INDIA
Stampede to shrine kills 10
An official said a stampede during a religious ceremony has left at least 10 people dead. Senior police officer Rajesh Vyas said the stampede occurred early yesterday when a large number of people surged forward to gain entry into a Muslim shrine, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Vyas said some pilgrims fell down and were crushed to death. The shrine is near Ratlam, a town in Madhya Pradesh State, about 760km southwest of New Delhi. Police in the region could not be immediately reached for details. Deadly stampedes are relatively common at religious places in the country, where large crowds gather in tiny areas with no safety measures or crowd control.
HONG KONG
Pawnshop fights for gem
A pawnshop that bought a 16-carat yellow diamond is fighting to keep the gem after London jewelers claimed it was stolen from them five years ago, a report said yesterday. The diamond was reportedly snatched from ultra high-end jeweler Graff Diamonds in 2007 after two Bentley-driving robbers pretending to be shoppers raided the shop and got away with a haul worth US$20 million. Its origin was discovered when the Yau On Pawn Shop sent it to a New York gem-grading laboratory for certification, according to the South China Morning Post, prompting a lawsuit from Graff seeking its return. Danny Hung, a director at the pawnshop, told the paper that Yau On paid HK$3 million (US$386,000) for the diamond in November 2010. He said it was bought from a private seller who he described only as a Chinese national.
FRANCE
Airline passenger paid off
A court on Friday ordered Air France to pay 146,000 euros (US$186,000) to compensate a passenger who said he was served poisoned coffee on a domestic flight in 2006. The court ordered the carrier to pay 46,000 euros to the man and 100,000 euros to the health insurer that has been covering his costs after he said he was poisoned with drain cleaner on the Bordeaux to Paris flight. Marc-Fredaine Niazaire was taken ill during the flight and hospitalized on landing. He was operated on for a problem with his esophagus and sued Air France for poisoning him with a “seriously toxic liquid” used to clear drains. A criminal enquiry concluded in 2010 that there was nothing to prosecute, after which Niazaire launched a civil case seeking 680,000 euros in damages. “The symptoms arose at the same time as Mr Niazaire ingested a coffee and biscuit. They appeared suddenly,” the court ruling said, adding that Niazaire had never previously been treated for stomach problems. An Air France spokeswoman said the company would study the ruling and decide whether to appeal.
UNITED STATES
Rabbits stolen from class
More than a dozen rabbits that were reported stolen the night before a rabbit-cooking class have turned up at an adoption agency in Portland, Oregon. The rabbits were returned to farmer Levi Cole after 17 of them disappeared on Jan. 7. Cole reported the theft on the night before he taught a class on raising, slaughtering and cooking rabbits. Cole said he believed political motivation was behind the theft, although police have no suspects. The rabbits were found at adoption agency Rabbit Advocates, and one had been adopted by the time police arrived. Rabbit Advocates did not return a call on Friday. Portland Meat Collective owner Camas Davis says it was the first time this had happened to the group.
UNITED STATES
Spacecraft set to re-enter
A stranded Russian science satellite, loaded with rocket fuel for a round-trip mission to Mars, is expected to plunge back to Earth today, but officials said on Friday they do not know when or where it will hit. The spacecraft was designed to retrieve soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos, but it became stuck in Earth’s orbit after a botched launch on Nov. 8. Since then, the spacecraft has slowly been losing altitude due to gravity’s pull. The 12.7 tonne spacecraft, which includes about 10 tonnes of toxic rocket fuel, is expected to re-enter the atmosphere today or tomorrow, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said in a statement on Friday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Man jailed for burial plot
A Polish man was jailed for 20 years on Friday for trying to kill his girlfriend by burying her alive, in what the judge said would have been a “long and slow” death. Marcin Kasprzak, 26, attacked Michelina Lewandowska, 27, with a Taser stun gun at their home in Huddersfield, northern England, on May 28 last year, before binding and gagging her and burying her in a box in nearby woodland. Lewandowska, who is also Polish and the mother of Kasprzak’s child, only escaped after cutting herself free with her engagement ring. She dug herself out of the shallow grave, which was covered in dirt and a tree branch, and flagged down a passing motorist.
UNITED STATES
Accident-prone officer probed
A Massachusetts police officer who arrested President Barack Obama’s uncle on drunken-driving charges has had nine on-duty accidents during his 15 years on the force. Framingham officer Val Krishtal said he arrested Onyango Obama in August after he failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign and nearly caused the officer’s cruiser to crash into his vehicle. Obama’s lawyer said he is reviewing the officer’s driving record to see if there’s a pattern of bad driving he can use in Obama’s defense. Obama is the half-brother of the president’s late father.
UNITED KINGDOM
Dalziel, Pascoe writer dies
A literary association says crime writer Reginald Hill, famed for his Dalziel and Pascoe series of detective novels, has died. He was 75. The Crime Writers’ Association said on Friday that Hill, awarded a lifetime contribution award by the organization in 1995, had died following a struggle with cancer. Hill, the author of more than 40 books, first worked as a teacher until the publication of his first novel A Clubbable Woman in 1970. His work came to international attention when his Dalziel and Pascoe series was dramatized for television by the BBC from 1996.
UNITED KINGDOM
Site creator faces extradition
A judge in Britain has ruled that a student accused of setting up a Web site that gave people access to films and TV shows for free can be extradited to the US to face copyright violations. Richard O’Dwyer is alleged to have earned thousands of dollars through advertising on the Web site. O’Dwyer’s lawyer, Ben Cooper, said on Friday that the site — TVShack— did not store copyrighted material itself, but pointed users to other sites. Cooper claims his 23-year-old client is being used as a “guinea pig” to test copyright law in the US. However, District Judge Quentin Purdy ruled at Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the extradition could go ahead.
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
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