■PHILIPPINES
Girl killed in slum fire
An official said yesterday that a five-year-old girl was killed and 4,000 people were left homeless in a fire that razed a squatters’ colony near the main port in the capital. Senior Fire Officer Emmanuel Gaspar says 500 shanties were gutted by a fire that broke out late on Saturday at Baseco Compound, a crowded slum along the rim of Manila Bay. Gaspar said the girl died in the fire but that there were no other reports of deaths or injuries. An Associated Press photographer at the site saw people waiting to be treated for minor injuries, including wounds from glass shards. The cause of the fire, which raged for about two hours, is under investigation.
■PHILIPPINES
Eleven hurt in bus attack
An official says suspected extortionists opened fire on a passenger bus in southern Zamboanga Sibugay province, wounding at least 11 people on board. Regional military chief Lieutenant General Benjamin Dolorfino says two gunmen attacked the bus late on Saturday as it was traveling to Pagadian city. Troops rushed to the scene to evacuate victims and track down the attackers, he said, adding the diver was listed in serious condition yesterday.
■MALAYSIA
Dragon boat upset, one dies
One teacher died and five students were still missing after their boat capsized off Penang early yesterday, police said. Penang police chief Ayub Yakob said 18 people were on a dragon racing boat when strong undercurrents tipped it over as it made a turn. There were 15 young paddlers aged at least 17 years old, one teacher and two trainers in the boat, he said. “The body of one male teacher has been fished out of the sea,” he said, adding that most of the students swam to shore safely.
■VATICAN
Pope happy Nazis gone
Pope Benedict XVI, on the eve of his controversy-generating visit to a Rome synagogue, said on Saturday that the end of Nazi tyranny in his German homeland made him happy and allowed him to resume studies for the priesthood. His visit to Rome’s main synagogue scheduled for yesterday has divided Jewish groups because of Benedict’s praise of wartime pontiff Pius XII. Some Jewish leaders were angered by Benedict’s recent move to advance Pius down the path toward possible sainthood. Critics contend that Pius didn’t speak out enough to save Jews during the Holocaust, but the Vatican said that he used quiet diplomacy to save lives. On Saturday, Benedict reminisced about his youth in Germany with a group of Germans from Freising, the city where he was ordained in 1951 and where he had studied in a seminary a few years earlier after the institution reopened in February 1946, a few months after the war ended.
■SWEDEN
Plane swerves off runway
An Iran Air-owned Airbus bound for Tehran slid off a Stockholm runway on Saturday, but no one was hurt, an airport official said. One hundred seventy-two people, including 23 crew members, were on board the Airbus 300-600 when it swerved off the runway and glided 100m into the snow. Everyone was safely evacuated, Arlanda airport spokesman Anders Bredfall said. One of the airport’s three runways was closed as officials launched an investigation into the accident.
■RUSSIA
Medvedev sells photo
A photograph taken by President Dmitry Medvedev sold on Saturday for 1.2 million euros (US$1.7 million) — even more than the amount a painting by his predecessor Vladimir Putin fetched last year. The black-and-white photo of the Tobolsk Kremlin, or fortress, in western Siberia, taken by Medvedev from a helicopter, sold at auction for 51 million rubles (US$1.7 million). Mikhail Zingarevich, a member of the board for wood and paper company Ilim, bought the photo at the charity auction. Medvedev worked as legal affairs director for the company in the 1990s.
■IRAN
Bomber kills himself
A man set off an explosive device near a provincial governor’s office on Saturday night, fatally wounding himself but causing no other damage, a news agency reported. The incident, four days after a remote-controlled bomb killed a university scientist in Tehran, occurred in Mashhad, one of the Islamic Republic’s largest cities, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported. The explosive device went off when security personnel near the office of the governor of Khorasan Razavi Province approached the man after he had raised their suspicions. The man later died from his wounds, Fars said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Runner breaks world record
A former army soldier on Saturday stormed into the record books by breaking the world treadmill record after seven grueling days on the run. Mike Buss, 35, from Swindon, outside London, clocked up 832.4km, breaking the previous record of 753km in his week-long attempt. The former army physical training instructor had been running up to three marathons a day on a treadmill in Swindon’s Brunel Shopping Centre, sleeping two hours per day. He is raising money for a charity which helps injured service personnel.
‘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