CHINA
Mine blast kills 14
A coal mine explosion has killed at least 14 people just days after a blast in the country’s southwest left 44 dead. Xinhua news agency said dozens of miners were working when the blast ripped through the Gaokeng Coal Mine in Jiangxi Province’s Pingxiang at midday on Sunday. Xinhua reported yesterday that 23 miners escaped or were rescued and 14 were confirmed dead. It said one miner remained missing and 11 others were hospitalized.
THAILAND
Red Bull heir detained
A grandson of the creator of the Red Bull energy drink is suspected of driving a Ferrari that struck and killed a policeman and then dragged the officer’s body down a Bangkok street in a hit-and-run accident. Police took Vorayuth Yoovidhya in for questioning yesterday after tracing oil streaks for several blocks to his gated estate in a wealthy Bangkok neighborhood. Police commander Lieutenant General Comronwit Toopgrajank said he found the car on the compound of late Red Bull founder Chaleo Yoovidhaya, one of the nation’s wealthiest men before he passed away this year. The officer was killed during a pre-dawn motorcycle patrol. Local media reported that the car dragged the officer and his motorcycle for several dozen meters as it sped through the residential neighborhood.
CAMBODIA
Pirate Bay founder arrested
Authorities have arrested a co-founder of Pirate Bay, one of the world’s biggest free file-sharing Web sites, and are considering a request from Sweden to send him there, where he faces a jail sentence for breaching copyright laws. The Swedish man, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, 27, has been living in the country for some time. An appeals court in Sweden sentenced three others behind the site to between four months and 10 months in prison plus fines in 2010. Warg failed to attend that hearing due to illness and his sentencing was deferred. He had originally been sentenced to a year in prison in 2009. Authorities were in Phnom Penh said they were waiting for legal documents from Sweden. Khmer440.com said Warg had been living in Phnom Penh for four years.
PHILIPPINES
Robbers kill US man
Police say robbers at a convenience store in Manila have shot dead a US executive of an English-language training center. Police say Robert Edward Armstrong was inside the Manila store on Sunday, when four robbers ordered the employees and at least three customers into the storage room while they emptied the cash register. Police officer Alonzo Layugan said 45-year-old Armstrong was shot when he tried to dash out of the store. Layugan said yesterday that the wounded American managed to get into his car, but one of the robbers shot him again. Armstrong was declared dead at a hospital. His hometown was not immediately known. Police say the other customers and employees were unharmed.
ITALY
Victori wins YouTube award
Spanish filmmaker David Victori has won the inaugural edition of YouTube’s Your Film Festival for his short movie The Guilt. The winner was announced on Sunday on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival after selection by a jury that included director Ridley Scott and actor Michael Fassbender. Victori, whose movie focuses on a man obsessed with revenge after his wife’s murder, will receive US$500,000 for his next project, with Scott and Fassbender acting as executive producers.
MEXICO
Drugs cartel boss arrested
Police have arrested a prominent leader of the deadly Gulf drug cartel, police said on Sunday. David Rosales Guzman, alias “El Comandante Diablo” (Commander Devil), was arrested on Saturday in the northern industrial city of Monterrey, the Public Safety Office said in a statement. Rosales Guzman was known for having some of his victims hung from bridges in busy parts of cities, and was linked to 19 murders last month as well as kidnappings and extortion.
pERU
Woman slices off penis
A woman who discovered her boyfriend had been cheating on her sliced off his penis with a kitchen knife and tossed it down the toilet as he slept, local media reported on Sunday. Julia Munoz Huaman, 41, confessed she emasculated her companion Ramon Arias, 46, in a jealous rage. The grisly incident at a hostel stunned residents of the Lima neighborhood of Brena where it took place. Security guards nabbed the woman and detained her as Arias wailed in pain. He rushed to hospital and placed in intensive care, according to the America TV report.
eCUADOR
Minister’s brother killed
Interior Minister Jose Serrano said on Sunday his brother had been killed by unknown attackers, but he denied that the murder was in retaliation to his own efforts to fight organized crime. Juan Antonio Serrano, 34, was stabbed to death while trying to block strangers from crashing a family party in the city of Cuenca, the minister told reporters. However, the minister rejected revenge as a motive for the killing, which comes after his office delivered several blows to organized crime in a campaign that includes the payment of rewards for the capture of the country’s most wanted. Six suspects in two separate cars were detained by police responding to the killing. A bloody shirt was found inside one of the two vehicles.
UNITED STATES
Kitten hitches a ride
A kitten that hitched a six-hour ride from Connecticut to western New York curled up on top of a car’s gas tank will be put up for adoption. The cat was found by workers at Smitty’s Transmissions in suburban Rochester when a Connecticut couple bought in their car after dropping their son off at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The couple had heard the cat purring. Workers found the kitten curled in a tiny alcove above the gas tank. The kitten was taken to Lollypop Farm, a shelter that takes in foster kittens, until she puts on enough weight to be spayed and put up for adoption. Shelter workers believe the hitching kitten was feral.
Venezuela
National voting drill held
Venezuela held a national voting drill on Sunday ahead of next month’s presidential vote, with President Hugo Chavez facing his toughest electoral challenge in more than 13 years in office. The National Electoral Council said more than 1,500 polling stations opened nationwide for the mock vote. In the streets of Caracas, supporters of Chavez and his challenger Henrique Capriles said the drill largely went smoothly. Chavez dismissed criticisms by some opponents that the use of thumbprint readers to activate the electronic voting system could scare away some voters during the Oct. 7 vote. Capriles’ campaign has also assured voters that their choices will remain secret.
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