TURKEY
Weapon depot blast kills 25
Twenty-five soldiers were killed and four were lightly wounded in an explosion at a military arms depot in the west. The blast occurred at 6:15pm GMT on Wednesday at a section of the military ammunition site in Afyon Province, where hand grenades were stored, the military announced in a statement posted on its Web site. The cause of the blast was not immediately known, it said, but Environment and Forestry Minister Veysel Eroglu said it was “most probably an accident.” He added that it was “certainly not an act of terrorism.”
JAPAN
Man steals 900 library books
Police have arrested a man who allegedly stole nearly 900 books from different libraries, a spokesman said yesterday. Unemployed Mitsuka Suizu, 61, reportedly told officers: “I wanted to keep the books I read” after they discovered 896 volumes at his home in Ube. A police spokesman said Suizu was initially arrested for the theft of 12 books over a six-month period, but a search of his home revealed his huge stash, which the Yomiuri Shimbun said were worth a combined ¥2 million (US$25,000). Under the penal code, theft is punishable by up to 10 years in jail or a fine of up to ¥500,000.
SRI LANKA
Suspect swallows diamond
A Chinese man was arrested for attempted theft and taken to hospital for a dose of laxatives on Wednesday after swallowing a diamond worth nearly US$14,000 at a gem exhibition, police said. The 32-year-old had asked the stall owner for a close inspection of the 1.5-carat diamond on the opening day of Facets Sri Lanka, an annual jewelry show in Colombo. “He came with another Chinese man,” said Suresh de Silva, director of the Belgrade International gem store. Silva said the captured man had offered to pay for the 7.2mm diameter diamond, which was valued at 1.8 million rupees (US$13,600), but that exhibition organizers wanted police to charge him.
VIETNAM
Reporter accused of bribery
A reporter who exposed police corruption has gone on trial for offering a bribe that he says was part of his investigation. The state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper says its reporter, Hoang Khuong, is accused of offering a police officer a bribe of US$710. Khuong’s undercover investigation series last year triggered public anger about police corruption and led to the arrest of the officer who allegedly accepted the bribe. Tuoi Tre yesterday quoted Khuong as telling police he was doing his job as a journalist and had no personal gain as a result of bribing the officer, who is standing trial alongside Khuong and three other people. Khuong’s arrest in January was condemned by the international journalist watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Khuong faces 13 years in jail if convicted.
THAILAND
Red Bull heir charged
Police are pressing drunk driving charges against the Red Bull energy drink heir accused of killing a police officer while speeding in his Ferrari and fleeing the scene. Police say tests taken in the hours after Monday’s crash showed 27-year-old Vorayuth Yoovidhaya’s blood alcohol content was 0.063, exceeding the legal limit of 0.05 They said yesterday that the findings could result in a stiffer penalty for Vorayuth, who was originally charged with causing death by reckless driving. They said Vorayuth had admitted to driving the Ferrari that struck and killed the officer, but said the officer swerved in front of his vehicle.
MEXICO
US police ‘killed man’
The foreign ministry charged that US border police shot and killed a Mexican man on Wednesday along a river that marks part of the border between the two countries. The ministry condemned the killing, which it said happened in the city of Nuevo Laredo in the northeast Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Mexico has complained repeatedly that US border police use disproportionate force in guarding the frontier, a ministry statement said. The dead man was identified as Guillermo Arevalo, a 36-year-old construction worker. His family was celebrating his wife’s birthday with their young daughters at a park along the banks of the Bravo River when he was shot in the chest, his wife, Nora Lam, said.
CHILE
Ancient star stays young
Scientists using a high-powered telescope have discovered an ancient star that seems oddly impervious to aging. The star is in a globular cluster dating back to the universe’s distant past, but new images from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) show that one of the stars still has a considerable amount of lithium. “Normally this element is gradually destroyed over the billions of years of a star’s life, but this one star amongst thousands seems to have the secret of eternal youth,” the ESO said in a statement on Wednesday. “It has either somehow managed to retain its original lithium, or it has found a way to enrich itself with freshly made lithium.”
GAZA
Israeli fire kills three
Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire yesterday, raising to six the number killed in the past 12 hours, medical sources said. “We have received three bodies,” said Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry, adding that the three had been killed by an Israeli tank shell just east of the town of Beit Hanun. The incident occurred 11 hours after an Israeli air strike on a car in the al-Maghazi refugee camp killed three civilians and seriously wounded a fourth person.
UNITED STATES
Ben & Jerry’s porn flavors
Ben & Jerry’s has sued a maker of pornographic DVDs for allegedly infringing the names of its ice cream flavors with a movie series called Ben & Cherry’s. The company changed some of Ben & Jerry’s best-known ice cream flavors into titles for its movies, according to a complaint filed on Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court. For instance, “Boston Cream Pie” became Boston Cream Thighs, “Chocolate Fudge Brownie” was changed to Chocolate Fudge Babes and “Peanut Butter Cup” became Peanut Butter D-Cups, the lawsuit said. Ben & Jerry’s is seeking monetary damages.
UNITED STATES
Kitten hitches a ride
A woman says a six-week-old kitten hitched a ride on the outside of her vehicle as she drove about 160km over upstate New York roads. Stacey Pulsifer told the Press-Republican of Plattsburgh that she recently drove from her home to the Adirondacks mountains, then back to her apartment. Along the way she stopped for coffee and heard meowing coming from her Jeep. She asked two friends to help her search the vehicle. They finally found the kitten wedged behind a bumper and had to cut it free. Pulsifer has since adopted the hitchhiker and named it Pumpkin. She estimates the lucky black cat was lodged in the car for about 22 hours. She suffered a broken paw during the ride.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in