MYANMAR
WWII bomb kills seven
Seven people died when a bomb from World War II exploded in the west of the country, officials said yesterday. “They were killed accidentally in the blast while trying to remove a bomb that appeared at the sea shore near their village. They seemed to have no idea what it was,” said a government official who asked not to be named. The accident took place on Wednesday near the port town of Sittwe. The victims were all men. “We think the old bomb was left over from World War II. We have no idea how many of them are left buried around the country,” a second official said.
JAPAN
Nation drills for quake
The country yesterday conducted its first national earthquake drill since the March 11 disasters that left 20,000 dead or missing and triggered a nuclear crisis. Police supervised traffic at about 100 points in central Tokyo while passengers were guided to safe zones from train stations in a simulation of a post-quake scenario in which all rail and subway services are suspended. Disaster Prevention Day is an annual drill to train for a potentially deadly magnitude 7.3 earthquake scenario in Tokyo and is held to commemorate the anniversary of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which killed more than 140,000. Throughout Japan, about 517,000 people were scheduled to take part in disaster drills yesterday. However, many areas hit by the March disaster, including Fukushima, canceled their participation with residents still struggling to recover from the March calamity.
PHILIPPINES
Aquino’s love life like Coke
The bachelor president is lamenting that his love life is like Coke — it’s gone from regular to zero. Fifty-one-year-old President Benigno Aquino III poked fun at himself while addressing members of the Philippine community in Beijing during his state visit to China. Like a standup comedian, he opened up by broaching one of the most mundane questions people often ask him. Aquino said on Wednesday: “Someone asked me: ‘How is your love life?’ So I said: ‘It’s like Coca-Cola ... Before, it was regular, then it became light, now it’s zero.’” The audience then burst into laughter. Since taking office last year, Aquino has broken up with several women, often blaming journalists’ prying eyes for ruining his romances.
CHINA
Carrier passes sea trial
The country says its first aircraft carrier attained all its set objectives in its initial sea trial last month. According to yesterday’s official Global Times newspaper, Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun (楊宇軍) says the refurbished ex-Soviet carrier will continue to undergo testing. He gave no further details. The government says the ship is intended for research and training, pointing to plans to build up to three additional clones of the carrier.
SOUTH KOREA
Sterilizer blamed for deaths
A sterilizing agent for home humidifiers probably caused the mysterious deaths of four pregnant women, an official with a health agency said yesterday. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began investigating after 28 cases of lung disease with unknown causes were reported since 2004, many of them this year and involving pregnant women. Four of the pregnant patients died earlier this year. The agency said tests showed that a harmful substance in a sterilizer — used by all the patients in their humidifiers — could seriously damage lung cells.
ISRAEL
Hamas leader rearrested
The government has rearrested a top leader of the Hamas movement in the West Bank, just weeks after releasing him from jail, the military and Hamas sources said yesterday. Hassan Yusef was detained on Wednesday night as he tried to cross a checkpoint between the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Nablus, a Hamas source said. The military confirmed it had detained Yusef, who was released from prison after serving a six-year term for “membership of a terrorist organization,” but declined to give details. Yusef was freed on Aug. 4 as part of a mass release of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners due to overcrowding. He had six weeks left of his sentence.
NIGERIA
Floods kill 102: Red Cross
At least 102 people were killed when a dam burst in torrential rain and flooding in the southwest, Umar Mairiga, disaster management coordinator for the Nigerian Red Cross Society, said on Wednesday. He said the Eleyele dam collapsed and several bridges were swept away at the weekend after heavy rains fell for more than seven hours around the university town of Ibadan, 150km north of Lagos. Residents were swept away by the water after their homes crumbled in the flood waters, while others tried to scramble to safety, Mairiga said. An official at the National Emergency Management Agency said the drains in the town were blocked by rubbish which meant the water could not escape normally.
POLAND
Monument defaced
Vandals have defaced a monument in the town of Jedwabne that commemorates a World War II massacre of between 300 and 400 Jews on July 10, 1941. About 40 Poles hunted down Jews, closed them in a barn and burned alive. The vandals used green paint to spray a swastika and “SS” on the monument, as well as the phrases “I don’t apologize for Jedwabne” and “they were flammable.” Police discovered the desecration on Wednesday during a patrol and are trying to find the culprits.
