CHINA
Journalist stabbed to death
A journalist who had been following a scandal involving the sale of cooking oil made from leftovers taken from gutters has been stabbed to death, police and state media said yesterday. Li Xiang (李翔), 30, a reporter with Luoyang Television Station in Henan Province, was knifed more than 10 times early on Monday as he returned home from a karaoke session with friends, the Zhengzhou Evening News reported. The laptop computer Li had been carrying was missing and police were treating the case as a murder-robbery, but have not ruled other motives, the report said. Li, who was due to be married next month, had apparently been following the latest food scandal to hit China, a “gutter” cooking oil scam which has led to the arrests of 32 people caught selling the carcinogenic product.
CHINA
Heavy rains, floods kill 57
Heavy rains and floods have left 57 people dead, dozens of others missing and hundreds injured, while more than 1 million residents have been evacuated from their homes, the government said. Unprecedented rains over the past week have swamped parts of northern, central and southwest China, and although the affected region is breathing a tentative sigh of relief as the downpours pause, rivers continue to swell. The Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement that the rain had forced authorities to evacuate more than 1.2 million people from their homes. More than 120,000 houses have collapsed and economic losses from damaged houses, crops and land is estimated to have reached 17.27 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion), it added.
AUSTRALIA
Gillard to lose asylum vote
The government may have to resume dealing with asylum seekers on its mainland because proposals to move their processing overseas are being blocked by the opposition and by legal obstacles, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said yesterday. In a fresh blow to the minority government, opposition leader Tony Abbott has refused to support a deal to process asylum seekers in Malaysia because Kuala Lumpur has not signed the UN refugee convention. Abbott’s opposition means the Malaysia plan will be defeated in a parliamentary vote after it is introduced today, with the government then being forced to deal with asylum seekers on the mainland, Gillard said.
CHINA
Space lab ready to launch
A prototype module for a planned space lab will be launched next week, state media said yesterday. The Tiangong 1, or “Heavenly Palace,” will blast off from the Gobi Jiuquan launch site in a remote part of Gansu Province between Sept. 27 and Sept. 30, Xinhua news agency said. The eight-tonne unmanned module, and the rocket that will carry it skyward, have been moved onto the launch pad, the report said, citing a spokesman for the country’s space program. It gave no other details.
PAKISTAN
Militants attack checkpoint
Taliban gunmen stormed a checkpoint in the tribal belt yesterday, killing one soldier and sparking clashes in which up to 20 militants died, officials said. Five soldiers and five civilians were also wounded after the militants attacked the Dabori post manned by paramilitary troops in the tribal district of Orakzai, the officials said. “At least 20 militants have been killed in the pre-dawn clash,” a military official said by telephone. Their bodies were spotted during a search carried out by helicopter gunships, he said.
TURKEY
Explosion injures 15
An explosion across from a secondary school in Ankara injured 15 people and set several vehicles on fire yesterday, officials said. “There is information that a bomb was planted on the vehicle,” that exploded in the downtown Kizilay district, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said. Three people were seriously injured and some of them might have lost their limbs, officials said. No group has yet claimed responsibility.
ITALY
Seismologists go on trial
Seven scientists and other earthquake experts went on trial yesterday on manslaughter charges for allegedly failing to sufficiently warn residents before a devastating quake that killed more than 300 people in 2009. The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the world who insist it’s impossible to predict earthquakes and that no major temblor has ever been foretold. The seven defendants are accused of giving “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” about whether smaller tremors felt in L’Aquila in the months before the April 6, 2009, quake should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.
UNITED KINGDOM
Seven arrested in raids
Police arrested a group of suspected Islamic extremists on Monday in what officials called one of the most significant counter-terror operations of the year. Officers were also carrying out raids on more than a dozen homes and businesses in Birmingham. Security officials said the threat appeared significant and involved Islamic extremists. Six men were being held on suspicion of the “commission, preparation or instigation” of an act of terrorism in Britain. A woman was also arrested for failing to disclose information. The suspects are aged between 22 and 32 and are British residents.
