INDONESIA
Woman’s body found
Rescuers recovered the body believed to be of a Japanese diver and searched for six others missing yesterday off the island of Bali, police said. The group, including two instructors, left on Friday morning on a boat they hired for a dive around mangroves in Crystal Bay when strong winds and heavy rains hit the area, Nusa Penida police chief Major Nyoman Suarsika said. Rescuers yesterday found the body of a woman, Bali police spokesman Colonel Hariadi said. A list provided by police shows the group included one man and six women. The search for the missing involved police, the National Search and Rescue Agency and fishermen, guided by the two Indonesian skippers from the divers’ boat. Nusa Penida is about 20km east off Bali capital Denpasar.
PHILIPPINES
Haiyan survivors supported
Tens of thousands of members of a sect took to the streets in Manila yesterday in a charity walk to raise funds for survivors of the country’s deadliest typhoon. Members of the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) poured into the capital’s seaside avenue in response to the politically influential sect’s appeal to help compatriots caught up by Super Typhoon Haiyan’s onslaught. All those taking part bought special white T shirts, costing 250 pesos (US$5.59) to wear during the march, with all proceed from sales of the garment being donated to help those in need. Police estimated the crowd at about 200,000. Haiyan tore across 171 towns and cities on Nov. 8 last year, killing at least 6,200 people and leaving about 2,000 missing, according to an official count.
CHINA
Wedding hall kills 10
A wedding hall in the east of the country collapsed, killing 10 people among more than 200 attending a banquet, state media reported on Friday. There was no immediate word on the cause of Thursday’s collapse in Yazhuang in Zhejiang Province, but Xinhua said the structure was old and the roof was straining under the weight of a recent heavy snowfall. Xinhua news agency cited officials as saying 91 people were hospitalized with injuries, including 11 in a critical condition. “Just a few minutes after I sat down to dine, I heard creaking wood. Then the roof fell in the minute I looked up,’’ Xinhua quoted one of the injured, Chen Dianzhong, as saying. More than 100 rescue workers, aided by local villagers, pulled dead and injured from the rubble, Xinhua said.
JAPAN
Snow kills three more
Road, rail and air travel services faced further disruptions yesterday, reports and officials said, after a fresh snow storm killed three people and injured 850 following last week’s deadly blizzard. Snow began falling on Friday morning in the capital Tokyo and piled up to 26cm by early yesterday. A driver was killed on Friday in a crash involving his car and a truck on an icy road in central Shiga, while a farmer died after a tractor overturned on a snow-covered road in southwestern Oita, media said. NHK said about 850 people, including one in a coma, have been injured in snow-related accidents across the nation since snow hit the country’s west late on Thursday. At least 628 flights, mostly on domestic routes, were canceled yesterday at Haneda airport in Tokyo and other airports in the east, NHK said, a day after more than 260 flights were grounded due to heavy snow. Two commuter trains collided at Motosumiyoshi station in Tokyo early yesterday, leaving 19 passengers injured, officials said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Anti-EU party gains support
Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party was pushed into third place behind the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) in a single parliamentary seat vote won by the opposition Labour Party. The result underlined the threat that UKIP, which wants Britain to leave the EU and an end to “open-door immigration,” poses to the Conservatives and other parties ahead of a national election next year. Thursday’s vote for a seat in northern England, one of 650 in parliament’s lower house, was the first electoral test this year ahead of European Parliament elections in May and next year’s general election. Opinion polls have shown that UKIP is on course to beat the Conservative Party in the European elections too, and to split the center-right vote next year. The Wythenshawe and Sale East seat on the outskirts of Manchester is regarded as a safe seat for the opposition Labour Party.
GERMANY
Pyramid theft investigated
Prosecutors say they are investigating two self-styled researchers who have admitted chipping off a piece from a pyramid’s burial chamber in their attempt to prove a theory that the structure was built by people pre-dating the ancient Egyptians. Chemniz prosecutor Ingrid Burghart said on Friday that Dominique Goerlitz and Stefan Erdmann are under investigation on suspicion of theft. Egyptian authorities on Thursday said six Egyptians were already in custody on charges of being accessories to the German men on their expedition in April last year. Egyptian prosecutor Hisham Barakat said the men entered the famed Giza pyramids with permits to visit, but not excavate, and left with samples of stone from the ramparts of two tombs and the burial room of King Khufu. The Germans apologized in December last year, saying their purpose was purely scientific.