SPAIN
Duchess still controls money
The Duchess of Alba, who is set to marry for a third time at 85, admits she had to overcome opposition among her children to the wedding, but insists she still controls her immense wealth. The duchess told Hola! magazine that it was not outside pressure that made her divide some of her riches among her six children before the marriage. “I made the share-out because I wanted to. Nobody pressured me,” she said. “Anyway, as long as I am alive everything remains in my hands.” Her wealth is estimated between US$867 million and US$5 billion.
FRANCE
Sarkozy took cash: book
Allegations that President Nicolas Sarkozy collected envelopes of cash from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt have returned to haunt the Elysee. Isabelle Prevost-Desprez, the magistrate who investigated the Bettencourt family dispute last year, told the authors of Sarko Killed Me, which was published yesterday, that a witness claimed to have seen the billionaire hand cash to Sarkozy during his 2007 presidential campaign. “Liliane Bettencourt’s nurse told my stenographer, after being questioned by me, ‘I saw cash payments to Sarkozy, but I couldn’t say it in my statement,’” Prevost-Desprez said. She said she had been struck by witnesses’ fear of mentioning Sarkozy in their statements. Sarkozy’s office denied the allegations, calling them “scandalous, unfounded and untruthful.” Socialist presidential hopeful Martine Aubry led calls for a fresh inquiry after the judge’s comments.
UNITED STATES
Quake shook nuclear plant
The earthquake that shook the east coast last week rattled huge, heavy casks holding radioactive nuclear waste at a Virginia plant, moving them as much as 11cm from their original position, the plant’s operator has said. The magnitude 5.8 quake shifted 25 casks, each 4.9m tall and weighing 115 tonnes on a concrete pad at Dominion Resources Inc’s North Anna nuclear plant in Virginia, the Richmond Times-Gazette reported on Wednesday, citing company officials. The plant, located about 19km from the quake’s epicenter has been shut down since the Aug. 23 quake as inspectors check for damage. The commission is doing a special review because of preliminary data showing that shaking from the quake exceeded the plant’s design rating.
UNITED STATES
Smuggler nabbed at airport
Never mind ants in your pants, what about snakes and tortoises? That’s what authorities at Miami’s international airport said they found inside the trousers of a passenger as he tried to board a flight for Brazil. The Transportation Security Administration said the man had seven exotic snakes and three tortoises wrapped in nylon bags that had been stuffed into his pants. He was discovered as he went through a body scanner at one of the airport’s security checkpoints yesterday and arrested by Fish and Wildlife Service officials for violating animal trafficking laws.
HAITI
Clinton aide nominated
A recent top aide to former US president Bill Clinton in his work as the UN special envoy for Haiti is being nominated as prime minister, a legislative leader said on Wednesday night. Chamber of Deputies president Saurel Jacinthe said that President Michel Martelly picked Garry Conille as his third nominee for Haiti’s head of government. The decision comes more than three months after Martelly took office. The entertainer-turned-president has struggled to install a government because parliament has rejected his first two nominees for prime minister.
ARGENTINA
Body of lost girl found
The case of a missing 11-year-old girl in Argentina that shocked locals and got actors and government officials involved in the search, took a tragic turn as she was found dead, police said on Wednesday. “Oh my God, they killed my little girl,” witnesses said Carola Labrador, the mother of Candela Rodriguez, screamed on identifying her body after it was found in Hurlingham, Buenos Aires. About 1,600 police took part in the search. Prosecutor Federico Nievas Woodgrate had earlier said the body of a girl Candela’s age was found naked in a bag, with serious damage to her face. The massive police effort, after Candela went missing 10 days ago, searched about 800 homes. Candela’s mother met last week with President Cristina Kirchner.
UNITED STATES
Gibson custody case ends
Actor Mel Gibson will pay the mother of his 22-month-old daughter US$750,000 and get joint custody of the child, ending a bitter custody and financial dispute that badly damaged his Hollywood career. The Braveheart director and his former musician girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva agreed to a settlement detailed in a Los Angeles Superior Court hearing on Wednesday. “I would like to thank your honor for bringing this matter to a reasonable conclusion,” Gibson told Lichtman at Wednesday’s hearing.
‘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