NEW ZEALAND
Four dead after boat sinks
Four people were confirmed dead and grave fears were held for another four missing after a fishing boat capsized in rough seas off South Island, police said yesterday. Police said one survivor was plucked from the sea and four bodies had been recovered after the accident in the notorious Foveaux Strait, but the situation “appears bleak” for those missing. They said a seven-year-old child was among those still unaccounted for. The boat, Easy Rider, set off from the town of Bluff on Wednesday evening and hit trouble in the early hours of Thursday. They said the rescued crew member, who was winched aboard a helicopter after spending 18 hours in the chilly water, reported that a freak wave hit the vessel and sank it almost immediately.
AUSTRALIA
US Marines worry neighbors
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said yesterday the stationing of US Marines in Australia needed to be better explained to all countries in Asia to avoid “mistrust.” In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Natalegawa also called on Australia to “wage aggressive peace” in the region and accept that the rise of China was natural and not threatening. The US announced in November a plan to station about 2,500 marines in remote Darwin by 2016 or 2017, which was seen by some as an acknowledgement of Washington’s concern about China’s growing assertiveness. Natalegawa said he understood the deployment of marines was not directed at Indonesia “but unless [understanding] is properly disseminated, it could create mistrust among others.”
PHILIPPINES
Army attacks bomb-makers
The military says one soldier was killed and three wounded following an army attack on a militant bomb-making camp in a southern island province. Basilan Province army commander Colonel Ricardo Visaya says the elite Scout Rangers assaulted the camp of the Abu Sayyaf group on Thursday, but that two militant leaders were able to escape. The wanted militants, Khair Mundos and Puriji Indama, were among about 40 rebels who trained in bomb-making.
CHINA
Mining accident kills 13
Thirteen people died after a capsule plunged into a pit at an iron ore mine in eastern Shandong Province on Thursday, official state media reported. The accident happened at the Shimen mine in the city of Linyi, Xinhua news agency said, quoting local authorities. A search had been completed and 13 people were confirmed dead, said a provincial government official, according to the report. Initial investigations suggested the capsule fell after a steel rope broke, the official said.
VIETNAM
PRC oil bid stokes tensions
Vietnam has accused China of violating its sovereignty in the latest spat between the communist neighbors over disputed islands in the South China Sea. Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement yesterday that a Chinese oil company has recently opened bidding for oil exploration near the Paracel Islands (西沙群島), while earlier this month China conducted live firing exercises near the island and planned to expand tourism there. Taiwan, China and Vietnam all claim sovereignty over the islands. The statement quoted Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi as saying Chinese actions “seriously violate Vietnam’s sovereignty ... and international laws.”
SWEDEN
Norwegian plane missing
A Norwegian military transport plane with five people on board went missing on Thursday on a trip from Evenas in northern Norway to Kiruna in Sweden, emergency services said on Thursday. Swedish sea and air rescue officials said they lost contact with the aircraft, which was taking part in a NATO exercise, at 1:45pm. Helicopter searches for the missing aircraft were being hampered by bad weather in the remote region, Jonas Sundin at the joint rescue coordination center said. No signal had been picked up from the emergency beacon on the missing plane, a four-engine Lockheed C-130J Hercules military transport.
CAMEROON
Women reject gay charges
Two women on trial for homosexuality pleaded not guilty on Thursday, as their lawyers sought an annulment of the trial over alleged rights abuses. “Not guilty,” said Esther, 29, and Martine, 26, whose full names are being withheld to protect them in a country where homosexuality is illegal. The two are charged with “having intercourse with a person of the same sex.” Their lawyer, gay activist Alice Nkom, asked the court in Ambam to annul the case as investigators had failed to inform her clients of their right to legal counsel or to remain silent. “Since this case began, we have been the laughingstock of our town. We are being treated as witches,” Esther said on leaving the courtroom.
