PHILIPPINES
Quake hits Luzon
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the west coast of the island of Luzon yesterday, US seismologists said, but there were no reports of casualties and no tsunami alert was issued. The US Geological Survey said the quake hit at a depth of 35km at 6:18 am,182 km northwest of Manila. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology measured the quake at magnitude 6.0. The quake was felt in some areas, including Manila, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, civil defense chief Benito Ramos said. A fault line runs directly under Manila, a metropolis of more than 12 million people, and government seismologists have warned the city is unprepared for a major quake.
TURKEY
Prison fire kills thirteen
Inmates in a prison in the southeast set beds and blankets alight, starting a fire that killed 13 prisoners, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials said yesterday. Erdogan said the fire affected a ward housing 18 inmates in the prison in the mainly Kurdish city of Sanliurfa. He said some inmates set their bedding on fire following a fight that broke out inside the ward late on Saturday. It was not immediately clear if the victims had died of burns or from asphyxiation. Erdogan said five other inmates were hospitalized for smoke inhalation. None was in serious condition. Regional governor Celalettin Guvenc said authorities had launched an investigation into the incident, including into possible delays by authorities or firefighters in responding to the fire.
VIETNAM
Snakes terrify bus
Six poisonous snakes escaped from a bag on a bus, sparking screams and a hurried evacuation of the 14 people aboard, but nobody was bitten. A police officer says passengers and villagers killed all of the highly venomous kraits after the bus made a quick stop in Quang Nam Province. The police officer said someone who was not a passenger put the bag on the bus and paid the driver to transport it. It was not immediately clear if the snakes were there legally. Snakes are a delicacy in some restaurants and an ingredient in traditional liquors.
PHILIPPINES
Vessels in dispute sent back
President Benigno Aquino III has ordered home two ships engaged in a maritime stand-off with China over the disputed Scarborough Shoal (黃岩島) in the South China Sea, citing bad weather, the government said on Saturday. The vessels have been around the shoal since April, guarding the territory which is also claimed by Taiwan and China. The announcement was made as Typhoon Guchol approached the country’s north from the Pacific Ocean.
INDIA
Government seeks ties with
India wants to strengthen economic ties with Cuba, a top Indian diplomat said on Saturday on a trip to the Caribbean island. “The purpose of my visit to Cuba is to promote economic relations between both countries,” S.M. Krishna said on state television after a meeting with the speaker of Cuba’s National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon. Bilateral trade between the two states totaled US$54 million in 2010. The two countries also cooperate in biotechnology, information technology, education and sports. India has also invested in oil exploration off Cuba’s coast. Next month, India’s trade minister will visit Cuba to further foster good relations, Krishna added.
UNITED STATES
Avalanche kills climbers
Four members of a Japanese climbing team are presumed dead after an avalanche swept them off a hill on Mount McKinley. National Park Service officials say five people were traveling as one rope team early on Thursday morning as part of a Miyagi Workers Alpine Federation expedition. One team member, 69-year-old Hitoshi Ogi, was swept into a crevasse and survived. The other four tumbled into the avalanche debris and have not been seen since. The park service said in a news release that about 400 mountaineers were making rescue attempts on Saturday on the Alaska mountain’s West Buttress.
IRAN
Ahmadinejad to quit politics
A German newspaper is reporting that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he will end his political career when his second term ends next year. Ahmadinejad was quoted on Saturday as saying in an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that he plans to return to academia. He said that — though he might engage in political activity at a university — “I will not found any political party or group.” Ahmadinejad cannot run in elections in June next year because of term limits. Asked whether, like Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, he envisions returning to the presidency at a later date, he replied: “No, eight years are enough.” Ahmadinejad last year lost a power struggle with the nation’s ruling system, which had helped him rise from Tehran’s city hall to the presidency.
VATICAN CITY
Pope speaks to probe team
Pope Benedict XVI spoke to three retired cardinals on Saturday who are carrying out a probe into a leaked-documents scandal that has rocked the enclave. The closed-door meeting took place in the afternoon, according to the pope’s schedule, but no information filtered out. It was the first time since the pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested on May 23 that such a meeting has been announced. The cardinals were Spaniard Julian Herranz, Jozef Tomko of Slovakia and Italian Salvatore De Giorgi, all aged over 80. The so-called “Vatileaks” scandal has shaken the Roman Catholic Church and drawn attention to divisions between senior clergymen in the Vatican.
AUSTRIA
Thieves steal strawberries
There’s been a tasty break-in at a farm in the southeast, where a tonne of strawberries went missing under cover of darkness. Police in Styria Province said on Saturday that the thieves cut down a fence in Kalsdorf, near Graz, during the night and stripped 10 rows of strawberry plants bare. They say the fruit was worth about 2,400 euros (US$3,000). It wasn’t clear who the thieves were or where the strawberries ended up.
CUBA
Ladies in White released
Police have released 32 members of the Ladies in White who had been arrested across the country, the dissident group’s leader Berta Soler said on Saturday. “These women have been released little by little, because the objective was to prevent them from getting to Havana on Saturday,” where they had planned a “literary tea” dedicated to political dissidents in honor of Father’s Day, Soler said. She said dozens of women had gathered at the group’s headquarters to hold the event there. The group claims that other women have been prevented from reaching the site and were being monitored by police.
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