CHINA
Miners die in flooding
Flooding in two coal mines has killed at least 15 miners. State television and the Xinhua news agency reported at least 10 miners were killed in a mine in Shanxi Province. The fate of one missing miner was unknown following the flood on Friday morning. Yesterday’s reports said at least five miners were killed in an unrelated underground flood in a mine on Saturday in Henan Province. Xinhua said an unknown number of other miners might be missing.
VIETNAM
Officer takes wild bus ride
A traffic cop was taken on a wild ride in Hanoi, clinging to the windshield wipers of a moving bus for nearly 1km after the rogue driver tried to avoid a ticket, police said on Friday. Traffic police Second Lieutenant Nguyen Manh Phan ordered the bus driver to pull over the 39-seat passenger coach on Monday last week, a police officer in Ba Vi District outside Hanoi said. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy. The driver allegedly refused to show his paperwork and drove off — but not before Phan leaped onto the front, he said. The officer said the bus reached a top speed of about 50kph. A video shot by one of Phan’s fellow police officers shows the officer trying to get his footing and dangling precariously from the moving bus as oncoming traffic whizzes past. Phan can be heard yelling: “Call the police!” The driver, Phung Hong Phuong, eventually pulled over after being chased by police and residents. Even with the bus stopped, Phan stood calmly in front of it, still hanging on to the wipers. Phuong was arrested for allegedly acting against public officials, an offense that carries a maximum three-year prison sentence, the officer said. He previously served nearly four years in prison for a fatal traffic accident, and was released in 2010.
PHILIPPINES
Cockfight grenade kills three
A grenade explosion inside a cockfighting arena in restive southern North Cotabato province in the south has killed three spectators and wounded 33 others. Police said a man tossed the grenade in the crowded arena during a town fiesta on Saturday. Muslim rebels and criminal syndicates are active in the area, but regional military commander Colonel Leopoldo Galon said the explosion was believed to have been triggered by a personal feud.
INDONESIA
Terrorist suspects arrested
Police in an eastern province have arrested two suspected terrorists allegedly involved in bank robberies to fund their activities, the national police spokesman said yesterday. “They were riding a motorcycle on a street when an anti-terror police squad arrested them on Friday” in the town of Bima in West Nusa Tenggara Province, Saud Usman Nasution said. He said the suspects were part of a terror group that killed a police officer in a 2010 bank robbery in the north Sumatra town of Medan, allegedly to fund terrorist activities.
INDONESIA
Quake strikes Sunda Strait
A magnitude 5.9 quake struck the Sunda Strait early yesterday, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage. The quake struck at 2:26am at a depth of about 50k. The USGS reported the epicenter was more than 170km west of Jakarta. Two massive earthquakes struck off Sumatra Island last week, triggering an Indian Ocean-wide tsunami alert and sending terrified people fleeing from the coast.
SOUTH SUDAN
Disputed town bombarded
Sudanese planes bombarded a disputed oil town near the border on Saturday, a military official said. Colonel Philip Aguer said villages near the disputed oil town of Heglig fell under heavy aerial bombardment and that he expected ground fighting to resume “anytime” soon. Aguer said Juba’s forces did not plan to give up the town, which lies along the ill-defined border between the two countries. “As we speak now, the SPLA is still in full control of Heglig,” Aguer said, using the acronym for the army. “There are many villages that are being bombed ... The Sudanese Armed Forces are conducting indiscriminate air bombardment by Antonov jetfighters, indiscriminate bombing of Heglig, bombing of oil installments. They are bombing SPLA positions by long-range artillery.”
SPAIN
King mending from surgery
King Juan Carlos was recovering from urgent surgery to replace his hip on Saturday after he fractured it in a fall during a visit to Botswana. The 74-year-old king was moving his leg again after a surgeon replaced the arthritic right hip that he had broken in the fall, the hospital that treated him said. Media said the king had been hunting big game in the southern African country, a popular elephant-shooting destination. The royal palace would not confirm this, saying only that the trip was a private one.
UNITED STATES
Suspect denies hating blacks
One of two white Oklahoma men charged with murder and hate crimes over accusations of shooting dead three black people and wounding two said in an interview from jail on Saturday that he felt no hatred or ill-will toward African Americans. Prosecutors brought murder and hate crime charges on Friday against 19-year-old Jake England, who was arrested with Alvin Watts, 33. England’s attorney, Clark Brewster, released a seven-minute jailhouse interview with his client on Saturday that was posted online by Tulsa’s NewsOn6.com. England said he counted African Americans among his best friends and denied feeling any hatred or ill will toward blacks. “No I don’t. Because the line of work that I was in and the place I lived, we always had to get along with everybody. It didn’t matter what color you was [sic],” he said.
MEXICO
Whale helped back to sea
Volunteers and navy personnel returned a 12 tonne whale to the sea after it became stranded on a beach near the southwestern city of Oaxaca, officials said on Saturday. About 150 volunteers worked with more than 40 marines for 12 hours on Friday on the Pacific Coast beach to keep the whale alive and maneuver it back into the water. The marines used two patrol boats, a smaller boat and vehicles to move the whale off the beach and back into the ocean. The 9m whale suffered injuries to its right flipper, apparently from lying on its side on the beach, the navy statement said.
UNITED STATES
Tom Petty guitars stolen
Five guitars belonging to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have been stolen from a Southern California soundstage where the band has been rehearsing for an upcoming tour. Culver City Police Sergeant Dan Sukal said the theft at The Culver Studios was reported on Thursday. On its Web site, the band offered a “no questions asked” US$7,500 reward for information leading to the return of the instruments. Their tour begins on Wednesday in Broomfield, Colorado.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in