CHINA
Team sent to help toddler
Pressure has been mounting on the government to save the badly crushed left leg of a two-year-old girl pulled out of the wreckage of a high-speed train crash last month. Xiang Weiyi was rescued about 21 hours after the July 23 crash near Wenzhou. The crash killed at least 40 people, including the girl’s parents. The Health Ministry said in a statement that a team of four experts would leave yesterday for Wenzhou. Her uncle posted an open letter on a blog late on Sunday urging the Ministry of Railways to send experts to examine her injuries and draw up the best treatment plan available.
THAILAND
Tourist deaths a mystery
An investigation into the deaths of five foreign tourists in Chiang Mai suggests a link to toxic chemical exposure, but failed to determine exactly what killed them, the Department of Disease Control said on its Web site yesterday. The victims were from New Zealand, France, the US and Britain, as well as a Thai tour guide, staying at three different hotels in January and February. Three more tourists also fell ill but recovered. “The specific agents that caused the deaths and illnesses in these events can not be identified, and it can not be determined exactly how people were exposed to them,” the department said. The results were most revealing concerning a 23-year-old New Zealand woman who died Feb. 6, her two friends — who got sick but recovered — and a 47-year-old Thai woman who died Feb. 3. The four are “most likely to have the same cause of illness, probably exposure to some toxic chemical, pesticides or gas,” the report said.
AUSTRALIA
Qantas showing edgy film
The in-flight entertainment on some planes run by Qantas currently contains a somewhat unusual offering — a movie that purports to elucidate the mysteries of female sexual pleasure. The 50-minute French film, The Female Orgasm Explained, which includes naked scenes, is carried in the airline’s “The Edge” channel — complete with a warning that it is for mature audiences only. Airline crews are able to block content to the seats of minors, the airline said. The film will be run until November.
INDIA
Hazare arrested again
A prominent anti-corruption activist who had announced plans to go on an indefinite hunger strike to demand tougher anti-corruption laws was detained early yesterday, police said. Anna Hazare had said that he would start fasting yesterday and would gather along with supporters in a public park in New Delhi despite police denying him permission to do so. Police later detained detained 1,400 of his supporters, transporting them to a sports stadium in New Dehli. The 73-year-old Hazare ended a four-day hunger strike in April after the government set up a committee to draft legislation to create an anti-corruption ombudsman. The legislation was introduced in parliament this month, but Hazare wants it to be made tougher.
UNITED STATES
Death March survivor dies
A World War II veteran recognized as the oldest living survivor of the Bataan Death March has died at age 105 in an Illinois nursing home. Albert Brown was recognized as the oldest survivor of the deadly 104.6km trek at an annual survivors’ convention in 2007. His granddaughter says Brown died on Sunday. Japanese soldiers forced Brown and 78,000 other prisoners of war to march through the Philippines to a POW camp in 1942. As many as 11,000 died.
CANADA
‘Royal’ tag returning
The Conservative government, stressing traditional ties to Queen Elizabeth II and the monarchy, is reinstating the names “Royal Canadian Air Force” and “Royal Canadian Navy” after a gap of 43 years. The “royal” designation was removed in 1968 when the branches of service were amalgamated and became known as the Canadian Forces. General Walter Natynczyk, chief of the defense staff, announced the decision to bring back the word “royal” for the official names of the two branches of the military in a memo posted on Monday on the military discussion site Milnet.ca.
UNITED STATES
Firm gets ‘Titanic’ rights
District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith has granted a company title to fine china, ship fittings and other artifacts it recovered from the Titanic during a half-dozen perilous salvage expeditions to the famed shipwreck. Smith ruled on Monday in Norfolk on behalf of RMS Titanic Inc, which has exhibited the artifacts worldwide. Smith had ruled a year ago that the company, which has exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic, was entitled to full compensation for artifacts worth about US$110 million, but she put off deciding whether to give RMS title to the approximately 5,900 artifacts or sell them and turn over the proceeds to the company.
BOLIVIA
PRC could colonize US
President Evo Morales on Monday joked that China was becoming such an economic powerhouse that it could soon colonize the US. “China is such a big country that I imagine in only a short time the United States will be a colony of China,” he said at a press conference in Cochabamba following a recent trip to Beijing. Morales said he had agreed with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on the formation of a high-level bilateral committee to begin meeting next month to promote the industrialization of the nation’s vast lithium resources, of which it has an estimated 70 percent of the world’s reserves.
CANADA
Student goes over Niagara
A 19-year-old Japanese student was swept over Niagara Falls and presumed drowned after falling from a railing along the Canadian side of the Niagara River, Niagara Parks Police Service said on Monday. The woman was visiting the falls with a friend on Sunday evening when she climbed over the railing and straddled it while holding an umbrella. The woman apparently lost her balance and fell into the water. She fell into the swift-moving river about 24m upstream from the Horseshoe Falls. The woman’s body had not been found by midday on Monday, but the remains of an unidentified male were recovered from the whirlpool below the falls after being spotted by a helicopter search crew.
UNITED STATES
Aussie in fake bomb arrest
An Australian man was arrested yesterday in connection with a fake bomb strapped around the neck of a Sydney schoolgirl, police said. Australia’s New South Wales state detectives said the 50-year-old was taken into custody in Louisville, Kentucky. The arrest came after Madeleine Pulver, 18, a member of one of Sydney’s wealthiest families, endured a 10-hour ordeal earlier this month when a masked man strapped a device around her neck at her home. A note was left at the scene and police treated it as an extortion attempt in an incident that enthralled the nation.
‘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