FRANCE
Wine theft suspects charged
Prosecutors on Friday charged 13 people suspected of involvement in stealing close to 1 million euros (US$1.37 million) worth of top Bordeaux wines. More than 300 officers swooped on what they described as a “very structured, professional” operation on Monday, making 20 arrests. A total of 13 chateaux and two warehouses which stocked wines from several properties were targeted for robberies which have been carried out, on average, once every two weeks since June last year. The thieves’ modus operandi was always the same: They used stolen vehicles and sprayed bleach where they had been to ensure they left no traces. Prices of the very top Bordeaux wines from good recent vintages can easily exceed 1,000 euros a bottle, while older and rarer bottles can be worth many times that amount.
FRANCE
Body found near crash site
A body was discovered on Friday on the banks of the river into which a Chinese tycoon crashed his helicopter as he toured his newly acquired Bordeaux wine estate in December last year. A resident of nearby Saint-Andre de Cubzac found the body, sources in the investigation said on condition of anonymity, but the body was not yet confirmed as that of Lam Kok (郝琳). “The site of the discovery is located between the site of the crash and the place where the bodies of two other passengers were found,” an official said. “But we have to wait for DNA matches as part of the forensic investigation,” the official added.
CANADA
Spy love affair investigated
Authorities are investigating one of its anti-terrorism agents for having a year-long affair with her target, an alleged Iranian spy, an official said on Friday. The Montreal French-language daily La Presse said a seemingly innocent text sent from a cellphone in the Ottawa region triggered the probe. “Hey darling, I have a little something special I want to give you for Christmas. ;) I hope that you have a great Christmas. Let’s talk soon, okay? I love you and I miss you. xxo,” it reportedly said. The Passport Canada employee assigned to an Integrated National Security Enforcement Team was tasked with following the movements of the suspect, an Iranian-born Canadian living in Montreal. According to La Presse, she herself became the target of an internal investigation after her affair was revealed recently. She was also suspended. Officials said they want to ensure that no sensitive information was leaked.
UNITED STATES
Plane crash owners sued
The husband of Jenni Rivera is suing the owners of the plane that crashed in northern Mexico in December 2012, killing the Mexican-American pop star and six others. City News Service says former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Esteban Loaiza filed the wrongful death case on Friday in Los Angeles. Among other things, the lawsuit claims that the pilots were not licensed to fly paying passengers. Rivera sold more than 15 million records. The 43-year-old superstar filed for divorce from Loaiza two months before the crash, but the lawsuit says he continued to receive financial benefits from her.
COLOMBIA
Earth wall collapse kills five
A wall of rain-sodden earth collapsed into an illegal, open-air gold mining pit on Friday, killing five miners and injuring 12, authorities said. Red Cross spokesman Cesur Uruena in Bogota said heavy rains were impeding attempts to land helicopters in the municipality of Santa Barbara de Iscuande in Narino state to evacuate the injured. He put the death toll at five. “This is completely illegal mining,” the Narino security chief Jaime Rodriguez said, adding that Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas were active in the area.
BRAZIL
Boy survives impalement
A 10-year-old boy has survived after falling from a tree and landing on a 60cm long iron bar that entered his left armpit and exited near his right ear. Doctors told Globo TV on Friday that it is a miracle that Weverton Silva did not die. The rebar that pierced him during last week’s accident in Rio de Janeiro state barely missed an artery and his heart. The boy was on a branch of a guava tree when it broke and he fell on a wall the bar was jutting from. Firefighters took Weverton to the hospital, where Dr Rodrigo Chicralla tells Globo it took five hours to remove the bar in one piece from the boy’s body. Doctors sent the child home on Friday.
CHILE
Actors shoot miner film
French actress Juliette Binoche and Spanish actor Antonio Banderas are on location in an isolated part of the world’s driest desert shooting a Hollywood film about the 2010 rescue of 33 miners. Binoche and Banderas star in The 33, a drama about the miners trapped deep below the Atacama desert for 69 days and the rescue that mesmerized millions of people around the globe. The movie is expected to be released next year.
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