■CHINA
Woman stabs nine on train
A woman armed with a knife went on the rampage on an overnight passenger train, stabbing and wounding nine people as they slept, state media reported yesterday. The attack occurred early on Tuesday morning in Heilongjiang Province. The woman, who was not identified, went from berth to berth stabbing passengers until she was wrestled to the ground and restrained by other travelers, news Web site Dongbei said. The train had been traveling from Harbin to Hebei. The victims received treatment when the train stopped in the city of Jiamusi, but the report did not say how serious their injuries were. The attack occurred the same day that a bank guard opened fire in a court building in Hunan Province, shooting three judges dead and wounding three other people before killing himself, the local government said. The man was reportedly angry about another court’s ruling on a division of assets in his divorce three years ago.
■BANGLADESH
Building collapse kills 14
A four-story apartment building collapsed in Dhaka and its debris buried some nearby shanties, killing at least 14 people and leaving several others trapped yesterday. Fire official Abdus Salam said some of those trapped were feared dead. Six injured people were rescued and taken to hospital. There were casualties in the tin-roof shanties, he said. Army troops joined the rescue work. Salam said the four-story building was built on what was once a canal and the owner had been adding another story to it.
■KAZAKHSTAN
Soyuz returns from space
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian cosmonaut and US and Japanese astronauts has landed safely yesterday in the steppe after a five-and-a-half-month stay in space. Russian Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi of Japan and US astronaut Timothy Creamer landed southeast of Jezkazgan as they returned from the International Space Station, Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow said. “A very good landing. Everyone feels excellent,” Russian Federal Space Agency director Anatoly Perminov said. “You see they are already eating apples,” he added, referring to television pictures showing Noguchi happily chewing an apple. The trio had left Earth in December.
■BANGLADESH
Bus crash kills at least 16
Local media report a passenger bus has collided with a truck loaded with mangoes, killing at least 16 people and injuring 50. The United News of Bangladesh agency said the accident occurred early yesterday in Bagerhat District, 136km south of Dhaka. The agency, quoting police and witnesses, said all the victims died at the scene, while the injured have been hospitalized.
■NORTH KOREA
Kim enjoys war sing-song
South Korean media have speculated on the whereabouts of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il since a trip to China last month, with some suggesting he may have taken to an underground bunker amid threats of war. But North Korea’s KCNA news agency shed a little light on Kim’s recent activities for the first time in a long time, saying he enjoyed an “art performance” given by the Korean People’s Army. War appeared to be the prominent theme. The show included “agitation through reminiscences” called Comrades! Take This Revolver, Please!, wartime songs My Song in the Trench, To a Decisive Battle and For My Only Motherland and a chorus of The Road of Victory.
■IRAN
Drug traffickers hanged
Two men were hanged in the northeastern town of Shirvan after being convicted of drug trafficking, the Shargh newspaper reported yesterday. The unidentified men hanged on Monday were found guilty of possessing about 6kg of “crystal” — methamphetamine — the paper said. The hangings bring to at least 70 the number of people put to death so far this year, a count based on news reports shows. Last year, at least 270 people were hanged. Murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery are all punishable by death.
■ISRAEL
Military aircraft fired on
Military aircraft came under anti-aircraft fire over Lebanon on Tuesday but there were no casualties, a security source said. The source said the fire was aimed at planes on reconnaissance flights over southern Lebanon. Israel frequently carries out such surveillance flights despite Lebanese protests, although the border between the two countries has been largely quiet since 2006.
■FRANCE
Grave robber caught
A grave robber was caught stealing a horde of religious memorabilia from two cemeteries on Tuesday, including figurines of Christ and bottles of holy water, police said. The man, in his forties, was placed in custody after an alert guard became suspicious of his rapid visits to and from a cemetery in the city of Dax and another cemetery nearby and alerted police. Police said they had recovered at least 70 stolen artefacts, which also included crucifixes and commemorative plaques.