UNITED KINGDOM
Dale Farm wins reprieve
A group of Irish Travelers facing eviction from their English campsite won a last-minute reprieve on Monday when a judge prevented bailiffs from removing any structures in their settlement. A judge at London’s High Court issued an injunction preventing the local Basildon Council from clearing structures, including cars and mobile homes, from the Dale Farm site, 50km east of London, before another court hearing on Friday. Council leader Tony Ball said authorities were “extremely disappointed and frustrated” by the ruling.
GUATEMALA
Four quakes rock country
Four earthquakes struck the southeastern part of the country in less than two hours on Monday afternoon, causing at least one death as some walls collapsed, authorities said. At least three people were reported missing. President Alvaro Colom urged calm after the temblors were felt across much of the country; the largest was a magnitude 5.8. All were centered in an area about 51km southeast of Guatemala City, according to the US Geological Survey.
SOUTH KOREA
Tit-for-tat over sea names
Irked by Britain’s refusal to use the nation’s name for a sea off the east of the peninsula, Seoul is considering using an Argentine name for waters around the UK-ruled Falkland Islands, the JoongAng Ilbo reported yesterday. The newspaper said that Seoul might start referring to the Falklands Sea as the Malvinas Sea as well. The paper said the move appeared to be in response to Britain’s resistance to use the name the East Sea.
MEXICO
Inmates stage jailbreak
Inmates staged near--simultaneous jailbreaks from three prisons in Veracruz early on Monday and at least 32 of them escaped, officials said. Authorities said 14 of the fugitives were later recaptured, but prison officials were conducting reviews to establish who was still at large. Between 2:30am and 4am, prisoners escaped from prisons in Coatzacoalcos, Amatlan de los Reyes and Cosamaloapan, said Gerardo Buganza, the state’s top security official. A spokesman for the state, Miguel Valera, told reporters that initial indications were that the prisoners were armed with knives and had overpowered the guards. However, Buganza said authorities were investigating whether employees of the jails were involved in the jailbreaks.
URUGUAY
Marines arrested for assault
Five marines have been jailed in Montevideo after being indicted for the sexual assault of a young Haitian man while they were serving as UN peacekeepers in Haiti, the supreme military court announced on Monday. The scandal erupted earlier this month after video images taken with a cellphone circulated on the Internet showing the UN peacekeepers sexually assaulting an 18-year-old Haitian man in the town of Port-Salut.
BRAZIL
Suspected killers arrested
Police have arrested two suspects over the killing in May of a husband-and-wife team of environmental activists who had been identifying illegal loggers, officials said on Monday. The police in the northern Amazon state of Para, one of the most restive regions in the country because of land disputes, arrested landowner Jose Rodrigues Moreira and his brother Lindonjonson Silva Rocha. After evading capture for months, the two brothers were arrested on Sunday and a police spokesman said they were being transferred to a prison in the state capital Belem.
BELIZE
Founding father dies
Founding father and first prime minister George Price died in Belize City early on Monday, just short of three decades since he led the small Central American nation to independence. He was 92. Price died at the Belize Healthcare Partners Hospital in Belize City, said a grandnephew, Henry Charles Usher. He was hospitalized last Wednesday after a fall at his Belize City home and put in a medically induced coma following surgery to remove a blood clot. Prime Minister Dean Barrow declared a week of mourning lasting until Sept. 26. Price was Belize’s first leader when it became independent from Britain on Sept. 21, 1981.
UNITED STATES
Dolores Hope dies
Dolores Hope, the sultry-voiced songstress who was married to Bob Hope for 69 years and sometimes sang on his shows for troops and on his television specials, has died at age 102. Family spokesman Harlan Boll said Dolores Hope died on Monday of natural causes at home in Los Angeles. He did not elaborate. In 1933, when Bob Hope was appearing in his first Broadway show, Roberta, his friend and fellow cast member George Murphy persuaded him to visit the Vogue Club to “hear a pretty girl sing.” She was Dolores Reade, a dark beauty whose singing of It’s Only a Paper Moon entranced the young comedian. Hope returned every night and soon he was escorting her to her hotel after her shows. They married on Feb. 19, 1934, and she quit nightclubs to join his vaudeville act.
‘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