CHINA
Man accused of killing wife
Chinese authorities on Friday captured a man they suspect fatally stabbed his pregnant wife and six of her relatives, including two elderly grandparents and two young nieces. Police in the nation’s northwest autonomous region of Ningxia announced the arrest of 24-year-old Ma Yongdong (麻永東) late on Friday night on its official microblog. State media said the suspect had quarreled on Monday with his wife, Lan Xiaohong (蘭小紅), who was six months pregnant. They said he found her later that day at her parents’ home in a village in Pengyang County, and that he clashed with his in-laws before killing all seven victims with a knife.
INDIA
Bootleg liquor kills dozens
A batch of toxic bootleg liquor killed at least 32 people, mostly poor laborers, and sickened dozens more in northern India, police said yesterday. Police officer Arvibnd Sen said the victims bought pouches of tainted liquor on Thursday from a shop in Adampur village in Uttar Pradesh. They started falling sick immediately after drinking the liquor and were taken to local hospitals. Sen said yesterday that 32 people were dead by Friday night. He said another 50 people were treated in hospitals, and some of them have gone blind because of the toxic brew. Police arrested the shopkeeper, whose son also died after drinking the tainted liquor, Sen said. He said eight state government officials and four police officers have been suspended as authorities investigate the deaths and possible negligence of duty by the officials in allowing the liquor to be sold.
PHILIPPINES
Horror truck kills at least 20
A truck carrying hog feed smashed into the rear of a passenger bus on a remote downhill provincial road in Quezon province early yesterday, setting off a series of wrecks that left at least 20 people dead and injured 44 others, police said. The bus driver lost control of his vehicle after the first collision and hit two buses and four vans coming from the opposite direction before toppling over on the narrow downhill road, about 115km southeast of Manila, Atimonan town police chief Jonar Yupio said. Parts of the bus pinned many of the victims and others were killed by flying metal debris, including the engine. All those killed — including four children, the truck driver and his assistant — were in either the truck or the first bus that was hit. Social workers said a one-year-old girl was among the survivors. Rescuer Jun Panuil said he found the baby muddied and covered in blood from other victims on the side of the road near the bus. He said the blood had made rescuers suspect the child was seriously hurt, but she had only a few scratches. Yupio said it was dark and raining when the accident occurred early yesterday, shortly past midnight. He said the bus and truck involved in the first collision rolled over before stopping on their sides.
UNITED STATES
Firefighter faces no charges
A 49-year-old female veteran firefighter who accidentally ran over and killed a Chinese teenager after a plane crash at San Francisco airport will not face charges, prosecutors said on Friday. Ye Mengyuan (葉夢園), 16, had been rescued alive from the Asiana plane and placed near one wing. She was run over by a fire truck, which lacked infrared equipment that could have spotted her under a layer of fire retardant foam. Ye was one of three people killed in the disaster, which left more than 180 injured after the South Korean airline’s Boeing 777 crashed on landing in San Francisco from Seoul.
UNITED STATES
Bag fetus probe continues
An autopsy of a fetus found in a teenage girl’s shopping bag at a New York City lingerie store was inconclusive and more tests will be needed to determine how the fetus died, the New York medical examiner’s office said on Friday. Preliminary reports from detectives said that the fetus was born alive and possibly had been asphyxiated, but New York Police Department chief spokesman John McCarthy said the case was still being investigated and police were awaiting the medical examiners’ determination of the cause of death. The case began on Thursday when a security guard stopped Tiana Rodriguez and Francis Estevez, both 17, to examine their bags at a Victoria’s Secret store in Manhattan. Rodriguez told detectives she was carrying the remains because she had delivered a day earlier and did not know what to do, authorities said.
VENEZUELA
More held in cocaine bust
Authorities on Friday arrested four more people linked to a foiled attempt to smuggle 1.3 tonnes of cocaine into Paris from Caracas on an Air France jet. The latest arrests raised to 28 the number of people taken into custody in the country since French authorities seized the shipment last month, the largest bust ever on French soil. The four worked at Maiquetia International Airport, which serves Caracas and where the Air France flight originated on Sept. 11. Those detained include eight members of the National Guard, various airport officials and an Air France employee.
ARGENTINA
Protest to free Arctic 30 held
About 100 protesters staged an action at a local Shell gas station on Friday to demand that Russia release 30 Greenpeace activists jailed after protesting the oil giant’s Arctic drilling operations. Four demonstrators scaled the station’s roof in Buenos Aires, while 30 of them wore handcuffs to express solidarity with the 28 activists and two freelance journalists who are under arrest in Russia. “Camila and Hernan, prisoners of the oil companies,” read a banner in support of Camila Speziale, 21, and Hernan Perez Orsi, 40, two Argentines in Russian custody. The Russian authorities charged the 30 Greenpeace members with piracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.
RUSSIA
Lost Putin crane is found
One of the Siberian cranes that President Vladimir Putin helped teach to fly south last year lost its flock along the way, but has been found and taken to Moscow. In September last year, Putin flew on a motorized hang glider as part of a project to teach the endangered birds who were raised in captivity to later follow the aircraft on their migration south to Central Asia. One of the cranes was recently spotted in the Tyumen region of Siberia and identified by a tag on its right leg as belonging to “Putin’s flock.” The crane was flown to Moscow and its arrival on Friday was covered by state media. The white bird, called Raven, will spend the winter at a wildlife reserve.
MOLDOVA
Cat caught smuggling weed
A cat has been busted for smuggling pot into a prison. Guards became suspicious about the feline, which routinely entered and left the prison through a hole in a fence, when they noticed its odd collar. On closer inspection, they found two packets of marijuana attached to it. The Department of Penitentiary Institutions said on Friday that someone in Pruncul Village was using the cat as a courier to supply inmates with dope.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the