AFGHANISTAN
Avalanche hits two villages
An avalanche struck two remote villages in the northeastern district of Mondol in Nuristan Province yesterday and 45 people were feared trapped in the snow, authorities said. The avalanche hit the villages of Poshan and Ghadoor, provincial spokesperson Mohammad Zareen said. “We are not sure how many died and how many survived,” he said. “There is no rescue team there yet.” Avalanches are common in the mountainous northern provinces, but extremely heavy snowfall this year has resulted in more avalanches than normal. At least 50 people died on March 4 in an avalanche in Badakhshan Province.
GERMANY
Merkel visits Afghanistan
Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Afghanistan for a surprise visit yesterday, with tensions running high a day after a US soldier went on a rampage, killing 16 villagers. Merkel was to visit troops stationed in Masar-i-Sharif in the north of the country, a spokesperson said in Berlin. Merkel last visited Afghanistan in December 2010, to meet soldiers just before Christmas. On that occasion she described the fighting there for the first time as “war.”
CHINA
Woman trains for space
Beijing might send its first woman into space this year after including female astronauts in the team training for its first manned space docking, state media said yesterday. Three astronauts will blast off on board Shenzhou IX between June and August to conduct a manual docking with the Tiangong-1 module currently orbiting the Earth, Xinhua news agency said, quoting an official with the manned space program. A team of astronauts, including an unspecified number of women, are training for the docking mission and the three-person crew will be selected at the last minute, the official said. After the space rendezvous, the astronauts will move temporarily into Tiangong-1, where they will perform scientific experiments.
MALAYSIA
‘Cowgate’ charges leveled
Prosecutors have charged a Cabinet minister’s husband with misusing nearly 50 million ringgit (US$16 million) of funds meant for a government-backed cattle project. The charge escalates a high-profile corruption scandal nicknamed “Cowgate” that could hurt Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition in general elections expected within months. The allegations involve a cattle-farming company managed by the family of Women and Family Minister Shahrizat Abdul Aziz that is said to have used a government loan to purchase condominiums, vacations and a Mercedes. Shahrizat and her family have denied any wrongdoing, but she announced over the weekend that she would relinquish her Cabinet post next month amid mounting public criticism.
SOUTH KOREA
Leader pans nuclear energy
A top opposition leader vowed yesterday to gradually reduce the country’s reliance on nuclear energy if her party gains a majority in next month’s general election. South Korea relies on 20 nuclear reactors to meet about 35 percent of its power needs. The government has vowed to stick to the program despite heightened concern following Japan’s nuclear disaster last year. “I want to see the Fukushima crisis as the last shocking warning for mankind about problems with nuclear power plants,” said Han Myeong-sook, chairperson of the main opposition Democratic United Party.
UNITED STATES
Nobel laureate Rowland dies
F. Sherwood Rowland, the Nobel prize-winning chemist who sounded the alarm on the thinning of the Earth’s ozone layer, died at age 84. Rowland died on Saturday at his home of complications from Parkinson’s disease, the dean of the University of California, Irvine’s physical sciences department said on Sunday. “He saved the world from a major catastrophe: never wavering in his commitment to science, truth and humanity and did so with integrity and grace,” Kenneth Janda said in a statement. Rowland was among three scientists awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for explaining how the ozone layer is formed and decomposed through chemical processes in the atmosphere. The prize was awarded more than two decades after Rowland and post-doctoral student Mario Molina calculated that if human use of chlorofluorocarbons, a byproduct of aerosol sprays, deodorants and other household products, were to continue at an unchanged rate, the ozone layer would be depleted after several decades.
YEMEN
Militants killed in attack
Nine suspected al-Qaeda militants were killed in an artillery attack by the army backed by US drone strikes on their strongholds in the country’s south, a local official said yesterday. Three extremists were killed when US drones fired missiles late on Sunday targeting their weapons hideouts in Jabal Khanfar, a hill overlooking the Abyan town of Jaar, which is controlled by al-Qaeda militants, the official said on condition of anonymity. A large amount of weapons seized by the militants in an attack against the army that left 185 soldiers dead earlier this month were destroyed in the shelling, the official said by telephone from Jaar.
KENYA
Grenade suspects arrested
Police said yesterday they arrested four people in connection with grenade attacks that killed six people in a Nairobi bus terminal on Saturday, which the government blames on supporters of Somalia’s al-Shabaab insurgents. “On the al-Shabaab threats and attacks at the Machakos bus terminus, four highly suspected criminals were arrested and are undergoing intensive interrogation,” Nairobi Provincial Police chief Antony Kibuchi said. The suspects, all of whom are believed to be Kenyan, and three of whom are reportedly minors, were being interrogated by specialized police units, including anti-terrorism officers, a police source said.
SOUTH AFRICA
Malema pleads with ANC
African National Congress (ANC) Youth League rebel Julius Malema pleaded on Sunday for the ruling party not to expel him and made a rare public apology to the movement’s senior leadership, which he has frequently criticized as too moderate in their policies. Malema, 31, confirmed he would appeal against the ANC decision last month to expel him on charges of sowing divisions within its ranks, which he denies. Striking an unusually contrite figure in an interview broadcast on state TV, Malema insisted he had done nothing wrong by calling for nationalization of mines and the seizure of white-owned land. In an interview on the State of Our Nation program, he asked to be allowed to stay on in the ANC, saying membership was “my life” and that he had joined the anti-apartheid movement at the age of nine. “Please leave me with a card because the imagination of being outside the ANC is too scary. I love the ANC, I don’t have anything except the ANC,” Malema said.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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