■AUSTRALIA
Oil spill spreading
One of the world’s last great areas of wilderness has been massively contaminated by a spill from a damaged oil rig off the north coast, conservationists said last week. Millions of liters of oil have leaked into the Timor Sea, famed for its coral reefs and home to dolphins, humpback whales and other marine life. The slick, which has already spread over an area 10 times the size of London, continues to expand at the rate of 2,000 barrels of oil a day. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of birds and animals have died since Aug. 21, when there was an accident at the well head of the Montara offshore drilling rig. A survey by the World Wildlife Fund found that dolphins, migratory sea birds, sea snakes and marine turtles had been exposed to toxins. Satellite images show a 25,000km² slick spreading across the surface of the ocean and threatening the marine reserves of Ashmore and Cartier reefs.
■MALAYSIA
Man arrested for murder
Police arrested a man suspected of killing his wife and possibly blinding his teenage daughter by splashing acid on them while they slept, an official said yesterday. The man is believed to have crept into his wife’s separate bedroom early on Saturday and poured a bottle of acid over the two, who were in the same bed, a district police official in Penang state said. Neighbors rushed them to a hospital after the 17-year-old daughter ran out screaming, the official said on condition of anonymity. The man later turned himself in. The wife died, while her daughter suffered burns on her face and would probably lose her sight, the Bernama news agency reported.
■INDONESIA
Quake causes panic
A powerful earthquake struck deep under the sea in the east, causing panic and sending residents running out of their homes, officials and witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The earthquake late on Saturday had a magnitude of 7.0, but at a depth of 138km was too far below the earth’s surface to cause a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. The US Geological Survey said the latest quake was located 365km southeast of Ambon in the Maluku islands in the Banda Sea. The shaking was strong and people ran to higher ground fearing a tsunami, said Ian Kotualubun, an official with the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in Saumlaki.
■SOUTH KOREA
Power unit running again
A power generation unit at a nuclear power plant has resumed operations after a one-day shutdown because of technical problems, Yonhap news agency reported. The unit, one of six at the Younggwang plant, was shut down late on Friday and resumed operations late on Saturday, Yonhap said. Another unit is under repair at the plant, which is operated by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co and will remain suspended until Sunday, Yonhap said. Officials at Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power could not be reached for comment.
■JAPAN
Fishing boat missing
A fishing boat with eight crew members was missing yesterday in the Pacific after losing radio contact with other boats, the Coast Guard said yesterday. The 19 tonne Kofuku Maru No. 1 was 300km south of Tokyo when it last communicated with the fleet on Saturday. The Coast Guard has sent patrol boats and helicopters to search for the vessel. The fishing boat had planned to return the Shimoda port in Shizuoka Prefecture yesterday.
■UNITED STATES
Pilots’ licenses at risk
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Saturday that it might suspend the licenses of the two pilots of Northwest Flight 188 who flew 240km past their Minneapolis destination on Wednesday evening — remaining out of contact for nearly 90 minutes — while air traffic controllers repeatedly tried to reach them. Air traffic control centers from Denver to Minneapolis tried numerous times to reach the pilots by radio, e-mail, data text and cellphone before a flight attendant was finally able to contact the pilots, and they turned the plane around and landed it safely. A FAA spokeswoman said the agency had sent “letters of investigation” to Captain Timothy Cheney, and the first officer, Richard Cole, notifying them that the incident could lead to the emergency revocation or suspensions of their licenses within days. The two pilots have been suspended by Delta Airlines, which merged with Northwest last year and operates its flights.
■UNITED STATES
Town beads together
A record-setting strand of beads has helped the city of East Providence, Rhode Island, put its recent financial woes behind it, at least for a night. On Friday, the city smashed the Guinness world record for longest strand of beads with a 411.45m string of red and white beads. The previous record was 108.2m, set in February in the UK. Patti Streit led the effort by the East Providence Education Foundation. She told the Providence Journal it was a much-needed “fun, positive” moment. The city has been plagued by budget problems, police and fire layoffs and teacher disputes.
■ISRAEL
Police, worshippers clash
Police and Arab worshippers clashed near Jerusalem’s flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City yesterday and several people were arrested, a police spokesman and Palestinian officials said. The clashes came amid rising tensions in the past weeks over the area known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, site of the mosque and the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s holiest sites. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said youths threw stones and a gasoline bomb at police on patrol near the mosque. He said 12 arrests were made. Palestinian officials said police had closed off the compound to visitors, leaving hundreds of worshippers inside.
■SAUDI ARABIA
Flu deaths shut two schools
The government shut two schools in Qassim Province northwest of Riyadh after two students died from swine flu, the Arab News reported yesterday. The deaths took the country’s toll from A(H1N1) virus to 39, the daily said. The government has intensified its watch for swine flu outbreaks amid concern the disease could spread among some 2 million foreign visitors arriving over the next month for the annual hajj pilgrimage.
■CANADA
Tamil man released
The government is to release one of 76 Tamils arrested last week in a ship off its Pacific coast, local media reported on Saturday. The decision came after a custody hearing, lawyer Narinder Kang told the Globe and Mail newspaper. The released man was ordered to report regularly to authorities, Kang said. Federal police detained the 76 men on Friday, after the navy seized the Ocean Lady freighter off the west coast. The move came after it emerged a 26-year-old man is being sought by Sri Lankan authorities for an unspecified terror offense.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in