INDIA
French woman murdered
A French woman has been found murdered in a New Delhi guesthouse located in a rundown district popular with backpackers in the heart of the capital, police said on Saturday. New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said he could not immediately release the woman’s identity. The woman was aged between 25 and 30, the media reports said. The victim’s body was found in “a highly decomposed state” in the guest house in Paharganj, Bhagat said. It was found in a room that had been booked by a handicraft trader who has since disappeared, Bhagat said. The woman had checked into another hotel in the same district on March 30 and her visa was due to expire on April 10, the Hindu newspaper said.
CHINA
Bus crash kills 14, injures 11
State media say a bus veered off a highway and into a ditch in the northeast, killing 14 of the 25 people on board. Xinhua news agency said in a brief report yesterday that 11 people were hospitalized after the accident on Saturday afternoon in the coastal city of Dalian. Xinhua said the cause of the crash was being investigated.
CHINA
Turkish PM begins visit
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was leaving on Saturday for the first official visit to the country by a Turkish prime minister in 27 years, an aide from his office said. Erdogan will first make a stopover in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, the aide said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity. A predominantly Muslim country, Turkey shares linguistic and religious links with the Uighur community, which has several associations here. Ankara accepts the country’s sovereignty over Xinjiang, but heavily criticized the 2009 violence in the region, denouncing what it described as “atrocities.” The aide said Erdogan would continue his tour with visits to Beijing and Shanghai.
PHILIPPINES
Romanian found dead
A Romanian university student has been found dead three days after he went missing while swimming at a popular waterfall in the north. Regional civil defense chief Olive Luces said the body of George Sfintes was found floating on Saturday in the pool of the Tappiya Falls in Ifugao province’s Banaue Township. The area is popular with tourists who hike on mountain trails with a famous view of rice terraces. Provincial police chief Laurence Mombael said the 22-year-old Sfintes was with 10 other Western and Japanese visitors. He studied at a Japanese university. He said Sfintes could have strayed too close to the base of the falls and may have drowned after he was sucked into the churning water.
PHILIPPINES
Businessman abducted
Police say suspected militants abducted a businessman in the south in the latest kidnapping by the group. Police Chief Inspector Randell Bueno says seven gunmen seized 62-year-old gas station owner Carlos Ty from his residence late on Saturday in Jolo township on Jolo Island, where the militant Abu Sayyaf group operates. He said the gunmen escaped on a vehicle similar to one used by Abu Sayyaf in previous kidnappings. Police are in pursuit of the gunmen in a mountainous area in Indanan township. Abu Sayyaf is notorious for kidnappings, beheadings and bombings and is on the US list of terrorist groups. The group is believed to be holding Australian, Malaysian, Japanese and Indian nationals in their jungle hideouts in the south.
UNITED KINGDOM
Chinese artifacts stolen
Two Chinese artifacts with an estimated combined value of £2 million (US$3.2 million) have been stolen from a museum, authorities said on Saturday. Two men and a woman from the West Midlands area have been arrested in connection with the Thursday night theft at Durham University’s Oriental Museum, but the items had not yet been recovered, police said. The northern England-based university confirmed that two “priceless” artifacts were stolen when thieves broke into a ground-floor gallery at the museum: a large jade bowl with a Chinese poem written inside that dates back to 1769, and a Dehua porcelain sculpture.
UNITED KINGDOM
Anonymous attacks site
The Home Office said on Saturday it was investigating reports that hacking group Anonymous had attacked its Web site over the government’s plans to boost Internet surveillance. Visitors to the ministry’s home page were greeted with a message saying the service was unavailable because of a high volume of traffic, after Twitter accounts purportedly linked to the hacking group called for it to be targeted. A message on the Anonymous Operations account on Twitter read: “TANGO DOWN — http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk For your draconian surveillance proposals! Told you to #ExpectUs!” The claim was repeated on the Anonymous UK account.
RUSSIA
Missing yacht makes contact
A Russian-Ukrainian sailing crew that went missing on a historic expedition around the South Pole is alive and made contact on Saturday as it battled through Antarctic ice with its fuel running low. The ambitious eight-strong team on the Scorpius yacht did not make contact earlier this week as gale-force winds slowed its progress. However, the captain said in an e-mail that the crew was in good health, the expedition’s spokeswoman Anna Subbotina said. “The ice conditions were very severe, and currently they are going toward the mainland because they are running out of fuel and other supplies,” she said. The 29m yacht was cut off from communication for several days after water damaged its satellite antennae during a storm on the way to Deception Island.
UNITED STATES
Seven hurt in ‘mishap’
Seven people were hospitalized with minor injuries after a British Chinook helicopter suffered a “mishap” on Saturday during a landing exercise in the Arizona desert, a military spokeswoman said. The crew was practicing how to land the aircraft 24km northeast of Yuma, Arizona, when “something went wrong,” said Michelle Dee, a spokeswoman for Naval Air Facility El Centro in California. The people aboard the Chinook had non-life-threatening injuries and were sent to the hospital for evaluations as a precaution, Dee said.
UNITED STATES
Newton released from jail
Authorities say Australian actor Matthew Newton has been released from a Miami jail following a weekend arrest. A Miami-Dade County jail official says the 35-year-old Newton was arrested on Friday evening on charges of resisting police and trespassing on property after a warning. He was released on Saturday evening on US$2,000 bond. In 2010, Australian Transformers actress Rachael Taylor took out a restraining order against then-boyfriend Newton, accusing him of violently assaulting her while the couple were in Rome. He was dropped as host of a new Australian talent series.
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
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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