RUSSIA
Clashes at gay rights rally
A gay rights rally in St Petersburg has ended in scuffles after several dozen protesters were confronted by about 200 conservative and religious activists. The police standing nearby waited until clashes broke out between the two groups before intervening. According to news agencies, the police detained 67 people from both sides. The scuffles started after anti-gay protesters tore a rainbow flag out of a woman’s hands. The St Petersburg city government had sanctioned the rally despite the government’s June passage of a contentious law outlawing gay “propaganda.” Russian gays have faced increasing pressure and threats of violence, protesters said. St Petersburg police could not immediately be reached for comment.
FRANCE
Belgium wins wine tasting
Belgium on Saturday won the first world blind wine-tasting competition for teams, with Denmark and England finishing second and third, organizers said. Philippe Ketelslegers, Filip Mesdom, Eric Derenne and Serge Condens took top honors at the competition held in the southwestern town of Leognan, near the nation’s winegrowing capital of Bordeaux. A total of 16 teams from around the world, including South Africa, China, Russia, Argentina and Quebec, took part. The competition aimed to “bring together... all these amateurs, tasters from the world over, who can sometimes feel isolated in their home countries,” said Philippe de Cantenac, a journalist for the French wine monthly that organized the event. The teams, blind-tasting 12 fine wines from around the world, had to identify their countries of origin, the grape varieties used in them, their appellations and their vintages. A second edition of the competition will be held next year in another city, Cantenac said. The magazine La Revue du Vin de France has already hosted European championships in the same town since 2008.
ISRAEL
Gaza tunnels uncovered
The military said it has discovered an underground tunnel dug from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Israel. The military says it believes the Islamist group, which governs the Palestinian territory, dug the tunnel to carry out an attack or to kidnap Israelis. The army yesterday said it discovered the tunnel a week ago, after finding an opening near a kibbutz along the border with Gaza. The army statement added that the tunnel is 2.5km long and appears to have been recently dug and in use until its discovery. Hamas has dug tunnels into the country in the past. In 2006, Hamas militants sneaked into the country through one such tunnel, kidnapped a soldier and held him hostage in Gaza for five years.
EGYPT
MiG crash kills one
An army MiG-21 aircraft crashed yesterday near the southern city of Luxor, leaving one person dead and three others injured on the ground after the crew ejected, officials said. The Russian-built MiG was conducting a routine training flight when it caught fire shortly after takeoff from a military airport in Luxor.
Both pilots parachuted out of the plane before it crashed onto a small village in the al-Madamod area, killing one person, officials said. Three people were also injured in the accident and rushed to Luxor’s main hospital. Military and civil police forces cordoned off the area of the crash as authorities worked to determine the cause, officials said.
PERU
Bus falls into ravine, 52 die
A makeshift bus carrying 52 Quechua Indians home from a party plunged off a cliff into the Chaupimayo River on Friday night, killing everyone on board, including 13 children. The accident occurred as the red-and-yellow cargo truck made its way back from Santa Teresa, about 500km southeast of Lima. It went off the road and fell about 200m into a deep ravine, ending up in the river. Rescuers equipped with little more than flashlights spent the night searching without success for survivors amid the twisted steel and large boulders, pulling bodies from the water. Authorities said bodies were found as far as 100m away from the impact site, suggesting they were thrown from the vehicle. The cause of the accident has not been determined, firefighter Captain David Taboada said. Throughout the day, relatives of the victims arrived to identify their loved ones. Local farmers prepared meals for the mourning relatives to eat. Fedia Castro, mayor of the district where Santa Teresa is located, told Canal N television that rural residents must rely on informal forms of transport, such as the cargo truck, because no public buses exist in the area.
UNITED STATES
Falling plane door hits motel
A door that fell off a small plane has been found on a motel roof in Monterey, California. The Salinas Californian reported that the door fell from a Beechcraft King Air twin-turboprop plane that took off from Monterey Regional Airport on Thursday afternoon. The pilot heard a pop and turned around to land. He realized the door was missing when he was back on the ground, but the door was not discovered until Friday morning. The front desk manager at the El Castell Motel said no one heard the 34kg door crash into the tile roof because the room below was unoccupied. The National Transportation Safety Board will examine the door and the plane to determine why it came loose.
BRAZIl
River boat sinks, killing 12
Twelve people were killed on Saturday when their boat sank in Amapa State during a traditional procession on a river in honor of the Virgin Mary, relief workers said. Six other people were still missing from the ship that was carrying 100 participants even though it had a capacity limit of 40, firefighters said. Firefighters had accompanied the procession, but the accident took place as the boats were returning to their ports, a spokesman said. “The boat was participating in the procession, which takes about two hours in the Amazonian state of Amapa, and must have capsized after hitting a sandbar upon its return,” firefighter Commander Miguel Rosario said. Officials said the rescue operation was to continue yesterday.
GUATEMALA
Facebook killers convicted
A court has sentenced two men to 200 years in prison each for murdering two teenagers they contacted via Facebook, a judicial source said on Saturday. Eduardo Chen and Saul Garcia Arriaza were convicted for the deaths of Heydi Montufar Lorenzana, 16, and Heiser Alexandra Mercado Santos, 18. The Public Prosecutor’s Office had initially requested 308 years behind bars. Prosecutors argued during the trial that the two men chatted over Facebook with the teenagers and set up a meeting with them. The investigation showed that the girls were killed on August 22, 2011, after being raped. Their bodies were found six days later in Amatitlan. The convictions were the first in the county where the victims and perpetrators contacted each other via Facebook.
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