■CHINA
Flooding kills 35
At least 35 people have died and 49 are missing after torrential downpours in Fujian, Sichuan and Guangxi provinces triggered heavy floods, and authorities have warned of more rain to come, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. More than 100,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes due to the floods, which damaged 7,000 houses and caused economic losses of 830 million yuan (US$120 million), Xinhua said. The country’s meteorological center has warned local authorities to prepare for more flooding and landslides.
■CHINA
Plant denies radiation leak
The operator of a nuclear power plant in Guangdong Province has acknowledged possible cracks in fuel tubes but, contradicting Hong Kong authorities, denied that any radiation had leaked out. “Daya Bay’s two reactor units are functioning safely and stably. There has been no radioactive leak,” China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group said in a notice posted on its Web site on Tuesday. However, the notice said that on May 23 technicians detected abnormally high radioactivity in the plant’s systems, which it said may have been due to cracks in fuel tubing. Daya Bay is located about 50km north of Hong Kong and is part-owned and managed by CLP Power, Hong Kong’s largest electricity supplier.
■INDIA
Eight Maoist rebels killed
Security forces have killed eight suspected Maoists during an ongoing operation to clear a rebel stronghold in the country’s east, police said yesteday. The Maoist rebels, including two women, were shot dead in the Sijua forests of Midnapore district, 170km from Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state. Senior police officer Surojit Kar Purokayastha said paramilitary forces attacked rebel hideouts where the Maoists had assembled for a meeting. A government offensive was launched last year to tackle the insurgency, but since then the Maoists have launched a series of bold and bloody attacks, including the massacre of 76 policemen in April.
■AUSTRALIA
Rudd lacks on charity bids
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s waning popularity took another hit yesterday when his female deputy and his leading opponent attracted higher bids at an online auction for charity. Rudd received just 10 bids, the highest for A$6,300 (US$5,440), on an eBay auction for a barefoot lawn bowls session or an intimate dinner at his official residence. Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard drew 15 takers and an A$10,100 bid for her offer to host dinner for six. Opposition leader Tony Abbott, a fitness fanatic, drew 17 bids — with a high of A$7,500 — for a private surfing lesson or dinner with him.
■UNITED STATES
Pakistan needs NSG consent
Washington said on Tuesday it had sought clarification from China on the sale of two civilian nuclear reactors to Pakistan, saying the deal must be approved by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The Financial Times reported in April that Chinese companies will build at least two new 650-megawatt reactors at Chashma in Punjab Province. “This appears to extend beyond cooperation that was grand-fathered when China was approved for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. “We believe that such cooperation would require specific exemption approved by consensus of the NSG, as was done for India.”
■IRAQ
Baby twins face surgery
Conjoined twins were to be flown in coming days to Saudi Arabia to undergo separation surgery after the Saudi king offered to pay for the operation, officials said on Tuesday. Two-week-old twins Zainab and Ruqqaya Naseer, from the Shiite holy city of Najaf, are joined at the hip and have problems with their digestive and reproductive systems. Salim Mohammed, spokesman for Najaf Health Authority, said that the family was waiting for passports to be issued to allow the girls to travel.
■TURKEY
Court rules on orphanage
The European Court of Human Rights ordered the country on Tuesday to return a former orphanage to the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate, a case seen as a test of Ankara’s commitment to EU-inspired pluralism. The Strasbourg-based court originally ruled in July 2008 that the government had violated the Church’s property rights by seizing the building. Judges have now ordered Ankara to register the property in the patriarchate’s name and pay damages and expenses totaling 26,000 euros (US$35,000), a press statement from the court said.
■SUDAN
US calls for investigation
The US on Tuesday called on the government to conduct an investigation into the escape from jail of four Islamists sentenced to death for the 2008 murders of a US diplomat and his driver. The US embassy in Khartoum “requests the government of Sudan to initiate a thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding this escape from one of Sudan’s most secure prisons,” it said in a statement. The four escaped last Thursday from Kober jail in northern Khartoum.
■GERMANY
Merkel’s popularity sinks
A new survey finds that 86 percent of Germans are dissatisfied with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and her own popularity has hit a new low. The ARD television poll yesterday found only 12 percent satisfied with Merkel’s center-right government — the worst showing for an administration since 2004. It found 40 percent satisfied with Merkel, down eight points from the end of last month and the lowest since she became chancellor in 2005.
■UGANDA
Children die in fire
Police say two children died in a fire while their parents watched a World Cup football match on television nearby. Police have warned parents against leaving children alone in houses following the death of an eight and a 10-year-old in the Kayunga district west of the capital Kampala. Kayunga police official Henry Kolyanga said the house in which the children were sleeping caught fire. “The mother and father of the children left a candle burning and went to watch the match on television in a nearby trading center,” Kolyanaga said.
■FRANCE
Man kills dog for barking
A man convicted of killing his dog by tying it to his car and dragging it because it barked too much was sentenced to six months in prison on Tuesday, a court source said. The man had attached the Dalmatian to his trailer hitch on Saturday in the town of Origny-Sainte-Benoite. Angry residents who saw what was happening chased after him, so he loaded the dying dog into his car and drove away. He was later identified through his license plate and mobile phone, which he dropped at the scene.
■UNITED STATES
Jesus hit by lightning
A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a Ohio highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm on Monday night and burned to the ground, police said. The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati. The sculpture, almost 19m tall and 12m wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown in a game of football. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early on Tuesday.
■MEXICO
Trains crash in fiery pileup
Three trains, one apparently carrying undocumented migrants, crashed in a fiery pileup on Tuesday in the northwest, killing at least 11 people and leaving four more hurt, authorities said. The accident took place early on Tuesday on the track at a station in the town of El Fuerte in Sinaloa state. “There are 11 people killed, including a mechanic, as well as four people injured,” Sinaloa Civil Defense chief Miguel Diaz said. A train coming from the western city of Guadalajara apparently suffered a brake failure and crashed into two other trains, one of which was carrying out a maneuver on the track, Diaz said. Some 300 rescue workers toiled at the massive accident, which involved a total of 75 train cars.
■PERU
Canadian tourist dies
A Canadian woman suffered a heart attack and died on Tuesday after her canoe sank on the Vilcanota River, police said. Rosemary Wilson, 64, had a heart attack as she was being rescued from the river, in the Llaucac area of Cusipata, in Cusco department, regional police chief Jorge Tejada said. Fellow Canadian Alison Schirkot, 48, was with Wilson and sustained minor injuries. Three other people in the group were unharmed during their ordeal on the river popular with tourists, police said.
■UNITED STATES
General Petraeus faints
General David Petraeus fainted during a congressional hearing on Tuesday as he was being grilled by senators skeptical about strategy in Afghanistan. His collapse came about an hour into the hearing as a Republican Senator John McCain questioned him about recent setbacks. McCain stopped mid-sentence, his face frozen, as Petraeus slumped forward from his seat on to the witness table. The hearing was suspended as Petraeus, looking dazed, was led out by Army colleagues. He returned 20 minutes later, blaming not McCain’s questions, but dehydration. He told the senators he wanted to continue, but Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin overruled him, and postponed the hearing until this morning. The hearing was being held against a backdrop of growing unease about the war in Afghanistan and rising violence.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not