INDIA
Tea to be national drink
The country is to declare tea as its national drink to celebrate the life of a pioneering tea-planter who was hanged by British colonial rulers for taking part in the rebellion of 1857. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Saturday announced the decision while on a visit to Assam, the tea-producing northeastern state that borders on Bhutan and Bangladesh. Assam was the home state of Maniram Dewan, who is celebrated for introducing commercial tea production to the region and for his role in a plot to throw the British out of Assam during the 1857 mutiny. The uprising, which is often called the Sepoy Mutiny, started in Meerut, a city close to New Delhi, and spread across the north before being brutally crushed by British forces with many Indian soldiers and civilians killed. “The drink would be accorded national drink status by April 17 next year to coincide with the 212th birth anniversary of first Assamese tea-planter and Sepoy Mutiny leader Maniram Dewan,” Ahluwalia said. He added that tea should also be celebrated as “half of the tea industry labor comprises women and is the largest employer in the organized sector.”
CHINA
Mayor torches factory
A mayor in the north has been arrested on suspicion of ordering the torching of a factory that made gelatin capsules illegally from industrial waste. State broadcaster CCTV said yesterday that Song Jiangxin had been found to have made a telephone call ordering that the factory in Hebei Province be set ablaze and all records destroyed. Song’s brother owns the factory. The scandal is the latest to rock the country’s pharmaceutical industry, which sufferers from abundant fakery and substandard ingredients. Another 23 people in the east have also been arrested on suspicion of using the Hebei factory’s capsules, which contain dangerous levels of the chemical chromium.
YEMEN
French official kidnapped
A French official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was kidnapped by armed men on Saturday while traveling from the north to the Red Sea port city of Hudaida, the ICRC said. Dibeh Fakhr, an ICRC spokeswoman in Sana’a, said the man who works in the northern city of Saada was kidnapped late on Saturday about 30km from Hudaida. “He was with two Yemeni drivers who the kidnappers released shortly afterward,” Fakhr said. “Until now we have no contact with the kidnappers or our employee.” It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the kidnapping, but seizing foreigners or Yemenis is common in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, and most hostages are freed unharmed.
SOUTH KOREA
Athlete-legislator quits
A South Korean International Olympic Committee (IOC) athlete member and lawmaker-elect has reportedly quit his political party over plagiarism allegations. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that Moon Dae-sung, a gold medalist in taekwondo, left the ruling conservative party on Friday after his university said much of his doctoral thesis plagiarized another person’s work. The 36-year-old Moon was quoted as saying he was sorry for “causing trouble.” He won his first parliamentary seat in recent elections. Moon is not the only IOC member to come under fire for alleged academic cheating. Pal Schmitt resigned as Hungarian president during a plagiarism scandal earlier this month.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Fraudster extradited to UK
Police on Saturday said that fugitive multimillionaire fraudster Michael Brown had been flown to Spain, from where he would be turned over to British officials. Brown was arrested in January in the tourist town of Punta Cana. Police said he had been living in the country under the name Darren Nally. Brown is accused of duping four clients out of US$62 million. He was sentenced in absentia to seven years in jail in 2008 after being convicted of fraud. Police said he was also charged with defrauding people in Punta Cana, but the alleged victims dropped their complaints so he could be extradited.
CANADA
Montreal protesters arrested
Police arrested dozens of protesters in Montreal on Saturday, a day after violent clashes between officers and demonstrators denouncing a plan to develop northern Quebec. Several hundred people gathered about midday outside the Palais des Congres conference center, which is hosting a conference on Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s plan for mining in the north. Police dispersed the protesters and then declared their protest illegal. Montreal police spokesman Daniel Lacoursiere said 90 people were arrested. A major protest bringing together environmentalists, students and opponents of the development plan was scheduled for yesterday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Robin Gibb out of coma
Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb has woken from a coma more than a week after he lost consciousness, the BBC reported on Saturday. Gibb, 62, has begun to show signs of recovery and has been able to nod and communicate with his family, spokesman Doug Wright was quoted as saying by the BBC. Wright could not be immediately reached to confirm the report. The singer contracted pneumonia and fell into a coma at a central London hospital earlier this month. He had been receiving treatment for colon and liver cancer.
NETHERLANDS
Trains collide in Amsterdam
Two passenger trains collided head-on near an Amsterdam park, injuring scores of people. National Police Corps spokesman Ed Kraszewski told Amsterdam local news network AT5 that about 70 people had minor injuries and 42 were “seriously or very seriously injured” in Saturday’s crash. Although the damage did not appear too severe from the outside, Kraszewski said the carriages on one of the trains were spacious and that might have led to injuries. It was not immediately clear how the two trains ended up traveling toward one another on the same track. Kraszewski said the cause of the crash would be investigated.
MOROCCO
High speed rail defended
Minister of Equipment and Transport Abdelaziz Rebbah has for the first time defended a US$3 billion high speed rail project from critics who call it wasteful. At a press conference on Saturday, Rebbah said the high speed train line would be “one of the best ways to improve the nation’s competitiveness.” The press conference was held one day after the minister walked out of a debate on the project, calling its critics insulting. Inaugurated by King Mohammed VI and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in September last year, the new line will stretch from the port of Tangiers to the commercial capital of Casablanca, 300km away. Critics have dismissed it as a vanity project and said the money would be better spent developing existing rail lines and focusing on flagging health and education.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number