■ CHINA
Thirty struck with cholera
At least 30 people in the east have been stricken by cholera in recent weeks, with unsanitary food conditions believed to be behind the outbreak, state press said yesterday. Twenty people remain hospitalized with the disease, which has spread in Mengcheng County of Anhui Province over the past two weeks, the Beijing Times reported, citing local health officials. Ten other patients have already left hospital, the report said. No deaths have yet been reported in the region. Cholera causes serious diarrhea and vomiting, leading to dehydration and can be fatal if not treated quickly. The Anhui outbreak is believed to have been caused by unsanitary food, the report said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Center faces ‘incident’
Masked men, some armed with long poles, are standing on the roof of an immigration center in which a fire broke out yesterday, reports said. One section of the Darwin Immigration Detention Centre, which houses up to 500 asylum-seekers, had been on fire, but the flames had now been put out, Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) said. The immigration department refused to give details, but said they were working with emergency services to deal with the incident. “There’s an ongoing incident at the center,” a spokesman said. Reports said about a dozen men were on top of the building, banging on the roof and making noise and attempting to stop anyone climbing up to join them. The men appeared to be wearing masks while some were wearing hoods and others had paint on their faces, ABC said.
■ UNITED STATES
Lie may lead to deportation
The father of a former Miss Oregon who lied about his army service during the Bosnian civil war when he applied for asylum in the US has been sentenced to one year of probation. Milenko Krstic pleaded guilty nearly two months ago and received the most lenient federal sentence for a felony crime on Friday. Immigration officials, however, will likely seek to deport him and possibly his wife and two daughters. The 53-year-old Krstic didn’t tell US immigration officials that he served in the Bosnian Serb army. Disclosing his service would have delayed or denied his refugee application. Krstic brought his family to the Portland area as refugees in 1998. Two years ago, daughter Danijela was crowned Miss Oregon, the first foreign-born contestant to win.
■ BELGIUM
Sex case kept secret
Roman Catholic Cardinal Godfried Danneels offered to keep a sexual molestation case against a bishop secret until the bishop retired, an official said on Saturday. Toon Osaer, Danneels’ spokesman, confirmed a report in Saturday’s De Standaard newspaper about a secretly taped meeting that Danneels held on April 8 with Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe and the bishop’s sexual abuse victim. Osaer told the VRT television and radio network that Danneels told the victim the case against Vangheluwe could be kept quiet until the bishop retired as scheduled a year later. In the end, Vangheluwe resigned two weeks after the meeting, expressing sorrow for having abused the victim as a youngster for years, both while serving as a priest and a bishop. Danneels retired as head of the Belgian Catholic church in January. However, police later questioned him as a potential witness in the case and raided his home and office, confiscating documents and a personal computer.
■ RUSSIA
New space center planned
The country will launch its manned space missions from a new center in the Far East in 2018, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, as the country seeks greater independence for its space program. Putin made the comments on Saturday as he inaugurated the start of construction for the new cosmodrome at the former missile defense base of Vostochny, outside the town of Uglegorsk, 3,600 5,800km east of Moscow, and a few hundred kilometers away from China. The nation currently uses the Soviet-built Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan for all of its manned space missions.
■ ISRAEL
Actors boycott settlements
Leading lights of the theater world have vowed to boycott Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, drawing threats from right-wingers who say the rebels risk losing public funding. A petition signed by 53 performers, writers and directors, including Yehoshua Sobol, Yossi Pollak, Yousef Sweid, Anat Gov and Savyon Liebrecht, said they would not take part in a planned performance at a new cultural center in the northern West Bank settlement of Ariel. “Ariel is in occupied territory and no Israeli artist should have to take part in a production in occupied territory, not in Ariel nor in any other settlement when it is against international law,” Sobol, a renowned playwright and satirist, told Israeli public radio yesterday.
■IRAN
Earthquake kills three
State TV is reporting that three people died in the magnitude 5.9 earthquake that shook the country’s remote northeast overnight. Forty others were injured. The quake struck at 11:53pm on Saturday in Semnan Province. The report says two children and a woman died and that the toll was not higher because the area is sparsely populated.
