CHINA
Cargo ships collide
Two cargo ships collided on Friday off the eastern city of Qingdao, state media reported, with one of the freighters later sinking. Nine of the crew of the Oriental Sunrise were rescued, three of whom were injured, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday, while 10 were missing. All 19 were believed to be North Korean. Their ship had earlier collided with the Hamburg Bridge, Xinhua said, citing Qingdao municipal authorities, adding that both vessels were Panama-flagged. It did not state their ownership.
JAPAN
Fishermen net US$145,000
A fishing boat has netted a bag packed with ¥11 million (US$145,000). The cash-laden catch was found off the country’s northeastern coast that was devastated by an earthquake-triggered tsunami seven months ago. Ofunato city official Kou Ueno said yesterday that a trawling fishing boat pulled the bag with more than a thousand ¥10,000 bills from the bottom of the sea on Oct. 8 off the coast of the city in Iwate Prefecture. Ueno said the money was likely swept away from its still-unknown owner by the March 11 tsunami.
THAILAND
Soldiers held over deaths
Police have detained nine soldiers suspected of killing 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River early last month, authorities said yesterday. The Thai troops are thought to have links to a Myanmar drug kingpin. The soldiers surrendered on Friday in northern Chiang Rai Province, Lieutenant General Wut Liptapanlop said. National police chief General Priewpan Damapong promised a full investigation into the deadly raid on two Chinese vessels on Oct. 5, saying the military was fully cooperating. “Police will prosecute all nine soldiers,” he said. “Their actions have nothing to do with the Thai army.”
INDIA
No Metallica, so fans riot
Thousands of disappointed fans have broken chairs and torn posters after organizers canceled a Metallica concert on the outskirts of the capital. The Press Trust of India news agency said police arrested four people from the company that had organized the concert on charges of cheating people who had waited for hours for the scheduled Friday performance by the US heavy metal band. Organizers said the concert was called off because of technical difficulties. Metallica promised full refunds to those who had bought tickets.
INDIA
Office worker wins US$1m
An office worker too poor to own a TV set has won an unprecedented US$1 million in the Indian version of the TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Sushil Kumar’s win this week drew comparisons with the plot of 2008 Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire and, like its fictional protagonist Jamal, the 27-year-old also watched the TV show as an escape from penury. This is the first time a contestant has won US$1 million on the popular TV show hosted by Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan. The episode will be broadcast next week and Kumar takes home 3.5 crore rupees (about US$720,000) after tax. Kumar, who watched the show at a neighbor’s house because his family was too poor to afford a TV, said he had not made any grand plans for the money. “I’m going to repair my house, fulfil a few basic needs and then move to Delhi to study for the civil service exams,” he said in a telephone interview.
RUSSIA
Ex-Moscow mayor pressured
The Interior Ministry on Friday threatened former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov with reprisals if he fails to show up for questioning as part of a probe into an alleged US$430 million bank fraud. The warning to Luzhkov, who lost his job a year ago after 18 years in office, follows his stinging attacks on the Kremlin. Luzhkov described the probe as a political punishment for his criticism of President Dmitry Medvedev, and said he would return from abroad to prove his innocence. The ministry made a similar warning to Luzhkov’s billionaire wife, Yelena Baturina, saying she has ignored previous summons. Baturina insisted that she had received no summons, Interfax reported.
FRANCE
‘Jackal’ ends hunger strike
Venezuelan militant Carlos the Jackal has ended an 11-day hunger strike at a Parisian jail where he is serving a life sentence for murder, his lawyer said on Friday. The Marxist-Leninist radical, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, began the protest on Oct. 18, a week after being placed in an isolation cell. His attorney Francis Vuillemin said prison authorities had removed Carlos from solitary confinement on Thursday and allowed him to return to quarters reserved for public figures at La Sante prison. Carlos, 62, is awaiting a new trial due to begin on Nov. 7 for attacks that left 11 people dead in France in 1982 and 1983. In 1997, Carlos was sentenced to life behind bars for the 1975 shooting deaths of two French policemen and a police informer.
