NIGERIA
Suicide bombing kills 19
A vehicle exploded at a military post in a commercial area of the northeastern city of Maiduguri on Tuesday, killing at least 19 people and causing pandemonium, with blood-spattered bystanders running away and vehicles colliding as drivers fled. Police said a suicide bomber was suspected in 1:30pm blast. Soldiers started firing automatic rifles in the air after the explosion sent a dense column of dark smoke into the air. Maiduguri is the birthplace of Boko Haram, an Islamic extremist network that has been active in the northeast of the country.
PHILIPPINES
Navy wants more US ships
Manila wants to acquire two more navy ships from the US to boost its maritime protection amid threats from China, armed forces chief of staff General Emmanuel Bautista said yesterday. The new acquisitions would come under the fresh US military assistance announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry when he visited the country last month. “Within the last year, we realized that there is a real threat out there in terms of securing, defending our territory,” Bautista told ANC television. He said that ideally the country needed about six more frigates to guard its long coastline effectively.
INDIA
Danish woman gang raped
A Danish tourist was gang raped in New Dehli after getting lost and asking a group of men for directions, police and reports said yesterday. The 51-year-old woman was attacked late on Tuesday at knife-point by the group of more than six men after losing her way to her hotel in a popular backpacker area, local media reports said.
“The concerned police team has identified suspects and is interrogating them. The investigation is on,” Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said yesterday. The woman her friend about the attack when she eventually reached her hotel, Bhagat said. The woman had approached the group for directions near the New Delhi Railway Station after visiting a city museum, but they took her to a secluded spot before raping her at knifepoint, police said.
AUSTRALIA
Bees being microchipped
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientists are gluing tiny sensors onto thousands of honey bees to track their movements in a trial aimed at halting the spread of diseases that have wiped out populations in the northern hemisphere. They said the microchips could help tackle so-called colony collapse disorder, a situation where bees mysteriously disappear from hives, and the encroachment of the parasitic varroa mite. Scientists will use tweezers to glue on the sensors after soothing the bees to sleep by refrigeration. Some young bees, which tend to be hairier than older bees, need to be shaved before the sensor can be glued on.
AUSTRALIA
Lighting sparks wildfires
Scores of wildfires sparked by lightning strikes overnight were raging in heat wave conditions across South Australia and Victoria yesterday. Firefighters were able to contain most of the fires, but authorities warned of worsening fire conditions tomorrow, when winds were expected to gather pace. South Australia fire official Leigh Miller said the number of fires peaked at 350 in that state since Tuesday, most of them sparked by lightning strikes. Lighting had also started 256 blazes across Victoria by early yesterday, state Fire Commissioner Craig Lapsley said. There were few reported injuries so far.
MEXICO
Argentine poet Gelman dies
Argentine poet Juan Gelman, winner of the Spanish-speaking world’s top literature prize and a vehement critic of military rule in his country, died on Tuesday at the age of 83. Gelman had been living in exile in Mexico for the past 20 years. The cause of death was not immediately given. The Milenio newspaper said he died at home. Gelman was considered one of the Spanish-speaking world’s greatest poets and known for standing against military regimes.
UNITED STATES
Boy, 12, shoots classmates
A 12-year-old boy in Roswell, New Mexico, shot and wounded two classmates with a shotgun at his middle school on Tuesday morning, before a teacher talked him into dropping the weapon and he was taken into custody, officials and witnesses said. A boy was critically injured and a girl was in satisfactory condition following the shooting at Berrendo Middle School. The 12-year-old opened fire at about 8am, but was “quickly stopped by one staff member who walked right up to him and asked him to set down the firearm, which he did,” New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez said. The suspected shooter was transferred to a psychiatric hospital following a hearing.
UNITED KINGDOM
Actor Roache rape trial starts
Television actor William Roache, the world’s longest-serving soap opera star, went on trial on Tuesday facing counts of rape and sexual assault on young girls. Roache, 81, who has played Ken Barlow in Coronation Street since the show’s first episode in 1960, used his fame to carry out the assaults and silence his victims, the prosecution alleged. Roache denies five counts of indecent assault and two counts of rape involving five girls aged between 11 and 16. The offenses allegedly occurred between 1965 and 1971.
GERMANY
E Germany sold inmate blood
East Germany’s communist regime forced prisoners to donate blood for sale to the West and make goods for companies across the Cold War frontier, local media reported on Tuesday. Among its customers in the West were not just furniture maker IKEA, as previously reported, but also discount supermarket chain Aldi, auto giant Volkswagen and other firms, a TV report said. The new revelations from the 1970s and 1980s were aired by public broadcaster ARD on Tuesday and based on a historian’s review of files of the Stasi and interviews.
MEXICO
Forces take cartel bastion
Federal forces launched an offensive on Tuesday to take over security in violence-torn Michoacan State, seizing a cartel’s bastion and clashing with vigilantes who refused to disarm. A convoy of 200 military and federal police forces disarmed municipal police officers in Apatzingan, a city known as a stronghold of the Knights Templar cartel. The show of force came a day after the government urged vigilantes to lay down their arms, saying it would take over security.
UNITED STATES
Bieber home raided for eggs
Detectives searched Justin Bieber’s home looking for surveillance footage that might serve as evidence that the pop star was involved in an egg-tossing vandalism case that caused thousands of dollars in damage to a neighbor’s home, an official said on Tuesday. About a dozen investigators searched Bieber’s home and arrested one member of the singer’s entourage on suspicion of drug possession, Lieutenant David Thompson said.
‘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
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
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