AFGHANISTAN
Flash flood kills dozens
A flash flood swept through villages in a mountainous area of the north on Friday, killing at least 27 people, authorities said. It was the second major flood reported this week in the north. Abdul Jabar Taqwa, the governor of Takhar Province, said floodwaters broke through a dam early on Friday, washed down a valley and damaged several villages in Ishkamish District. “It was a very powerful flood. It hit around midnight,” Taqwa said. “Dozens of villages have been hit. I’m worried that the death toll will go up.” Rescuers have been trying to reach the site, but vehicles can only be driven to within a six-hour walk of the area, he said.
CHINA
Heavy rains, hail kill 19
Hail and torrential rains pouring down in the northwest have killed 19 people and left 45 others missing. The official Xinhua news agency said on Friday the stormy weather disrupted power and communications, destroyed farmland and a highway in Minxian County of Gansu Province. Xinhua says nearly 2,000 people were evacuated after the storm battered the county on Thursday evening.
NEW ZEALAND
Families want bodies found
The grieving families of 29 men killed in a mine explosion 18 months ago vowed on Friday to fight for the bodies to be returned after the new mine owner revealed no recovery was planned. Solid Energy, which is buying the Pike River Coal mine, said it would not put more lives at risk attempting to bring out the dead men. “The only safe, feasible and credible option for recovering the men’s bodies will be as part of a future commercial mining operation. This will take some years to develop and implement,” Solid Energy chief executive Don Elder said. The families of the miners — 24 New Zealanders, two Australians, two Britons and a South African — were irate after Elder told them there was only a 5 to 10 percent likelihood of a successful recovery.
NEW ZEALAND
PM speaks on gay marriage
US President Barack Obama’s support for same-sex marriage has drawn New Zealand Prime Minister John Key to break his silence on the issue and declare he is also not opposed to gay marriage. However, Key said in a statement on Friday the issue is not on his government’s agenda. “I am not personally opposed to gay marriage,” he said. “It is possible that parliament may consider a member’s bill at some stage, but it is not on the government’s agenda.” When Key was pressed on the issue of gay marriage before the general election last November he fudged his reply saying the government did not see a change as a priority. New Zealand currently allows same-sex civil unions which enjoy the same rights and obligations as a marriage involving opposite-sex couples.
PAKISTAN
Fighter jet crashes
A fighter jet crashed in the south of the country on Friday while on routine training, an air force official said, but the pilot ejected safely and there were no casualties on the ground. The Mirage-V plane took off from the Pakistan Air Force’s Masroor Base in Karachi and crashed near the town of Sonmiani in southwestern Baluchistan Province, air force spokesman Squadron Leader Mohammad Nadeem said. Sonmiani is around 50km west of Karachi. “The pilot ejected successfully and safely,” the spokesman said, adding the cause of the accident would be determined after an investigation.
IRAN
Amnesty defend cartoonist
The reported conviction of a cartoonist to 25 lashes for a caricature of a former lawmaker is the Islamic republic’s latest attack on freedom of expression, Amnesty International said on Friday. Reports by online news outlets last week said cartoonist Mahmoud Shokrayi was handed the sentence for depicting Ahmad Lotfi Ashtiani, a member of parliament for Arak, as a soccer player. Ashtiani, a conservative criticized for interfering in sports, found the cartoon published by a city magazine offensive and took Shokrayi to court, according to the reports which are yet to be confirmed by official media. Amnesty condemned the sentencing as an attack on freedom of expression.
INDIA
Diplomat’s child sues NYC
The teenage daughter of an Indian diplomat who says she was wrongfully arrested for sending threatening e-mails to two of her New York City (NYC) teachers has sued the city for US$1.5 million, claiming civil rights violations. Krittika Biswas, the daughter of the vice-consul in the Consulate-General of India in New York, was arrested and imprisoned for a night last year after gym and calculus teachers at her Queens high school accused her of sending lewd and violent e-mails. The next day, Biswas was suspended from John Bowne High School. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown dropped all charges against Biswas, who was 18 years old at the time, and ordered the records from the case sealed. A spokeswoman for Brown declined to comment because the case is sealed. Biswas has denied sending the messages and her lawyer described the case as one of “mistaken identity.”
