INDIA
Nuclear missile tested
A defense official says a nuclear-capable missile with a range of 350km was test-fired yesterday. The surface-to-surface Prithvi missile was fired from the missile-testing range in Chandipur in Orissa. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
INDIA
Truck runs over pilgrims
A speeding truck in Gujarat ran over and killed 18 Muslim pilgrims who were sleeping on a roadside early yesterday morning, police said. The pilgrims were on their way to a festival at a shrine 90km from Ahmedabad when they stopped near a highway cafe to rest for the night. “In total 18 people have died, including nine women. Ten others are injured,” a Gujarat police official said. “All the pilgrims were traveling on foot. Sixteen people died on the spot when the truck ran over them, and another two people died at a local hospital.” Ambulances rushing to help victims were delayed by large crowds who gathered at the accident site. Police said that the truck driver and his assistant fled from the scene.
MYANMAR
Suspected bomber arrested
Authorities have arrested a suspected ethnic minority Karen rebel accused of planting a bomb on a passenger train near the capital last month, killing two people, official media said yesterday. The blast, which left nine people wounded, occurred during a visit by a senior US envoy for talks with the military-backed government. According to the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, the suspect confessed to being a supporter of the Karen National Union, whose armed wing is waging a -decades-old insurgency in the east of the country. It said he claimed to have placed the device in the luggage rack before jumping off the train. He was arrested after a tip-off and had admitted he was assigned by senior Karen rebels to carry out the bombing, the newspaper said.
AFGHANISTAN
Wedding attack kills nine
Nine people were killed and five wounded when gunmen attacked a wedding party in Nangarhar Province overnight, provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said yesterday. The groom was a relative of the district chief in Dur Baba, and women and children were among the casualties, he said. The gunmen were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and stormed the house where the party was being held, he said.
AUSTRALIA
Camel cull considered
Marksmen could be paid to slaughter the nation’s vast population of methane-belching camels that roam the outback as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The government wants the killing of wild camels to be officially registered as a means of reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions under a proposed law to be voted on in parliament next week, with the shooters earning so-called carbon credits. If culling were registered then industrial polluters around the world would be able to offset their own carbon emissions by buying carbon credits from the shooters. Lawmaker Mark Dreyfus yesterday said that he hoped attaching carbon credits to each camel killed would eventually lead to their extinction in the wild.
UNITED KINGDOM
Poll is no laughing matter
The Germans have been voted the world’s “least funny nationality” in a global poll, which names Americans the funniest overall and the Spanish the most amusing Europeans, ahead of the Italians and French. The social network and dating Web site Badoo.com asked 30,000 people across 15 countries to name both the “funniest,” or “best at making people laugh,” and “the least funny” nationality. Americans took the funniest prize, followed by the Spanish in second and Italians in third. The voting for “least funny” nationality confirmed the view of American novelist Mark Twain that “a German joke is no laughing matter.” The Germans won comfortably, ahead of the Russians and Turks. The British found that they are not as funny as they think. They placed just seventh out of 15 — behind the Brazilians, French and Mexicans.
BRAZIL
Battisti extradition rejected
The Supreme Court ruled it would not to extradite former Italian left-wing guerrilla Cesar Battisti, a move the Italian government denounced yesterday as a humiliation to the families of his victims. The court upheld last year’s decision by former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against extradition and ordered on Wednesday that Battisti be released immediately from a prison in Brasilia. The former guerrilla had faced life in prison in Italy, where he has been convicted of four murders in the 1970s, a violent period known as the “Years of Lead,” when he belonged to a guerrilla group called the Armed Proletarians for Communism. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 and lived in France for years, but fled when Paris approved his extradition in 2006.
UNITED STATES
Peeping Tom arrested
A computer repairman suspected of installing spyware on laptops that enabled him to snap and download photographs of women showering and undressing in their homes was arrested on Wednesday at his home, police said. Police began investigating when a Fullerton resident complained about suspicious messages appearing on his daughter’s computer last year. Trevor Harwell installed software that took control of computer Webcams on his clients’ Mac laptops, Fullerton Police Sergeant Andrew Goodrich said. He was released later on Wednesday after posting a US$50,000 bond, Goodrich said. The software sent fake error messages telling users to “try putting your laptop near hot steam for several minutes to clean the sensor,’’ Goodrich said. The error message prompted some victims to take their laptops into the bathroom with them when they showered, he said.
UNITED STATES
Bottle users gain weight
Two-year-olds who are still using bottles are more likely to be obese by kindergarten, a US study said, raising the possibility that weaning babies from the bottle at an earlier age may help prevent excessive weight gain. The study of almost 7,000 children, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, found that toddlers who still drank from bottles at age two were one-third more likely than other children to be obese at the age of five.
SOMALIA
Polls postponed by a year
Somalia’s feuding leaders agreed yesterday to extend the mandate of both the government and parliament for a year and hold to elections by August next year. “We agree to defer elections of the president and the speaker and his deputies for 12 months after August,” a deal signed by the Somali president and speaker in Uganda said.
‘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