the capital, Wellington, and the country’s biggest city, Auckland, were also likely to stay closed for another night.



■NEW ZEALAND

Murder suspect on the run

A murder suspect was at large yesterday, 24 hours after police cordoned off about 15km² of North Island farmland and launched a manhunt. Police said armed officers had searched outhouses, barns and wool sheds in rain and near-­freezing temperatures and used heat-seeking helicopters without finding any trace of the suspect they named as David John Bourke, 46, from Wanganui. They said the body of a middle-aged man was found in the crashed car of the suspect, who also shot and wounded a farmworker near the small town of Norsewood, 215km north of Wellington, on Sunday. Police commander Russell Gibson said officers were searching a huge area and warned farmers to stay indoors and be patient.



■CAMBODIA

Officer arrested for drugs

A police officer who was less than a week into his post in an anti-drugs squad has been arrested after police found 10kg of heroin stashed at his home in the capital, national media reported yesterday. The raid on the house of Bun Pov, a first lieutenant in the anti-drugs squad, also uncovered 2kg of methamphetamines as well as large quantities of chemicals used to process and make drugs. Mok Dara, the head of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, told the Cambodia Daily that the raid was part of a concerted effort by the government to combat illicit drugs.



■JAPAN

Autopsy shows little

An initial autopsy of former Japanese finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa found cardiovascular abnormalities and alcohol in his body, but was unable to determine the cause of death, reports said yesterday. Police will conduct further examinations, which will require a few more days, according to Jiji Press and other media. Nakagawa, who resigned in February over his apparently drunken behavior at a meeting of world powers on the global financial crisis, was found dead on Sunday at his home. He was 56.



■ISRAEL

Security tight in Jerusalem

Police massed in Jerusalem’s Old City yesterday following clashes with Palestinians near the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and as tens of thousands of Jews were expected to attend a religious ceremony. Authorities restricted access to the compound to Muslim men aged 50 and over, with no restrictions for women, following Sunday’s clashes in which seven Palestinian protesters were injured and three arrested. Thousands of security officers were deployed in and around the Old City, particularly in the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and the Western Wall. Tens of thousands of Jewish worshippers were expected at the wall yesterday for the Priestly Blessing ceremony as part of Sukkot celebrations. Sunday’s clashes erupted after Israeli authorities closed the mosque compound.



■GERMANY

‘Steel velcro’ invented

A revolutionary “steel Velcro” type of fastener system made from adamantine steel may be useful in a range of settings, including hospitals and the aviation industry, a team of scientists at the Technical University of Munich say. Working in conjunction with industrial firms, they say they have created a new hook-and-loop fastener using steel, chosen for its high resistance to mechanical loads and chemical corrosion. The fastener, was dubbed Metaklett, from the German word for Velcro, klettband. “I can imagine Metaklett being used in hospitals — for example, as a means of fastening curtains that doesn’t get damaged when exposed to hospital cleaning,” said Joseph Mair, the head researcher.



■LEBANON

Trio sentenced for bomb plot

A military court has sentenced three men to life in prison with hard labor for plotting to assassinate Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmudi, media reports said on Sunday. Military Examining Magistrate Fadi Sawwan handed down the sentence against Mehdi al-Hajj Hasan and his son, Haidar, and Libyan national Abdel Salam Mohammed. The men were convicted of having placed explosive charges inside a package dispatched to al-Mahmudi in Libya last June. Intelligence agencts intercepted the parcel before it could be shipped out of the country. The men had reportedly sought to avenge the disappearance of Shiite Imam Moussa Sadr during a trip to Libya in 1978.



■GREECE

Ship collision kills one

Authorities say a Greek sailor has died after two cargo ships collided in the Aegean Sea and one of them sank. The Merchant Marine ministry says the Captain Michalis and the Santana, registered in Greece and Malta respectively, collided early on Sunday southeast of Mykonos. The Captain Michalis sank immediately. A third cargo ship rescued eight of the sunken ship’s crew of nine.



■UNITED KINGDOM

Mom wants to keep son

The mother of a 15-month-old Ukrainian boy that Elton John wanted to adopt has pleaded with the star to drop his plans, the Sun newspaper reported yesterday. The mother, known only as Marina, said she wanted to get her life back on track so that she could retrieve her son from the Ukrainian orphanage where he now lives. “I love him so much and desperately want him back so I can hold him,” she told the tabloid in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine. The woman, an impoverished alcoholic who is HIV positive, had both of her children taken away from her by social workers, the newspaper said.



■UNITED STATES

Immigrants favored to win

New York City’s Chinatown is likely to get its first Chinese-American representative on the city council, and a Taiwanese immigrant is headed for citywide office. Margaret Chin, whose family emigrated from Hong Kong in 1963, when she was nine, beat incumbent Alan Gerson in a Democratic primary last month and is expected to win the seat next month. Chin, a community organizer and immigrant advocate, is heavily favored to beat Republican Irene Horvath. She said it was exciting to finally break the barrier. Meanwhile, John Liu last week won the Democratic primary runoff for comptroller, the city’s chief financial officer and one of its top three elected positions. Liu, whose family emigrated from Taiwan when he was a child, could become the first Asian-American to hold citywide office in New York City. Liu, a city councilman from a district in the borough of Queens with a large Asian-American population, beat fellow Councilman David Yassky in the runoff and is expected to win the Nov. 3 general election against lesser-known Republican Joe Mendola.



■UNITED STATES

Alabama judge in sex trial

A former Alabama judge was to go on trial yesterday on charges of having sex with male inmates in exchange for leniency. Herman Thomas resigned as circuit judgeship in 2007 after being accused of having defendants pull down their underwear for paddlings in his private courthouse office. A Mobile County grand jury indicted him in the spring on charges of having sex with inmates brought to a private courthouse office. The charges of sodomy, kidnapping, sex abuse, extortion and assault involve 15 current and former inmates at the jail in Mobile. Thomas’ attorney, Robert Clark, said the inmates were lying and trying to ruin an outstanding legal career.



■ARGENTINA

Nation mourns singer

President Cristina Kirchner on Sunday ordered an official period of mourning for folk singer Mercedes Sosa, who died on Sunday in Buenos Aires after falling seriously ill with a liver ailment earlier in the week. Kirchner and her husband, former president Nestor Kirchner, joined Cabinet members in an emotional farewell for the singer and national folk hero, whose body was held in state in parliament. Thousands of Argentines filed past her open casket in the most formal room of parliament, the Pasos perdidos room (the room of lost steps). The steady stream of mourners continued well into the night as they passed by the artist, known fondly by her nickname of Negra (the black one). “Mercedes was the most important voice and had a huge heart for all those who suffered,” Colombia pop star Shakira said in a statement. “She left us with remembrances of the sincerity of her performances as well as the light of her words and compassion.”



■CANADA

Sixteen activists arrested

Authorities arrested 16 people on Sunday after Greenpeace activists scaled three smoke stacks at a Shell operation in their latest action protesting the exploitation of Canada’s vast oil sands. Activists from Canada, France, Australia and Brazil occupied part of an upgrader machine Shell is building at its Scotford site in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, to convert oil sands into fuel, the group said in a statement. By the time the protest ended on Sunday, authorities have detained 16 members, Greenpeace said. Producing tar sand oil takes more energy and emits more greenhouse gases than exploiting liquid oil wells.
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