■MALAYSIA
Iranians detained over meth
Three Iranians were detained at the country’s main airport after US$4 million worth of illegal drugs were found in their luggage, in the nation’s biggest drug haul in three years, reports said yesterday. The 54.5kg of methamphetamine were in plastic bags stuffed among clothes in two hand-carried suitcases, the Star newspaper quoted customs investigations director Zainul Abidin Taib as saying. It said customs officers detained the man and two women at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport upon their arrival late Friday from Dubai. They have not been charged. The death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking in the country.
■MALAYSIA
Beanpicker fights off tiger
A 47-year-old tribesman gathering food in a northern forest fought off a tiger attack armed only with a rock, a newspaper reported on Saturday. The attack in the jungles of Perak state on Saturday left Yok Meneh with a wide and deep gash on his back and injuries to his hands and legs, the Sunday Star newspaper reported. Yok Meneh told the newspaper he had been collecting wild green beans and other vegetables when the tiger attacked him. “I was so engrossed in collecting petai [green beans] that I did not notice the tiger had crept up behind me,” he said. “The moment I realized I had to save myself I tried to grab anything I could with my hands. I found a rock, grabbed it and fought back, hitting the tiger on its head again and again until it slunk away,” he said. “Bedraggled and bleeding,” Yok Meneh was found by his wife, who with the help of workers from a nearby oil palm estate took him to hospital, the newspaper reported.
■AUSTRALIA
Drought linked to pole
A drought that has gripped the southwestern corner of the country since the 1970s is linked with higher snowfall in East Antarctica, a phenomenon that may be rooted in global warming, scientists reported on yesterday. Researchers Tas van Ommen and Vin Morgan of the Australian Antarctic Division said that the drought — which has seen winter rainfall decline by 15 percent to 20 percent — is extremely unusual when compared with the last 750 years. Hand in hand with the drought is a similarly exceptional rise in snowfall at Law Dome, an icecap on the coast of East Antarctica. The apparent reason is a “precipitation see-saw,” the pair report in a paper published online by the journal Nature Geoscience. Relatively cool, dry air flows northwards to southwest Australia, providing little rain, while warm, moist air flows to East Antarctica, where it provides abundant snow. The pattern is consistent with previous studies that suggest a man-made role in the drought, the pair said.
■CHINA
Dinosaur stomping ground
Archeologists have uncovered more than 3,000 dinosaur footprints, state media reported, in an area said to be the world’s largest grouping of fossilized bones belonging to the ancient animals. The footprints, believed to be more than 100 million years old, were discovered after a three-month excavation at a gully in Zhucheng in Shandong Province, Xinhua news agency reported. The prints range from 10cm to 80cm in length, and belonged to at least six different kinds of dinosaurs, including tyrannosaurs, the report said on Saturday. Archeologists have found dinosaur fossils at some 30 sites in Zhucheng, known as “dinosaur city.” The region has seen two major digs since 1964, and experts say the discovery in such a dense area could provide clues on how the animals became extinct.
■MALI
Toure hopeful on hostages
President Amadou Toumani Toure said Saturday he is optimistic about the fate of six Europeans held in his country by the north African branch of al-Qaeda. “Above all we must not be pessimistic. I urge everyone to be optimistic,” Toure said a day after Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said it had extended its deadline for a French and Italian it was holding. The group has threatened to kill the six European hostages it is holding, including the African-born wife of the Italian and three Spaniards. On the margin of his visit to Taoussa to attend a ceremony launching construction of a dam, Toure could be seen meeting with men involved in negotiations to free the hostages.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Ebadi calls for protests
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi urged people to take to the streets this week to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Ebadi, who lives in exile in London, said she supported calls for peaceful protests against the Iranian government. “I believe people should take part in the demonstration,” she said. “They should ask for their rights, but they should do it peacefully. Obviously the regime wants people to be violent because it gives them an excuse to crack down, and people must not give them that excuse.”
■UNITED STATES
Mom implicates self: police
New York City police say a Belgian woman suspected of killing her eight-year-old son at a luxury Manhattan hotel and then trying to commit suicide made statements implicating herself in the crime. Police say Jude Michael Mirra was found Friday lying face-up on the bed in a room at the five-star Peninsula Hotel with his divorced mother, 49-year-old Gigi Jordan, slumped on the floor nearby. Prescription medicines and papers were strewn about the room. Police spokesman Paul Browne Browne says an apparent suicide note was found. Police say Jordan’s relatives contacted them on Friday, saying they feared the child was in danger. Police went to her Central Park apartment building and then to the hotel.
