CHINA
Bin Bin getting bionic eyes
A six-year-old Chinese boy whose eyes were gouged out by an attacker is receiving implants at a hospital in Shenzhen after a Hong Kong eye doctor volunteered his service. The implants are a precursor to fitting Guo Bin (郭斌), known as Bin Bin, with prosthetic eyes that will look and move more like normal eyes, but which do not restore vision. A personal assistant to Dr Dennis Lam (林順潮) said the surgery started yesterday afternoon at Lam’s private hospital. Police in the boy’s home province of Shanxi say they suspect his aunt gouged out his eyes, but have not identified a motive for last month’s attack. The woman has since committed suicide.
AUSTRALIA
Drunk pig goes on rampage
A rampage by a feral pig that consumed 18 beers has prompted warnings for people at campsites to properly secure their food and alcohol. The pig struck at the DeGrey River rest area, east of the remote Western Australian town of Port Hedland in the Pilbara, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp The animal was seen stealing three six-packs of beer from campers before ransacking rubbish bags for food. One camper reported seeing the pig guzzling the beer before getting involved in an altercation with a cow.” In the middle of the night these people camping opposite us heard a noise, so they got their torch out and shone it on the pig and there he was, scrunching away at their cans,” the visitor said. “Then he went and raided all the rubbish bags. There were some other people camped right on the river and they saw him being chased around their vehicle by a cow.” The pig was reportedly last seen resting under a tree, possibly nursing a hangover.
THAILAND
Bombs hit school, two dead
A twin bomb blast struck a school in the insurgency-plagued south yesterday, officials said, killing two soldiers and injuring one student in a new setback to peace efforts. Education workers and the troops who guard them are a top target for Muslim militants, who have waged a nine-year-old campaign of violence that has left thousands of people dead. Authorities said that militants behind the attack planted a first bomb to lure soldiers and then detonated a second device after they arrived at the scene. “Two soldiers died and a male student and one soldier were injured,” army spokesman Colonel Pramote Promin said by telephone, accusing the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) rebel group of orchestrating the attack. “It’s the work of the BRN, which is obsessed with violence,” he said.
CHINA
Principal denies link to blast
The headmaster of a primary school that was hit by a blast on Monday that saw two people killed and 44 injured, denied that the incident was the result of a feud involving him, media said yesterday. Many children were among those hurt in the blast, which happened when a man rode a motorcycle past the school in Guilin as they arrived for classes. The cause of the explosion was not clear, but early reports suggested the motorcycle caught fire before a “loud bang” was heard. “Some media said the cause of the explosion could be somebody being involved with a feud with the school principal, who took his retaliation to extremes,” said the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party. “Yesterday, the principal, Qin Zhuanhong, denied the claim, saying he had very few enemies and he does not know the blast site tricycle driver.” Guilin officials also said the reports were “simply rumors.”
UNITED STATES
Mom guilty of homicide
An adoptive mother accused of starving her 13-year-old Ethiopian-born daughter and locking her outside in the cold, where she died from exposure, was found guilty of homicide on Monday in Washington state. The mother, Carri Williams, was convicted of homicide by abuse and of manslaughter, while the father, Larry Williams, was convicted of first-degree manslaughter, a representative of the Skagit County Prosecutor’s Office said. Investigators say the girl, Hana, endured beatings and starvation, was forced to sleep outside and had lost a significant amount of weight since her adoption. Prosecutors said her 10-year-old brother, also adopted from Ethiopia, was similarly mistreated.
NETHERLANDS
Authentic Van Gogh found
The Van Gogh Museum says it has identified a long-lost Vincent van Gogh painting that spent years in a Norwegian attic, the first full-size canvas by the Dutch master discovered since 1928. Sunset at Montmajour depicts trees, bushes and sky, painted with Van Gogh’s familiar thick brush strokes. Museum experts said on Monday the painting was authenticated by letters, style and the physical materials used, and they had traced its history. The museum said the painting belongs to an unidentified private collector and will be on display from Sept. 24.
FRANCE
Man killed by elephant
An 84-year-old man was killed near Paris when an elephant belonging to a local circus escaped from its pen and hit him with its trunk, police said on Monday. The elephant performed as usual on Sunday afternoon in Lizy-sur-Ourcq — about 50km from Paris — and was then taken back to its open-air enclosure. Witnesses described how the elephant had grabbed a tarpaulin and placed it over the electric fence surrounding its pen, before breaking through barriers and trailers and striking the man with his trunk. The unidentified man was taken to hospital, but died from his injuries overnight on Sunday.
CANADA
Irate blogger calls 911
A movie blogger irate about cellphone usage during a Toronto International Film Festival screening called 911 to report the offense. At a midnight screening on Monday, FirstShowing.net blogger Alex Billington became increasingly annoyed by constant texting and e-mailing at a screening for press and film industry members. After first complaining to theater managers, Billington took the extreme step of dialing the police. He said the emergency dispatcher laughed at his complaint, so he took to Twitter to vent his anger. He claimed to be concerned that the film, The Sacrament, was being pirated, and that “drastic measures” were called for in restoring moviegoing etiquette.
GUATEMALA
Bus crash kills 43
A bus carrying scores of passengers plunged off a steep cliff on Monday, killing at least 43 people — including newborn babies — and injuring 40, officials said. President Otto Perez declared three days of official mourning for the tragedy. The red bus fell 100m down the canyon, crashing next to a river in the municipality of San Martin Jilotepeque, 64km west of Guatemala City. Rescue workers installed cables between the banks of the river to move the bodies on stretchers above the water, their grim task becoming more difficult as it started raining. The government said in a statement the cause of the accident was not immediately known.
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