ITALY
Court backs gay rights
The nation’s highest civil court on Thursday opened the way for homosexuals to have the same rights as heterosexual married couples, but it upheld a ban on gay marriages and said those celebrated abroad were not valid. In a ruling welcomed by gay rights groups, the court said that homosexuals have the right to “a family life” and, “in specific situations,” to “be treated the same as couples married by law.” However, homosexuals still cannot legally marry and “do not have the right to register a marriage celebrated abroad,” it said. The court was ruling on the case of a homosexual couple who were married in 2002 in The Hague and had tried unsuccessfully to register their marriage in Latina, near Rome.
AFGHANISTAN
Five troops killed in crash
A helicopter yesterday crashed into a house on the outskirts of Kabul, killing five Turkish soldiers on board, a senior police official said. “The helicopter crashed into a house in Bagrami District of Kabul due to technical problems and policemen have taken out five bodies who are Turkish nationals,” the officer said. There was no immediate comment on the crash from NATO or from Turkey, which has more than 1,800 soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
SWAZILAND
Finance minister faces jail
Parliamentary speaker Gelane Zwane on Wednesday threatened Minister of Finance Majozi Sithole with arrest as lawmakers fumed over a move to cut their salaries by 10 percent without their consent. Zwane produced a copy of a warrant for Sithole’s arrest during a debate on the pay cut during which the minister stormed out. Zwane said all arrangements were in place to have the minister placed behind bars, but that a formal request to implement the warrant had yet to be made to King Mswati III. Sithole’s exact whereabouts are not known after his walkout, with acting prime minister Senator Themba Masuku saying he had ordered police to find him.
UNITED STATES
Boy tries to chauffeur sister
An eight-year-old boy made sure he and his five-year-old sister buckled up before heading out on a middle-of-the-night drive in their mother’s minivan, but they didn’t get far. The boy, who couldn’t even see above the steering wheel, made it just about 100m before crashing the vehicle into a line of trees in Utah. No one was injured and the children were returned to a stunned mother who awoke to police officers in her apartment at about 2am on Thursday, authorities said. Ogden police Lieutenant Danielle Croyle said there was no previous history with the woman or her children and neglect was not an issue. She called it an accident and said no charges were pending. The young boy told police that his sister wanted to go to the store, so he grabbed the keys and headed out.
UNITED STATES
Family sues over lift death
The estate of an 81-year-old man who died after falling off a wheelchair lift at the Jell-O Museum in western New York has filed a lawsuit. Rochester media outlets report that the lawsuit filed in federal court in Rochester earlier this week by Frank LaMont Jr’s estate names the defendants as the US government, the Le Roy Historical Society, which owns the museum, and the companies that serviced, sold and installed the lift. LaMont was living at the Canandaigua Veterans Affairs Medical Center in October 2010 when he visited the museum. LaMont was fatally injured when the scooter he was sitting on rolled through the back door of the museum’s wheelchair lift.
MEXICO
‘The Hummer’ sentenced
A judge has sentenced a founding member of the Zetas drug cartel to 35 years in prison on organized crime and kidnapping counts. Zetas lieutenant Jaime Gonzalez Duran was known as “The Hummer” before he was arrested in the northern city of Reynosa in 2008. Prosecutors had called the army deserter one of the country’s most dangerous criminal suspects. The Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on Thursday that Gonzalez Duran had previously been sentenced to 16-and-a-half years for money laundering and another 21 years for weapons possession.
UNITED STATES
Blagojevich begins sentence
Ousted Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich reported to prison on Thursday to serve a 14-year sentence for trying to auction off President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat and a host of other corruption charges. The Democratic governor was arrested in the midst of what prosecutors called “a political corruption crime spree” just weeks after Obama’s historic November 2008 election. Blagojevich, 55, was convicted of 17 corruption counts in June after his first trial resulted in a hung jury on all but one of the charges. Reporters camped outside his home early on Thursday and followed Blagojevich to the airport, onto a plane and then all the way to the door of his federal prison in Colorado, capturing his walk of shame from hovering helicopters.
VENEZUELA
Troops target drug trafficking
The defense minister said the military will deploy about 15,000 soldiers to regions along the country’s borders in order to combat armed groups and drug trafficking. General Henry Rangel Silva told the state-run Venezuelan News Agency that the troops will spread out along the country’s borders with Colombia, Brazil and Guyana in an operation aimed at boosting security.
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
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
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