SOUTH KOREA
Plane grounded by threat
A Korean Air passenger jet made an emergency landing at a Canadian military airbase after a call center in the US received a threat by telephone late on Tuesday, the airline said. Korean Air flight 72, which was en route to South Korean capital Seoul, diverted to the Comox base on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, soon after takeoff from Vancouver, the airline said in a statement released yesterday in Seoul.
AUSTRALIA
Mom runs across desert
A 51-year-old mother said yesterday she felt “fantastic,” but tired, after becoming the first woman to run across the Simpson Desert, enduring searing temperatures on the 660km journey. Intensive care nurse Jane Trumper had attempted the run last year, only to be stopped at 352km by bushfires. Trumper said the relentless desert heat had been difficult on the run, which began at the geographical center of the country in the Northern Territory, detoured through South Australia and ended in Birdsville, southwest Queensland. “It was 45 degrees [Celsius] on the first day and I really had doubts about whether I would absolutely get this thing done,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
PHILIPPINES
Extortionists bomb bus
Suspected extortionists bombed a bus in the south yesterday, killing two passengers and wounding five others, the military said. The military initially reported 10 dead, but regional commander Lieutenant Colonel Benjie Hao later revised the death toll. The bomb went off on the bus as it pulled into a terminal in Carmen town in North Cotabato province, said another military officer, Colonel Leopoldo Galon. He said that extortion gangs linked to Muslim rebels have been suspected in previous attacks targeting bus companies in the region.
JAPAN
Killer gets life sentence
A court yesterday upheld the life sentence for a man who raped and killed a young British teacher and buried her battered body in a sand-filled bathtub in his apartment. The Tokyo High Court rejected the appeal by Tatsuya Ichihashi, who claimed his life sentence for the 2007 murder of Lindsay Ann Hawker was too harsh. Ichihashi, 32, admitted raping Hawker, but said he killed the 22-year-old accidentally. His appeal had sought a reduction in the life sentence. Prosecutors argued that the killing by Ichihashi — who spent more than two-and-a-half years on the run and underwent plastic surgery to evade capture — was premeditated and the life term was justified. As Judge Yoshinobu Iida said that Ichihashi’s claim that Hawker’s death was accidental was not credible.
NEPAL
Rebels to be integrated
Soldiers arrived yesterday at camps where thousands of former communist rebels have lived for more than five years as the ex-fighters prepared to join the army in a key step in the nation’s peace process. The government’s chief monitor for the former rebels, Balananda Sharma, said army soldiers arrived at all seven main camps and eight satellite camps spread across the country. The former rebel fighters have been living in the camps since 2006, when the Maoists abandoned their 10-year armed revolt and joined a peace process. Most of the former fighters will now be integrated into the army, a key part of a peace process that has been delayed because of disagreements among the major political parties.
HAITI
Senate approves Lamothe
The senate has approved the nomination of Laurent Lamothe as prime minister, a parliamentary source said. Lamothe, who was tapped for the position by President Michel Martelly after the resignation of Gary Conille in February, must still win the approval of the Chamber of Deputies. The senate vote was held late on Tuesday after a long debate and was announced by Senate President Simon Dieuseul Desras. Lamothe’s candidacy was approved 19-3, with one abstention. However, Lamothe’s appointment and the formation of a new government could still take months, as Martelly does not have a majority in parliament.
CANADA
‘Eco-terrorist’ Ludwig dies
Wiebo Ludwig, a so-called eco-terrorist known for acts of sabotage against the nation’s oil and gas industry, died of cancer of the esophagus on Monday at his rural home in Alberta, local media said. He was 70 years old. The former pastor waged a decades-long battle against the oil and gas industry, which he accused of poisoning his family and livestock and of polluting the environment near his 325 hectares farm in Hythe, Alberta. He was convicted in 2000 of bombing and vandalizing several oil and gas wells in northwestern Alberta, but was released from prison after serving two-thirds of a 28-month sentence.
VENEZUELA
Makled challenges charges
Top drug trafficking suspect Walid Makled plans to challenge charges of money laundering, drug smuggling and murder in his trial, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Attorney Rafael Ojeda said Makled would plead not guilty and his defense team would prove their client’s innocence by presenting approximately 200 documents and witnesses during the trial, which began on Monday. Makled was captured in Colombia in 2010 and extradited to Venezuela last year. While under arrest in Colombia, he caused a stir when he told a TV channel that he made monthly million-dollar payments to a group of more than 40 Venezuelan government officials and military officers.
VENEZUELA
Costa Rican envoy freed
A diplomat from the Costa Rican embassy was freed by his captors after a kidnapping ordeal that lasted more than a day, and the government said it was reinforcing security for diplomats in the country. Guillermo Cholele, the trade attache for the Costa Rican embassy, appeared on state TV on Tuesday thanking authorities for their work hours after his abductors released him. He also publicly thanked his captors for “returning me alive.” Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said that no ransom was paid and that Cholele was in good health after being picked up by police in a town south of Caracas. He added that “police pressure” led the abductors to free him.
ARGENTINA
Baby alive in morgue
A woman who insisted on seeing the presumably lifeless body of her premature baby found the infant alive in the drawer of a hospital morgue. Authorities say the girl had spent 12 hours in the refrigerated room at the Perrando de Resistencia hospital. Analia Bouter told Todo Noticias television that she thought she was hallucinating when she looked at her infant in the morgue drawer and heard a whimper and saw signs of life. Doctors say the girl is now in good condition. The girl was born on Tuesday last week after just six months of pregnancy, and the hospital issued a death certificate, saying she died of unknown causes, Bouter said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
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