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.
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