SOUTH KOREA
Maestro plans joint concerts
A renowned South Korean conductor said yesterday he had agreed with North Korean musicians to hold regular joint performances by the two countries’ orchestras to ease cross-border tensions. “I think music can move the hearts of people a little bit, although it wouldn’t do such a thing as to change the entire regime,” Chung Myung-whun said a day after his return from a rare visit to Pyongyang. Chung said the joint orchestra, if approved, would be made up of an equal number of musicians from each country. Performances would be held alternately in Seoul and Pyongyang, with the first scheduled in December.
CHINA
General’s son detained
China has detained the 15-year-old son of a well-known general for beating a couple while their young child looked on in an incident that sparked public outrage, the state Xinhua news agency said. The move came after hundreds of thousands of people went online to express their outrage at the actions of Li Tianyi (李天一), the latest in a series of scandals involving the children of high-ranking Chinese officials. Li, the son of General Li Shuangjiang (李雙江), who is a popular singer and a household name in China, was “found to have physically assaulted a couple and damaged their car” on Sept. 6, Xinhua said on Thursday, citing police. Li was sent to a government correctional facility for one year after confessing under police interrogation, the report said.
THE PHILIPPINES
Ex-general rearrested
A retired Philippine military budget chief whose plunder charges were dismissed by a civilian court has been rearrested by the military. He will serve a two-year prison term for a prior conviction of hiding assets and holding a US green card. Retired Major General Carlos Garcia became a poster boy for military corruption, but escaped conviction on charges of stealing 303 million pesos (US$7 million) when he struck a plea bargain with civilian prosecutors in May. Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Garcia was brought to military prison yesterday on orders of President Benigno Aquino III.
AUSTRALIA
Aborigines lag in transplants
An Australian government report indicates that indigenous kidney patients are far less likely than other Australians to receive an organ transplant. The report by the government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, released yesterday, found that only 12 percent of Aborigines suffering the most severe stage of chronic kidney disease have a functioning transplanted kidney, compared with 45 percent of other Australians. The report says Aborigines are also four times more likely to die of chronic kidney disease than other Australians.
AUSTRALIA
Chemical fire causes chaos
Emergency services were battling a huge chemical fire in the capital Canberra yesterday although concerns over the spread of toxic smoke plumes were diminishing, officials said. Around 100 nearby residents were evacuated and people within a 10km radius of the northern industrial suburb of Mitchell were told to stay indoors. Reports said that during the night flames leapt hundreds of meters into the air. There were no reports of casualties. The blaze, which could be seen from several kilometers away, caused traffic chaos with roads closed, bus services cancelled and schools shut. It was not immediately clear what started the fire.
UNITED STATES
Arctic sea ice shrinks
The National Snow and Ice Data Center says Arctic Sea ice melted this summer to the second lowest level since scientists started keeping records more than 50 years ago. The amount of ice covering at the Arctic hit its lowest point late last week. Scientists calculated 4.3 million square kilometers of ice. Only in 2007 was there less summer sea ice, which has dramatically declined since scientists started using satellites to monitor melt in 1979. Other records go back to 1953. The summer minimum is a crucial measurement for scientists monitoring manmade global warming. This year’s level is 36 percent below the average minimum of 6.7 million square kilometers.
UNITED STATES
Obama honors war hero
President Barack Obama on Thursday awarded a US Marine, who saved 36 ambushed men during a Taliban firestorm in Afghanistan, with the nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor. Former marine sergeant Dakota Meyer, 23, and a comrade Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, defied orders and repeatedly drove into a village despite enemy fire, to rescue Afghan troops and their US trainers after a deadly ambush in northeastern Afghanistan. Obama told how Meyer, despite machine gun fire, bullets, grenades and mortars, loaded up injured and trapped Afghans into his vehicle and took them to safety, returning to the line of fire no less than five times.
UNITED STATES
Search on for toe assailant
Police in Conway, Arkansas have received two complaints in the past week about a man who seems desperate to suck women’s toes — whether they want him to or not. On Saturday last week Ruth Harris, 83, told police she was sitting in a chair in front of her apartment when a man approached and said he liked her feet. According to a police report, the man took off one of her shoes and began sucking on her toe. The man left quickly after people walked into the apartment complex’s courtyard. On Tuesday, police received another call from a woman who said that on Saturday she was shopping when she noticed a man staring at her. The man then told the woman that he had a foot fetish and that “her toes are so long and succulent” and he wanted to suck them. When the woman’s cellphone rang, the man retreated.
UNITED STATES
Man admits role in murder
A Vermont drifter has admitted his role in the slaying of a 79-year-old woman who was beaten to death with a hammer as she made biscuits. Fifty-three-year-old Charles “Punky” Haynes pleaded guilty on Thursday to second-degree murder and one count of burglary in exchange for 20 years to life in prison. Police say he attacked 79-year-old Raynetta Woodward in her mobile home in Woodstock in July 2009. Police say Woodward’s money belt was missing US$470, which is what Haynes was carrying when he was arrested. They say a blood stain on his pants matched her DNA.
UNITED STATES
Corpse abuse charge filed
Two men accused of driving around with a dead friend, using his ATM card and visiting a strip club have been charged with abusing a corpse, identity theft and criminal impersonation. It is unclear how Jeffrey Jarrett died, but the men, Robert Jeffrey Young and Mark Rubinson are not charged in his death. The Denver Post reported. An affidavit accused Young and Rubinson of leaving Jarrett’s body in the car while they drank at a bar on his tab on Aug. 27.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the