PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Hundreds rescued from ship
About 100 people are feared trapped inside a ferry that sank in rough weather on Thursday off the country’s northeast coast with about 350 people on board, a rescue official said yesterday. Rescuers plucked 246 people from the sea after the MV Rabaul Queen was hit by three large waves and quickly sank, Rony Naigu, a rescue official from the maritime safety authority, said yesterday. He said about 100 people were thought to have been trapped inside. Naigu, who spent Thursday at the scene, said survivors told how the ferry rolled and sank in deep water after it was hit by waves.
JAPAN
Chinese skipper sentenced
The skipper of a Chinese fishing boat, arrested and tried in Nagasaki for operating illegally in Japanese waters, has been given a suspended six-month jail term, a local official said yesterday. Nagasaki District Court sentenced Zhong Jinyin (鍾進音), 39, to six months imprisonment, suspended for three years, and ordered him to pay a fine of ¥1 million (US$13,000) in the ruling given on Tuesday, the official said. Zhong paid the fine on the day of the ruling, the official said. It was not not immediately clear whether Zhong remained in Japan or returned to China. The fisherman was arrested on Dec. 20 near islands off southwest Japan.
INDIA
Train hits bulldozer, derails
A railway official said a train hit a bulldozer and derailed in Assam State, killing three passengers. S. Hajong said at least 16 people were injured when nine coaches of the train derailed after the crash at an unmanned crossing. The bulldozer got stuck while crossing the track, Hajong said yesterday. Local villagers and police pulled all the passengers from the derailed cars. The injured were taken to hospitals in nearby Gauhati, Assam’s capital.
NEW ZEALAND
Megaupload appeal fails
A court refused an appeal by the founder of online file-sharing site Megaupload.com to be freed on bail yesterday, agreeing with prosecutors there was a risk he would attempt to flee before an extradition hearing. Kim Dotcom, a German national also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, was returned to custody until Feb. 22 ahead of a hearing on an extradition application by the US. Prosecutors say Dotcom was the leader of a group that has netted US$175 million since 2005 by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization. Dotcom’s lawyers say the company simply offered online storage and that he strenuously denies the charges and will fight extradition.
PHILIPPINES
Jolo battle continues
Troops battled Muslim extremists on a remote southern island yesterday where a day earlier three of Southeast Asia’s top terror suspects were killed in a US-backed air strike, the army said. Soldiers who approached the bombed area on the outskirts of a small village on Jolo island after the raid faced dogged resistance from surviving militants, regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said. “There is intermittent fire, the area is not yet secured,” Cabangbang told GMA television in a telephone interview. The troops had moved into the scene of the strike in an effort to retrieve the bodies of the three senior militants who were killed, as well as to take on the others who survived Thursday’s aerial assault.
UNITED STATES
Investigation nears end
Attorney General Eric Holder said the Department of Justice is preparing to close investigations into the deaths of two detainees while in CIA custody. It would mark the final chapter in a controversial review by the administration of President Barack Obama into treatment of terrorism suspects during the administration of former US president George W. Bush. Federal prosecutor John Durham has been looking at the deaths of Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi. Rahman died after being shackled to a concrete wall in a secret CIA prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, while al-Jamadi died in 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
CANADA
Child porn charges laid
Sixty people in Ontario province have been charged with child pornography offenses involving at least 22 boys and girls, police said on Thursday. The accused, who include three minors, appeared to be acting alone mostly through Internet “game and social networking sites,” and not as part of an organized child pornography ring, police said. The accused face a total of 213 charges for sexual assault, child luring, making child pornography, possession and distribution of child pornography and accessing the illicit videos.
UNITED STATES
Police link murder cases
A former Marine charged with killing four homeless men in Southern California has been linked to the stabbing deaths of a woman and her son, Anaheim police said on Thursday. Investigators determined there is an association between the former Marine, Itzcoatl Ocampo, and Eder Herrera, who is charged in the deaths of his mother and his brother, and remains in custody, police Lieutenant Julian Harvey said. Raquel Estrada and her son, Juan Herrera, were killed in October in Yorba Linda, less than 3.2km from Ocampo’s home. Eder Herrera, 24, is charged with stabbing his mother and brother to death before fleeing to a friend’s house. He was arrested the next day as he drove from the house, where he claimed he spent the night. Detectives said on Wednesday that they saw similarities in the cases of the Yorba Linda deaths and the stabbings of four homeless men in December and last month.
UNITED STATES
Fake Facebook stock sold
An Oshkosh, Wisconsin, woman has been charged with theft over accusations she tried to profit from Facebook’s much-anticipated plans to go public by selling fake stock in the social media giant. In a criminal complaint on Thursday, prosecutors said Marianne Oleson told acquaintances she obtained US$1 million in stock because her daughter was an acquaintance of Facebook’s founder and persuaded several people to buy fictitious Facebook stock over a four-month period. The woman was charged with 31 counts of theft, forgery and making misleading statements. Facebook unveiled plans on Wednesday for the biggest-ever Internet initial public offering.
UNITED STATES
Military trial delayed
The military trial of a former army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at a Texas military base will be postponed until June 12, a judge ruled on Thursday. Major Nidal Hasan, who faces a possible death penalty if convicted, is accused of opening fire at the Fort Hood army base on Nov. 5, 2009, in an attack that killed 12 soldiers and a civilian, and wounded 32 others. His trial was set for March 5, but defense attorneys said they needed more time.
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