CHINA
Railway officials fired
The Railways Ministry fired 10 officials for fraud for allowing contractors to use substandard materials, including “waste,” to build railway bridges, state media reported yesterday. It was the latest setback for the ministry, which has been plagued by a string of management, safety and financial problems. China Railway No. 9 Group Co, the main contractor for a 2.3 billion yuan (US$363 million) project in Jilin Province, illegally subcontracted to unqualified companies last month, the China Daily said. According to the newspaper, a former cook headed one team of workers to build the bridges with gravel, rocks and waste instead of concrete. The report did not give further details. At least 10 officials were fired on Sunday, and the ministry fined railway authorities in the area and ordered the reconstruction of 16 piers and two bridges.
INDONESIA
Maginitude 6.3 quake hits
A strong earthquake hit waters off the east coast yesterday, sending people on nearby islands fleeing from their homes in panic. Fearing a tsunami that never came, villagers living along coastlines ran to high ground. The magnitude 6.3 quake was centered 20km beneath the Molucca Sea, the US Geological Survey said.
NEW ZEALAND
Oil salvage almost finished
Salvage crews have pumped almost all the oil from a container ship that ran aground on a reef and caused the country’s worst maritime pollution disaster, authorities said yesterday. Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) said only about 60 tonnes remained on the Rena and the focus of the salvage operation had shifted to removing shipping containers from the stricken vessel. “While getting the bulk of the oil off the Rena is a significant milestone, our job isn’t done yet,” MNZ on-site commander Mick Courtnell said. The Liberian-flagged ship was carrying 1,700 tonnes of oil when it crashed into a reef on Oct. 5, releasing about 350 tonnes into the North Island’s pristine Bay of Plenty. The resulting oil slick killed about 1,300 birds and fouled beaches in the popular tourist area with black sludge.
INDONESIA
Papuan separatists rally
Thousands of protesters staged a pro-independence rally in the Papua region yesterday demanding a referendum for self--determination. More than 3,000 native Papuans, some in traditional grass skirts, walked 13km from Abepura to the provincial capital Jayapura to meet local lawmakers. “The Papuan people have asked for an immediate referendum for self-determination. We reject any dialogue with Jakarta,” protest coordinator Mako Tabuni said. “The referendum is non-negotiable.” Dozens of armed police attempted to block the protesters, but failed to stop them from reaching the local house of representatives in Jayapura, where another 100 police waited on guard.
CHINA
Coal mine manager detained
Police have detained the duty manager at an illegal coal mine in Yunnan Province after he staged a fake escape from an accident that killed 34 workers, an official said yesterday. Qi Guming (戚谷明) smudged coal dust on his face and told investigators he had used a tunnel to escape from the pit, where another nine workers remain trapped four days after the accident, a local official said. According to China National Radio, Qi was actually asleep and not inside the mine when a blast of coal and gas took place early on Thursday morning in the mine. He was supposed to be the duty manager for the night shift.
GERMANY
Compostable shoes planned
Your flowers love it, it is environmentally friendly and saves on rubbish collection. And soon you will be able to add your worn-out trainers and T-shirts to the carrot peels, potato skins and eggshells on the compost heap at the end of your garden, if German sportswear manufacturer Puma gets its way. “We are confident that in the near future we will be able to bring the first shoes, T-shirts and bags, that are either compostable or recyclable, to the market,” Puma boss Franz Koch told the German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche. He said the company was working with partners on developing products on the principle of the “cradle-to-cradle” design. “It follows two circuits, the technical and the biological,” Koch said.
MALAYSIA
Europeans held for drugs
Police have busted a drug ring, detaining 11 people, including four Europeans, in the first such arrests in recent years, a senior official said on Sunday. A drug trafficking conviction carries the mandatory death penalty by hanging. Federal narcotics chief Noor Rashid Ibrahim said the men — one Dutch, two English, one French, two Singaporeans and five Malaysians — were arrested on Friday in raids on a suspected drug laboratory and a factory in the north. A total of 240 liters of a liquid believed to be liquid ecstasy and 34km of methamphetamine were seized, Noor Rashid said. The drugs are valued at 20 million ringgit (US$6.3 million). “This is the first time in recent years that we have arrested Europeans” in such raids, he said. “We believe the Dutch [man] is the chemist.” The men, aged between 24 and 60, are in custody and are being investigated for drug trafficking.
THAILAND
Residents attack flood wall
Angry residents in inundated northern Bangkok have damaged a major flood wall, officials said yesterday, amid growing frustration that parts of the city are suffering badly, while the center stays dry. About 100 protesters gathered at a section of a 15km flood barrier in the district of Don Mueang on Sunday, removing small sandbags and damaging larger ones that were too heavy to move. A local police chief said residents created a shallow 7m wide opening in the wall in recent days to relieve badly flooded neighborhoods and on Sunday they managed to deepen the gap to about 1m. Bangkok authorities were expected to repair the damage yesterday, but demonstrators have threatened to expand their protest if that happens. The flood wall is seen as a key defense preventing run-off waters from the north from swamping downtown Bangkok, which is home to the city’s luxury hotels, office buildings and shopping malls.
UNITED STATES
Hate crimes spark outrage
Dozens of residents marched through a Brooklyn neighborhood on Sunday to protest against vandals who torched three cars and scrawled Nazi swastikas in an area populated by Orthodox Jews. Protesters said they were stunned after unknown vandals set the cars ablaze, spray-painted the letters “KKK,” the initials of the racist Ku Klux Klan organization, on a van, and defaced four public benches with 16 swastikas in the Midwood neighborhood before dawn on Friday. Police have made no arrests. “I’ve never seen this level of violence here,” New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said. “This goes beyond the pale — blowing up cars in the middle of the Jewish community.” About 100
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion