PHILIPPINES
Ex-general dies at grave
A former military chief accused of embezzling at least US$1 million from the armed forces died of a gunshot wound yesterday in what witnesses described as an apparent suicide at his mother’s grave. Retired General Angelo Reyes was pronounced dead on arrival in a Manila hospital from a single gunshot wound in the chest, after visiting the grave, Health Secretary Enrique Ona said in a news conference. Ona refused to immediately confirm that Reyes had committed suicide, saying he was awaiting autopsy results. Witnesses interviewed by DZBB radio station at the cemetery said they saw Reyes send his children to his car before a single shot rang out. Reyes headed the military from 2001 to 2003 and was recently accused in a high-profile congressional hearing of pocketing money from the armed forces. Corruption is an explosive issue in the inadequately equipped and poorly paid 120,000-strong military that has sparked several insurrections in the last two decades by disgruntled soldiers.
INDONESIA
Bus crashes into ravine
Police say a speeding bus has crashed into a ravine on Java, killing 11 passengers and injuring 37 others. Police say the accident occurred late on Monday when the intercity bus tried to pass a truck and then skidded off the road while trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle. The driver lost control and the bus fell into an 8m-deep ravine. Police Captain Hamka, who goes by only one name, said yesterday that 11 people were killed instantly. He said the wounded were taken to a hospital in Temanggung, a district 400km east of Jakarta.
MALAYSIA
Opposition suffers blow
The opposition is grappling with a new setback in its attempts to win support on Borneo after a top state official quit to join the ruling party ahead of national elections widely expected within a year. The resignation complicates efforts by the party of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to increase its political influence in the large, remote state of Sabah, which has long been a stronghold of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s National Front ruling coalition. Anwar’s opposition alliance holds only three of the 56 parliamentary seats in Sabah and neighboring Sarawak in Borneo. Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng said yesterday that the opposition has been unable “to provide the people with a credible alternative” to the National Front in Sabah.
JAPAN
Bullet sent to embassy
A rifle bullet has been mailed to the Russian embassy, police said yesterday, amid a worsening territorial row over a string of disputed islands. The disagreement over the Southern Kurils, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, has prevented the signing of a peace treaty between Tokyo and Moscow ever since the end of World War II. Tensions flared on Monday when Prime Minister Naoto Kan called Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit last year to the islands an “unforgivable outrage” and the Kremlin again vowed it would never give up the Kurils. On the same day, marked as the annual Northern Territories Day, a 7cm rifle bullet was found in an envelope mailed to the Russian embassy in Tokyo, media reports said. It was reportedly accompanied by a note that said: “The Northern Territories are an integral part of Japan.” The bullet was a dummy cartridge without gunpowder, Jiji Press said.
IRAN
Oil spill contaminates coast
An aging oil pipeline has ruptured in the south, contaminating vast patches of the coast and farmland near the town of Deylam on the Gulf, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday. “Over 20km of Deylam coast and 500ha of farmland have been contaminated by the oil spill,” said Behrouz Atabakzadeh, the environmental protection chief in Bushehr Province. Atabakzadeh said the breakage in the pipeline between Aghajari and Deylam had happened last week, and described the damage caused by the oil spill as “irreversible.” Mohammad Baqer Nabavi, a deputy head of the Environmental Protection Organization, said an operation to clean up the coast was under way, but said that it could take at least two months to be completed.
FRANCE
Andree Chedid dies
Andree Chedid, an -Egyptian-born poet and writer known for giving lyrical expression to everyday experiences and celebrating cultural diversity, has died, her publisher said. She was 90. Chedid died on Sunday in Paris, where she settled after the end of World War II, the Flammarion publishing house said. The prolific Cairo-born writer of Lebanese descent wrote volumes of poetry, novels, stories, plays, children’s books and songs, including a hit for her grandson Matthieu Chedid, a pop star whose stage name is “M.” Her son, Louis Chedid, is also a well-known singer. President Nicolas Sarkozy said she was part of a “generation of cosmopolitan intellectuals who chose France as their adopted land after the war, helping bring about a literary renaissance in our country.” Her novels included Le Sixieme jour, about a family struggling with a cholera outbreak. Youssef Chahine, one of Egypt’s most lauded movie directors, adapted it for the cinema.