VATICAN
Legion abuse probed
The Vatican is investigating seven priests from the troubled Legion of Christ religious order for alleged sexual abuse of minors — evidence that the scandal over the order’s pedophile founder does not rest solely with him. Two other Legion priests are being investigated by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for alleged sacramental violations, believed to involve abusing spiritual direction and other pastoral care to have inappropriate sexual relations with women. The investigations mark the first known Vatican action against Legion priests following the revelations of the Legion’s founder, who was long held up as a model by the Vatican despite credible accusations — later proven — that he was a drug addict who raped and molested his seminarians. The Legion, which is now under Vatican receivership, has insisted that the crimes of the Reverend Marciel Maciel were his alone. However, the Vatican investigation of other Legion priests indicates that the same culture of secrecy that Maciel created within the order to cover his crimes enabled other priests to abuse children.
BRITAIN
Sonic gun to be deployed
The military will be armed with a sonic device that can be used as a high-volume loudspeaker or a non-lethal weapon to disperse crowds at this summer’s Olympic Games in London, the defense ministry said on Friday. The equipment, which can project a piercing sound over hundreds of meters causing physical pain, has been used during protests at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh in 2009 and against pirates operating off the Somalian coast. The Ministry of Defence said it expected to use it primarily in loudspeaker mode to communicate with boats it wants to stop on the River Thames.
MEXICO
Newspaper building shot at
An official in the north says a group of gunmen opened fire on a newspaper building in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. Tamaulipas state Secretary-General Morelos Canseco said no one was injured in the five-minute-long attack at El Manana daily, but the structure and some vehicles were damaged when the bullets impacted from outside. Canseco did not say whether the newspaper was the target of the shooting on Friday night. Its offices, however, occupy more than half a block with no adjacent buildings.
UNITED STATES
Woman to lose hands, foot
Doctors said a woman battling flesh-decaying bacteria she contracted after a zip line accident will lose her hands and remaining foot to the infection. However, Aimee Copeland’s father says the 24-year-old college student is improving. Andy Copeland told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday his daughter is “coherent and alert.” Doctors treating her at an Augusta hospital said there is no indication of any brain damage and her lungs are slowly healing, but her hands and remaining foot would have to be amputated. Copeland cut her leg last week after falling from a homemade zip line. The University of West Georgia graduate psychology student was diagnosed on Friday with necrotizing fasciitis. She lost most of her right leg to the infection.
MEXICO
Puebla airport reopens
Officials reopened the airport in the central city of Puebla on Friday after it was closed for a second time this week due to ash on the runways from the nearby Popocatepetl volcano. “We’ve checked the situation and decided that the current conditions can guarantee the safety of passengers,” said Jesus Morales, director of civil protection services for the state of Puebla, a day after the airport was shut. Officials also shut the airport earlier in the week for 14 hours to allow for cleaning up volcanic ash and rock.
CHILE
Japanese astronomer killed
A Japanese astronomer with an international project that seeks to explore the origins of stars was killed during a robbery outside his apartment building, police said on Friday. A suspect was arrested and charged with the murder of Koichiro Morita, 57, who worked on the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submilmeter Array (ALMA), police official Victor Arriagada said. Morita was found unconscious on Monday by the concierge of the building where he lived in Santiago, and was later taken to a hospital where he died hours later, Arriagada said. He said an investigation determined that he had been killed with a blow to the head during a robbery. Christopher Quijada was charged with the crime on Friday before a court, he said.
UNITED STATES
DNA match solves cold case
A DNA match led to the arrest of a man accused of murdering a teenaged New York girl 14 years ago in what had been an unsolved case, city prosecutors said on Thursday. James Martin, 44, was charged with murder, rape and sodomy in the February 1998 assault on a 14-year-old runaway. DNA samples were collected from the scene, but technology at the time was unable to provide a profile of the killer. However, last year, the Bronx District Attorney’s office began to re-examine evidence in cold cases and used new technology to create a DNA profile in the 1998 murder. The DNA matched that of Martin, who was imprisoned for the 2005 killing of his wife, the office said.
‘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
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