■GERMANY
Old bomb kills three
Police say three experts working to defuse a bomb dating back to World War II were killed when the device exploded, injuring six others. Goettingen police say residents from around the area where the bomb was found were still being evacuated when it detonated late on Tuesday. Construction workers had found the 65-year-old explosive device about 7m below the ground. Unexploded bombs from Allied bombardments are found regularly in Germany.
■ITALY
Venetians going batty
Venice wants its citizens to attract bats in a bid to battle a tiger mosquito infestation in the lagoon city. Officials on Tuesday launched a campaign urging Venetians to buy or build “bat boxes” and install them high in trees or on the side of exterior walls of homes. Venice officials say each bat could devour some 3,000 mosquitoes a night and could combat the insects especially on the Lido, where accumulations of rainwater in gardens and other greenery serve as breeding grounds. Tiger mosquito bites can leave itchy, swollen welts, and the insects can spread diseases such as chikungunya fever.
■ROMANIA
AC/DC upset over tolls
Australian rock group AC/DC may have played their hit Highway to Hell thousands of times, but they never expected they would actually get stuck on one. “The band’s caravan was stopped at the border with Hungary by employees of the national roads company who asked them to pay 50 euros [US$61] for each vehicle, or a total of 2,500 euros, before they were allowed to leave the country,” the company’s manager Doina Tiron said on Tuesday, adding that the staff said the drivers had not paid the highway toll. The group said they had not been given any receipt for this fine and have written a letter of complaint to the company.
■UNITED STATES
Missing moon rock found
A missing moon rock awarded to the state of Colorado in 1974 has turned up in a former governor’s house. The lunar souvenir was given to former governor John Vanderhoof by the Nixon administration, which awarded bits of moon rubble to all 50 states and more than 130 foreign countries. Vanderhoof is now 88 and living in Colorado. He has kept the rock on a plaque in his house and didn’t think much of it until college students started looking for the moon rocks. On Tuesday a Denver TV station called to ask if he had Colorado’s. Vanderhoof joked that he had offered the rock to museums, but no one was interested. Its estimated value is US$5 million.
■UNITED STATES
Mentos vehicle debuts
The guys who became an online sensation by creating geysers from soda and Mentos candies have discovered it’s not just entertainment. It can propel vehicles as well. A contraption created by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz of Maine using a bike and a trailer is powered by piston mechanism using hundreds of pieces of Mentos candy and Coke Zero. On a video posted online on Tuesday, the machine traveled more than 67m. The video was directed by Rob Cohen of The Fast and the Furious. Grobe joked that the crew is calling it “The Fizzy and the Furious.” The geyser experiment used Diet Coke. This time, the crew used Coke Zero. Afterward, they toasted their success by sipping Coke Zero from champagne glasses.
■UNITED STATES
Gores announce separation
Former vice president Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, a couple who stuck together throughout his long career in politics, announced on Tuesday they had decided to separate after 40 years of marriage. The Gores, in an e-mail message to friends confirmed by spokeswoman Kalee Kreider, said the decision was made “after a great deal of thought and discussion.” “This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration,” they said. “We ask for respect for our privacy and that of our family, and we do not intend to comment further.”
■MEXICO
Father, daughter shot dead
Gunmen opened fire on and shot dead a four-year-old girl and her father on Tuesday as they approached her day care center, prosecutors said. Authorities had no immediate motive for the crime; the two were shot dead in their car in the violence-wracked city of Ciudad Juarez, authorities said. Violent attacks have exploded across the country since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on organized crime upon taking office in late 2006. More than 22,700 people have died in the spiraling drug violence.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez livid at rotten food
President Hugo Chavez has urged prosecutors to bring charges against those responsible for the rotting of about 20,000 tonnes of food inside a state-run seaport. Chavez called for action shortly after the Attorney General’s Office announced the arrest of Luis Enrique Pulido, the former president of the state-run food production and distribution company. The rotten food was discovered on May 25 inside a warehouse within Puerto Cabello, the country’s busiest port, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the prosecutors office. Critics of Chavez have pointed to the decomposed food as an example of costly government inefficiency.
‘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
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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