BURUNDI
Pakistani preachers arrested
Police arrested eight Pakistani Muslim preachers in a mosque in Gitega Province overnight, police and local officials said on Monday. “A group of eight people calling themselves Pakistani Muslim preachers arrived ... two days ago and started holding unauthorized meetings, day and night, in the Bihororo mosque,” local official Alexis Manirakiza said. “Residents became suspicious at the presence of these foreigners in a remote area at a time when there is a terror threat from Somali Islamists and they informed the police,” he said. The arrests come less than a week after the US embassy warned its citizens in the country that terror organizations, including Somalia’s al--Qaeda-inspired Shebab, could carry out attacks this month.
UNITED STATES
Marine gets six year sentence
A Marine Corps captain who last year pleaded guilty to skimming nearly US$1.7 million from government contracts in Iraq was sentenced to six years in federal prison on Monday. Captain Eric Schmidt, who is assigned to the First Marine Division at Camp Pendleton in southern California, pleaded guilty in May last year to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and filing a false tax return with the Internal Revenue Service. His wife, Janet Schmidt, pleaded guilty to a tax offense in connection with the scheme and faces three years in prison when she is sentenced next month. Prosecutors say Schmidt, 40, who was deployed to Iraq in 2008, used his position to steer business to an Iraqi contractor, Al-Methwad Co. Janet Schmidt then used money from Al-Methwad to purchase fewer or inferior goods than those required by the contract and arranged for their delivery to Marines in Iraq.
CHILE
Love leads to bomb threat
A woman desperate to keep her boyfriend home called in a bomb threat as his Iberia flight to Spain prepared for takeoff, Santiago police said on Monday. Francisca Galleguillos allegedly warned authorities about the would-be bomb on Sunday, when her boyfriend was scheduled to depart from Santiago’s international airport for Madrid, according to a police source who requested anonymity. Marco Arancibia, 39, was traveling to Spain to begin working on a cruise ship for eight months, and there were no stops in Chile, according to local media reports. Flight 6830 was at the point of takeoff when she called authorities and made the false report. As a result, 312 passengers were evacuated. The woman initially told authorities that her boyfriend’s father was hospitalized in an accident, police said, but when that tale proved insufficient, she reported a bomb on the plane.
UNITED STATES
Man dies in cockfight
A man who was at an illegal cockfight in central California died after being stabbed in the leg by a bird that had a knife attached to its own limb, officials in Delano confirmed on Monday. Jose Luis Ochoa, 35, of Lamont was declared dead at a hospital about two hours after he was injured in neighboring Tulare County on Jan. 30, the Kern County coroner said. An autopsy concluded Ochoa died of an accidental “sharp force injury” to his right calf. Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt said it was unclear if a delay in seeking medical attention contributed to Ochoa’s death. “I have never seen this type of incident,” Sergeant Martin King, a 24-year veteran of the sheriff’s department, told the Bakersfield Californian. Ochoa and the other spectators fled when authorities arrived at the scene of the fight, King told the newspaper. Deputies found five dead roosters and other evidence of cockfighting at the location, he said.
CANADA
General promoted to trainer
General Michael Day has been promoted to deputy commander of NATO’s training efforts in Afghanistan to help soldiers take over security, Defense Minister Peter MacKay said on Monday. He was also promoted to major-general. His promotion comes as Ottawa moves to complete its combat mission in Afghanistan and become a dedicated training force in the war-wracked country. Ottawa is sending 950 military trainers to a base in Kabul until 2014 in a non-combat role, following the withdrawal of its 2,800 troops from Kandahar starting in June. Ottawa’s forces have been battling insurgents since 2002 as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, with the death of 154 troops.
MEXICO
Five more people executed
Authorities recovered the bodies of five men on Monday who were dumped on the side of road in the northern state of Zacatecas after their execution-style slaying, prosecutors said. The victims’ hands were tied and they each were killed with a single shot to the head, Arturo Nahle, the Zacatecas prosecutor, told Milenio television. “Without a doubt, it was an execution by organized crime,” he said. The deaths raised to 41 the number of people killed over the weekend in drug-related violence, particularly in the north where drug cartels are at war with each other for turf and smuggling routes into the US. An estimated 34,200 people have been killed since 2006 when President Felipe Calderon ordered a military crackdown on the cartels.
‘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