■MALAYSIA
Bridge collapse kills girl
A new footbridge across a river collapsed while schoolchildren crossed it during a camping trip, killing one girl and leaving two missing and feared drowned in the currents below, officials said yesterday. Police, firefighters and emergency services personnel were scouring the Kampar River in the north where the 12-year-old students disappeared late on Monday, district police chief Aziz Salleh said. An error in registration records of the 300 students on the trip caused authorities to earlier estimate that 22 had disappeared, Aziz said. At least 20 students were walking on the 50m bridge when it collapsed, but most managed to cling to it or were pulled to safety by their teachers. K. Mathivanan, 12, told national news agency Bernama that the bridge had been swaying and abruptly collapsed after some students jumped on it.
■CHINA
Teacher ‘pricks’ students
A 24-year-old female kindergarten teacher has been detained after allegedly stabbing more than 20 children with a syringe to discipline them, state media reported yesterday. The woman was taken into custody at the weekend in Yunnan Province after angry parents complained to police about the alleged abuse at the unlicensed school in Jianshui County, the China Daily reported. One mother said her four-year-old daughter had been stabbed multiple times last week on the back of her left hand and on her bottom. It was not immediately clear if the alleged syringe contained any hazardous materials. Children were given ultrasound examinations and HIV tests, which were negative, the China Daily said.
■CHINA
Mob attacks ‘smugglers’
A mob of angry parents lynched a book salesman and badly injured four of his colleagues after rumors spread that the men were part of a human smuggling ring, the official Xinhua agency said late on Monday. The attack at the Chumen Primary school, in prosperous Zhejiang Province, occurred in the early morning as the group handed out leaflets about a lecture to be given nearby, the agency quoted a police official as saying. After gossip spread that a gang was trying to ensnare the young pupils, parents surrounded the group and set upon them until police intervened. One man died in hospital and the others were undergoing treatment, Xinhua said. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children go missing each year, seized by roving criminal gangs to serve as props for beggars or for sale to childless couples. Estimates are difficult to come by, though the Ministry of Public Security reported investigating 2,566 potential trafficking cases last year.
■SAUDI ARABIA
Man beheaded for murder
A man was beheaded by the sword on Monday after being sentenced to death for shooting a relative during a dispute, the interior ministry said. Eid bin Mifrih al-Zahrani was executed in Al-Laith near Mecca for killing his cousin, the ministry said, giving no details about the date of the crime or the trial. It was the country’s 56th execution this year. Last year it put 102 people to death. The country imposes capital punishment for the crimes of rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.
■BELGIUM
Thief steals one shoe
Police say a one-legged suspect was caught after only one shoe went missing in a store. An amputee was an immediate suspect when a store attendant found one shoe missing from a shop in the town of Maldegem. Police spokesman Rik Decraemer said on Monday authorities were alerted and quickly found the man who fit the description by shopkeepers. The shoe was also recovered. The suspect, a Russian asylum seeker, faces possible charges and was handed over to judicial authorities.
■RUSSIA
Two die of swine flu
Two women died of swine flu, the country’s top medical official told the Interfax news agency yesterday, in the first deaths from the A(H1N1) virus confirmed by Moscow. The two women, whose ages were given as 29 and 50, died in Russia’s far eastern city of Chita, chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko said. “Both had a confirmed diagnosis of A(H1N1), both had pneumonia,” Onishchenko was quoted as saying. One of the women was pregnant and doctors were unable to save the fetus, Onishchenko said. The women were not named in the report.
■BELARUS
Private jet crashes
A private jet crashed late on Monday near Minsk, killing the three crew members and two passengers aboard, the Interfax news agency reported, citing authorities in Belarus. The medium-sized aircraft, a British Aerospace BAe 125-800, was owned by the private Russian charter carrier S-Air. The dead included a top executive of the airline. The airliner’s crew reportedly made an initial attempt to land, canceled the approach and, on making a second approach, disappeared from airport radar. The plane went down in a forest and tore a path about 250m long through trees until coming to a stop in flames about 4km from the airport. Firefighters and police were on the scene and a search for the aircraft’s black boxes was in progress. Visibility had been excellent at the time of the accident, news reports said.
■IRAQ
Group claims bombings
Al-Qaeda’s front-group in Iraq claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings that ripped through the center of Baghdad, killing around 100 people, a US-based monitoring group said yesterday. The Islamic State of Iraq said the attacks were within its campaign dubbed the “Invasion of the Captive,” SITE Intelligence said. The nearly simultaneous car bombings, which targeted on Sunday the justice ministry and the Baghdad provincial government headquarters, also wounded more than 500 and left body parts and charred corpses scattered around the streets of the capital. Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari said the available evidence confirmed the bombers were linked to al-Qaeda.
■UNITED STATES
Government sues Yes Men
The US Chamber of Commerce filed a civil complaint on Monday against members of the activist group Yes Men, who staged a news conference to announce that the 3 million-member business federation had reversed its position and favored costly climate change legislation. The chamber said it filed the complaint in a District Court in Washington to protect its trademark and other intellectual property from unlawful use by members of the group known as Yes Men and others involved in the Yes Men’s commercial enterprises. The activists misappropriated the chamber’s logo, created a fraudulent Web site and claimed to be speaking as the chamber under its copyright, the chamber said. As part of its hoax, the Yes Men announced at the National Press Club that the chamber would stop advertising against the Senate’s climate bill.
■UNITED STATES
Man guilty of taking money
A man has admitted banking more than US$470,000 in paychecks from a company he never worked for. Anthony Armatys of Palatine, Illinois, pleaded guilty on Monday in New Jersey Superior Court to one count of theft as part of a plea bargain. Prosecutors say Armatys accepted a job with Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based company Avaya in 2002, then changed his mind. The company’s computer system never removed his name from the payroll, however. Paychecks were deposited into his bank account until 2007, when Avaya discovered the mistake. Prosecutors are seeking a six-year prison term and restitution.
■UNITED STATES
FAA probes LA incident
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is trying to determine how close two passenger jets came to each other in a so-called runway incursion at Los Angeles International Airport. FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said on Monday the jets were within 30m of each other, but radar data was being analyzed to determine the exact distance. The incident involved a Midwest Express Embraer 190 that landed and taxied toward a runway from which a Northwest Airlines Boeing 757 was taking off for Honolulu on Sunday. Midwest Express Flight 1503 landed on the airport’s southernmost runway and was told to turn onto a taxiway and hold there but did not.
■UNITED STATES
Bears target minivans
What’s bigger than a picnic basket and even better if you’re a black bear in Yosemite National Park? A study published this month in the Journal of Mammalogy says it’s minivans driven by families with children, who leave behind a trail of spilled juice boxes and snacks. Park scientists found the bears tear up minivans more frequently than other vehicles. Minivans represented 29 percent of the 908 vehicles torn into by bears between 2001 and 2007, even though they made up just 7 percent of the cars that visited Yosemite.
■HONDURAS
Micheletti nephew killed
A nephew of de facto leader Roberto Micheletti was killed in a possible political attack, and a colonel was shot dead separately amid high tension in Honduras, authorities said on Monday. Police found the remains of Enzo Micheletti near Choloma on Sunday, along with those of another youth, a justice official said. The 25-year-old, who was the son of the de facto leader’s brother, disappeared on Friday. Unidentified attackers also shot a colonel in Tegucigalpa on Sunday, the Security Ministry said.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
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