■ISRAEL
Rabbi curses Palestinians
An influential rabbi known for his vitriolic pronouncements against Arabs says Palestinians and their leader should “perish from this world.” Army Radio quoted Ovadia Yosef yesterday as saying the Palestinians were “evil, bitter enemies of Israel” and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should be struck with a plague. He made the remarks in a Saturday night sermon. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are to resume this week. The 89-year-old rabbi is a respected religious scholar among Jews of Middle Eastern descent. He is also spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas political movement — part of the coalition government. Yosef has upset many over the years with declarations against Arabs, secular Jews, liberals, women and gays.
■SOMALIA
Danes stop pirate attack
A helicopter from a Danish warship under NATO operational control foiled a pirate attack on Saturday on a merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden, a Danish navy spokesman said. The Esbern Snare launched a helicopter in response to a call for help from a merchant vessel, the navy’s duty officer, who declined to give his name, said. “The merchant ship was shot upon. When the helicopter went over there ... the pirates aborted their attack and tried to head for Somalia,” he said. “To stop the pirates’ boat from getting there, the helicopter fired one shot in front of the boat and then they stopped.” Danish news agency Ritzau said the flag and that the pirates were disarmed and then released.
■ UNITED STATES
Folsom riot quashed
Prison guards shot into a crowd to stop 200 rioting inmates at California’s Folsom State Prison, wounding five, authorities said on Saturday. Another two inmates were injured by other prisoners during Friday’s riot, which began at about 7pm in the main exercise yard and ended after 30 minutes. Prison spokesman Lieutenant Anthony Gentile said officers fired after other efforts to break up the riot failed. “We tried to control the situation with chemical agents dispersed over the crowd,” Gentile said. “We fired several rounds of rubber bullets and that didn’t stop them from fighting.” None of the inmates suffered life-threatening injuries, and none of the 45 to 50 officers who responded were hurt. All seven of the injured inmates were listed in stable condition late on Saturday, Gentile said. The prison, made famous in the Johnny Cash song Folsom Prison Blues, could remain on lockdown for the next several weeks during an investigation. That means inmates won’t be allowed to have visitors, use the exercise yard or attend work training, Gentile said.
■URUGUAY
Mujica to receive prize
President and former guerrilla leader Jose Mujica will be awarded the Jerusalem Prize on Thursday, in recognition for his staunch support of human rights, his office said. The yearly award granted by the Zionist Organization of Uruguay “goes to people who fight for the respect of human rights, peaceful coexistence between nations and solidarity with the people of Israel,” organization president Laura Tarragon said on Saturday on the presidential office’s Web site.
■ BAHAMAS
Daredevil pedals on wire
A seventh-generation high-wire daredevil pedaled a bicycle across a precarious line strung between two hotel towers on Saturday in an attempt to break his own world record. Nik Wallenda, of the famous Flying Wallendas circus family, cycled safely more than 31m along the wire at the Bahamas’ Paradise Island Atlantis resort some 79m above the turquoise ocean — without a safety net. Wallenda holds the current Guinness World Records for longest distance and greatest height traveled by bicycle on a high wire, set in 2008 in Newark, New Jersey, when he traveled 72m at a height of 41m. Hundreds of tourists and resort workers gawked from pools and sidewalks, snapping pictures and shooting video. Guinness will have to verify the new height record, the one he was trying to break on Saturday. Wallenda later performed a second high-wire stunt on foot, walking about 610m at a height of 76m over the resort’s open-air marine habitat, which teems with sharks, barracudas and piranhas.
■ URUGUAY
Card promoted equality
A state-run telecommunications firm and a labor union have teamed up to launch a prepaid calling card on Saturday promoting sexual abuse awareness at work and at school. “If it bothers you, say it. The law will protect you,” reads a printed message on the back of a US$2.4 calling card. A law passed last year defines sexual harassment as “most damaging to the right to equality,” a form of “discrimination” and “abuse of power” that leads to “deep physical and mental disturbance.” Since it was passed, the law has triggered a 300 percent surge in reports of sexual abuse, said Ofelia Ogara, a spokeswoman for Pit-Cnt, a labor union that partnered with ANTEL telecommunications for the program.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number