AUSTRALIA
Cancer misdiagnosed
A Sydney man endured seven rounds of chemotherapy and had 80 percent of his stomach removed after being told he had cancer, only to later learn it was a misdiagnosis, reports said yesterday. Graham Lord, 59, is suing health officials over the ordeal, which has left him 20kg lighter and unable to eat sitting down, following a 2009 biopsy taken after a reflux complaint. Lord was told that one of the areas biopsied had an aggressive cancer and he underwent seven rounds of chemotherapy before having most of his stomach removed in January last year. However, post-surgery review of his tissues showed no sign of cancer and doctors at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital told him the initial biopsy diagnosis, made at a regional pathology laboratory, had been incorrect. “To find out I didn’t have cancer, it was just devastating. I was numb, I just couldn’t believe it,” Lord told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. “I am still very angry.”
CHINA
Miner death toll climbs
The death toll from a gas explosion in a coal mine in Yunnan Province has risen to 34, Xinhua news agency quoted rescue workers as saying yesterday. Initial reports after the underground blast last week said 19 miners had been killed with dozens trapped at the Sizhuang Coal Mine in Shizong County near the city of Qujing. Nine miners remained trapped yesterday morning and hundreds of rescuers were searching for them, Qujing government spokesman Li Jianjun was quoted as saying.
PAKISTAN
Donkey cart blast kills six
Six people were killed and four wounded when a bomb planted in a donkey cart exploded in a remote town in tribal Khyber district yesterday, officials said. A donkey cart carrying sand was left unattended in the market area of Mastak town near the Afghan border, they said. “The explosives concealed in the sand loaded onto the cart was detonated with the help of a remote controlled device,” local administration official Syed Ahmed Jan told reporters by telephone. Another senior official, Mutahir Zaib, confirmed the incident and the casualties. He said the injured were out of danger. No group has claimed responsibility. Officials have blamed previous such attacks on Taliban and Islamist militants. At least 12 people were killed in two separate militant attacks in the troubled Khyber district on Saturday. Some 18,000 people fled their homes in Khyber last month amid fears of a fresh onslaught of fighting between the army and Islamist militants tied to the Pakistani Taliban.
CHINA
Arsonists sentenced to die
A court in Jilin Province has handed down the death penalty to three people for setting fire to a bar that then spread to a budget hotel, killing 11 people and leaving two others injured, state media reported. The court found the three guilty of arson and sentenced them to death on Saturday for setting fire to a basement bar in Tonghua city in May because of a row they had with the establishment’s owner. The fire spread to a karaoke bar and later to the guestrooms of a budget hotel chain, killing 11 hotel guests and firemen who had come to the rescue, Xinhua news agency said late on Saturday. According to a Xinhua report on May 1, the victims died of smoke inhalation from the fire, which also caused 1.8 million yuan (US$280,000) in economic losses.
BRAZIL
Raid on Rocinha launched
Police forces launched a major operation early yesterday to wrest from criminals control of the Rocinha favela, the largest in the nation. The shantytown has been controlled by narcotraffickers for the past 30 years. The crackdown on Rocinha drug gangs is part of an official campaign since 2008 to restore security in the city before the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Rocinha will be the 19th favela to be cleared of traffickers.
UGANDA
Posters land man in the sty
Police on Saturday said they arrested a man for “abusing the presidency” after he built a pigsty out of old election posters featuring the president’s face. Officer John Kuusa said the 35-year-old taxi dispatcher’s decision to construct his pigsty out of the images of President Yoweri Museveni led to his Friday arrest. George Kiberu used the durable posters for the roof, the walls, and as plates for the pigs, Kuusa said. Kiberu says he did not know he was breaking the law.
RUSSIA
Probe lost in space
Efforts to resume contact with a space mission to Mars that became stuck in Earth’s orbit after launch have failed and the probe must be considered lost, Interfax news agency reported on Saturday. “All attempts to obtain telemetric information from the Phobos-Grunt probe and activate its command system have failed. The probe must be considered lost,” Interfax quoted a source in the space sector as saying. The source said the national space agency would announce the failure of the mission in the next few days. The mission went awry after launch on Wednesday when the 5 billion ruble (US$165 million) probe’s engine failed to fire, leaving it orbiting the Earth rather than starting its journey toward the Red Planet.
SOUTH KOREA
Barracks for US to be built
The government plans to build a barracks for US troops on an island near the Yellow Sea border with North Korea in case of emergency or military drills, the defense ministry said yesterday. The barracks will be built on Baengnyeong, a ministry spokesman said. Construction will begin next year and is scheduled for completion by 2013, Yonhap news agency said.
UNITED STATES
Asia expert Scalapino dies
Robert Scalapino, an eminent scholar of Asian politics who achieved prominence during the Vietnam War for his strong defense of US policy as opposition to it was growing, died on Nov. 1 in Oakland, California. He was 92. The cause was complications of a respiratory infection, the University of California, Berkeley, said. Scalapino taught there from 1949 to 1990 and founded its Institute of East Asian Studies in 1978. The author of 39 books on Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, China and Korea, Scalapino was also editor of Asian Survey, an academic publication, from 1962 to 1996 and advised the State Department and other government agencies. His interest in Asia was sparked when he was trained in the Japanese language as a Navy officer in World War II. Scalapino advised secretaries of state, advocating closer relations with China years before former president Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit, and condemning “flagrant” human rights abuses in Taiwan in the 1960s.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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