RUSSIA
Bolshoi Theater reopens
The Bolshoi Theater reopened on Friday after a massive reconstruction effort that restored it to its original imperial splendor. The US$700 million, six-year effort meticulously recreated the opulent 19th-century decor, many elements of which had been simplified or removed during communist rule. The renovation also added state-of-the art stage gear and created an additional underground hall. Local and international celebrities, including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and Italian actress Monica Bellucci, filled the grand gold-and-red, 1,743-seat hall in Moscow for Friday’s gala opening led by President Dmitry Medvedev.
IRAN
Film actress spared lashes
An actress sentenced to be whipped for her role in an Australian-produced film has been spared the lashes and been freed after having her term reduced on appeal, a source close to her family confirmed yesterday. Marzieh Vafamehr had her original punishment of a year in prison and 90 lashes cut to the three months detention already served and a US$1,000 fine instead of the whipping, the source said on condition of anonymity. News of Vafamehr’s initial sentence sparked alarm and outrage in Australia, where the makers of the film, My Tehran for Sale, stressed that it had obtained the necessary Iranian permission to be made in Tehran. Iran’s Fars news agency said the film — which contains a scene showing Vafamehr with a shaved head and not wearing the headscarf obligatory under Iran’s Islamic laws — had not been approved for distribution in the country and was being distributed there illegally. Shot entirely in Tehran and directed by Iranian-Australian Granaz Moussavi, the 2008 film tells the story of a young actress in Iran’s capital whose work is banned by the authorities.
CANADA
Plane crashes in road
A small plane crash-landed on a busy road, hit a car and burst into flames after take-off in Vancouver, killing the pilot and injuring 10 others, authorities said on Friday. Several of the victims, who included all eight people on board the plane and two in the car, had critical injuries. Vancouver Coastal Health authority later updated the condition of the injured, saying two were released from hospital overnight, two remained in critical condition and four were in stable but serious condition.
UNITED STATES
Students stay on cruise ship
Students at a liberal arts college in Maryland packed their bags on Friday to spend the rest of the semester on a cruise ship that’s going nowhere. St Mary’s College, in St Mary’s City off the Chesapeake Bay, is relocating about 240 students to the Sea Voyager while it cleans up an outbreak of health-threatening mold in its dormitories. It chartered the 87m, 110 cabin vessel — scheduled to arrive yesterday or today near its waterside campus — as a cost-effective alternative to local hotels where the displaced undergraduates have been temporarily staying.
MEXICO
Twenty-one die in shootouts
Authorities said at least 21 people were killed on Friday in three shootouts between soldiers and gunmen and a fight between rival drug gangs. At least 15 deaths occurred in three gun-battles in Michoacan State, state prosecutor spokesman Jonathan Arredondo said. Michoacan State is where President Felipe Calderon launched his armed offensive against organized crime in 2006. The state holds gubernatorial elections on Nov. 13. In the northern state of Sinaloa, six people were killed on Friday during a shootout between two groups of armed men on a highway in the town of Guamuchil, assistant state prosecutor Martin Robles said.
CHILE
Obama receives high marks
Latin Americans give US President Barack Obama the highest approval rating of any leader in the region. Obama was rated 6.3 on a scale of one to 10 in the survey conducted by the Chile-based Latinobarometro polling organization. He was closely followed by Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff at 6. Latinobarometro polled 20,000 people in 18 Latin American countries. The leader with the worst mark was former Cuban president Fidel Castro at 4.1. Next-lowest were Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who tied at 4.4. Bolivian President Evo Morales had 4.9 and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera 5.1.
BRAZIL
Dam occupation ends
Hundreds of protesters ended their occupation of the construction site of one of the world’s largest hydroelectric dams, Indian rights activists said on Friday. Renato Santana of the Indian Missionary Council said more than 600 Indians, fishermen and river dwellers peacefully left the construction site of the Belo Monte dam on Thursday night after a judge ordered their eviction. They had taken over the work site on Thursday morning to demand that work on the dam be stopped. A spokeswoman for the Norte Energia consortium that is building the dam confirmed the end of the occupation. Andressa Lanzellotti said the protesters caused no damage and that work on the dam had resumed. The US$11 billion, 11,000 megawatt dam will be the world’s third largest when completed on the Xingu River that feeds the Amazon.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was