PHILIPPINES
Bomb on bus kills eight
A bomb ripped through a passenger bus yesterday in the south, killing at least eight people and wounding 10 in an attack authorities blamed on an extortion gang with links to Muslim militants. The bus was travelling with more than 50 passengers when the powerful blast shook the vehicle, police chief superintendent Gil Meneses said. The wounded were brought to hospitals near Matalam township in North Cotabato province. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. The south of the Philippines is home to kidnappers, extortion gangs and a decades-old Muslim insurgency. Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said authorities suspect the Al-Khobar extortion gang in the attack, saying the bus company involved in the bombing had been targeted for extortion in the past.
SOUTH KOREA
Octopuses cause slimy row
Authorities in Seoul are trying to untangle themselves from a slimy row: How many octopus heads is it safe to eat? Octopus heads are a favorite dish for their apparent aphrodisiac qualities. Last month, the Seoul city government enraged restaurateurs and the fishing industry when it announced octopus heads contained hazardous amounts of cadmium. It advised against eating more than two heads a day. Enraged fishermen threatened to sue the government and their cause caught the imagination of the public when lawmakers representing their constituents took an octopus into a national assembly session, causing laughter as it tried to escape the jar.
INDONESIA
Resort island tackles rabies
Authorities aim to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of dogs on the resort island of Bali in an effort to stem an outbreak of rabies that has killed 100 people since 2008, a government official said yesterday. Thousands of feral dogs have been infected since a 2008 outbreak on the previously rabies-free island. Authorities have begun a mass dog vaccination program in recent weeks, with the aim of inoculating 70 percent of a targeted 450,000 dogs by March.
SOUTH KOREA
Honeytrap sting man jailed
A South Korean man who traded sensitive information on Seoul’s subway system for sex with a North Korean spy was jailed yesterday. The 52-year-old man identified only by his surname, Oh, was found guilty of giving the 36-year-old spy information on the capital’s underground rail system, including manuals on emergency responses. The man and the spy — identified only as Kim — were arrested in May, eight months after the woman entered South Korea in the guise of a defector, prosecutors said. “The accused knew that Kim was a spy when he handed her the information,” the court said, adding the two had a sexual relationship. The court jailed him for three-and-a-half years.
AUSTRALIA
Girl barred over hijab row
A six-year-old Muslim girl has been suspended from using her school bus for “bullying” after reacting angrily to being teased about her hijab, or headscarf, a report said. The Northern Territory News said the girl retaliated by pulling down the trousers of her tormentor, aged seven, after he repeatedly told her to take off her traditional headscarf. The girl has been banned from the bus for 10 days, meaning she will be unable to make the 60km round-trip to her school. “She is only six years old. It is a bit harsh,” said the girl’s mother, Lorraine Gerassimopoulos.
UNITED STATES
Man pleads guilty over ties
A Virginia man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to trying to help Somalia’s militant group al-Shabaab and making threats against the writers of the satirical South Park television show for their depiction of the Prophet Mohammed. Zachary Chesser, 20, pleaded guilty to three counts including communicating threats, soliciting others to threaten violence and material support to al-Shabaab, prosecutors said. He could face up to 30 years in prison.
UNITED STATES
Man asks for ride, arrested
Authorities say a 19-year-old Northern California man was arrested after he asked a police officer for a ride, agreed to be searched and was found to have cocaine in his pocket. Ongley Raymond Ocon III was charged with felony possession of cocaine. San Mateo County prosecutors say Ocon left a party in San Carlos early Sunday morning, walked up to a Redwood City police patrol car and asked for a ride home to Danville. The officer asked Ocon whether he was carrying anything illegal. Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe says Ocon initially responded “yes” before pausing and saying “no.” Ocon then agreed to be searched and the officer discovered the cocaine, Wagstaffe said.
UNITED STATES
TV analyst fired for remarks
A top public radio network has sacked a senior news analyst after he made disparaging remarks about Muslims on television. National Public Radio (NPR) said it notified Juan Williams late on Wednesday that it was terminating his contract as a senior news analyst for NPR News. Williams was fired just two days after he made a Fox News Channel appearance during which he agreed with a television host that the country was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Williams, who is also a political analyst for Fox News, said on The O’Reilly Factor he felt nervous when boarding planes with Muslims on board. “When I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
ECUADOR
Last of miners found dead
Rescuers on Wednesday found the body of the fourth and final miner missing following a cave-in at a gold mine. The grim news and grieving relatives contrasted to last week’s euphoric celebration in Chile of the rescue of 33 miners who had been trapped underground for 69 days. The four miners were trapped on Friday last week when a tunnel collapsed 150m underground at the Casa Negra mine, 400km southwest of Quito.
RUSSIA
Drunk cop hits girls with car
A police officer hit three girls with his car while driving drunk in Siberia, local officials said on Wednesday, and one was killed after being run over by the ambulance sent to treat them. The police officer, who was driving his personal car, ran into the three girls on Tuesday as they walked at night on the side of the road near Kargosok, a town in the Tomsk region, the local interior ministry said. One of the girls, aged 15, was then run over and killed by an ambulance that arrived at the scene, the ministry said. The incident was the latest in a string of scandals involving police hitting pedestrians while driving drunk. In a separate incident, prosecutors in the Kursk region said on Wednesday that a member of the local police had been identified as the driver who fled the scene after hitting and killing a 16-year-old girl with his car on Monday.
‘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