■UNITED STATES
Sentences for toxic pet food
Federal prosecutors in Missouri say a Las Vegas-based company and its owners have been sentenced to three years probation for distributing a toxic pet food ingredient. Prosecutors in Kansas City say 43-year-old Sally Qing Miller and 57-year-old Stephen Miller also must pay a US$5,000 fine, and their company, Chemnutra, must pay US$25,000. The Millers imported more than 800 tonnes of Chinese wheat gluten contaminated with melamine and sold it to pet food manufacturers. Thousands of cats and dogs reportedly became sick or died from the contaminated gluten, leading to the nationwide recall of more than 150 pet food brands in 2007.
■UNITED STATES
Mudslides damage homes
Thunderous mudslides damaged dozens of homes, swept away cars and pushed furniture into the streets of the foothills north of Los Angeles on Saturday as intense winter rain poured down mountains denuded by a summer wildfire. No injuries were reported but residents and emergency responders were caught off guard by the unpredicted ferocity of the storm, which damaged more than 40 homes and dozens of vehicles. Some 540 homes were eventually evacuated at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains after heavy rains overflowed debris basins.
■UNITED STATES
Mid-air collision kills three
At least three people were killed on Saturday following a mid-air collision over the city of Boulder, Colorado, witnessed by dozens of people on the ground, the Denver Post reported. The newspaper said the collision happened just after a towplane released a glider. A Cirrus CR20 with at least two people aboard slammed into the towplane occupied only by a pilot, said the report, which cited Mike Fergus, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. The crash site was less than 8km from Boulder Municipal Airport, the Post said.
■UNITED STATES
Leonard Cohen hurts back
Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has postponed an upcoming European tour by six months after hurting his lower back while exercising, his representatives said on Friday. A statement said his doctors advised the 75-year-old to follow the same four to six-month regimen of physical therapy as athletes do with similar injuries. A spokeswoman declined to specify what Cohen was doing when he hurt himself. He appeared fairly nimble on Saturday when he accepted a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in Los Angeles and recited his wry poem Tower of Song to the audience. The nine-date tour, set to begin on March 1 in the French city of Caen, will now begin on Sept. 15, with shows scheduled through Oct. 7 in Moscow.
■UNITED STATES
Robert Park returns home
An American missionary who strode illegally into North Korea on Christmas Day and was detained by Pyongyang for 43 days was welcomed back home in an emotional reunion with family members at Los Angeles International Airport. Robert Park was greeted by his parents and brother in a private location at the airport after arriving Saturday evening on a commercial flight from Beijing. Earlier on Saturday, the 28-year-old Korean-American from Tucson, Arizona, flew to the Chinese capital from Pyongyang. The family stopped briefly as they left the airport in their car. A thin and pale Park wouldn’t speak and kept his eyes downcast while his brother, Paul Park, told reporters that he was in good condition.
■UNITED STATES
Eagle gets temporary crown
An Alaska dentist has given a bald eagle a unique beak — using a temporary crown, sticky poster putty and yellow highlighter. The bird was found in December with severe damage to its beak, apparently from fishing line that wrapped around it and started cutting into it. Cindy Palmatier at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center says staff decided to turn to dentist Kirk Johnson, who thought of patching up the beak with the same material used to make temporary crowns for people, KTUU-TV said. The “crown” is being held on with poster putty, and Johnson colored it in using highlighter to give it a yellow tint.
■BRAZIL
Murder mastermind jailed
A rancher accused of masterminding the 2005 killing of an activist US nun in the Amazon is back in jail, a TV station reported on Saturday. Vitalmiro Moura turned himself in to police in the jungle town of Altamira on Saturday, the Globo TV network said, citing an unidentified police spokesman. Moura is accused of ordering the murder of 73-year-old Dorothy Stang, a native of Dayton, Ohio, who worked for decades as an activist on behalf of poor people seeking small parcels of land to farm. Moura was convicted in 2007, then acquitted during an automatic retrial in 2008.
‘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