NEPAL
Hiker search effort reduced
Hopes for survivors of one of the country’s worst mountain disasters faded yesterday as villagers joined an intensive search by troops and government officials for as many as 40 people missing after an unseasonal blizzard killed 39. More than 500 people have been rescued from a popular hiking route that circles Annapurna, the world’s 10th-tallest peak, among them 230 foreigners. Rescuers turned to villagers familiar with the rugged terrain in the hunt for trekkers stranded in isolated areas after the tail end of a cyclone that hit India last weekend triggered the snow and avalanches. Since Wednesday, rescue teams have recovered 30 bodies and identified nine more from the air. Army helicopters continued to search for survivors on parts of the trail at an altitude of more than 5,000m, while soldiers fanned out through terrain where helicopters cannot land.
SOUTH KOREA
No backup at concert: police
No safety personnel were deployed at an outdoor pop concert where a ventilation grate collapsed, killing 16 people and injuring nine others, police said yesterday. “From the beginning, there were no safety personnel for the concert,” a police spokesman said, according to Yonhap news agency. The comments came after about 20 people were questioned over the incident on Friday in Seongnam, south of Seoul, the agency said, adding that those questioned included officials of an Internet news provider which financed and organized the concert. A local government official in charge of safety committed suicide on Saturday by jumping off a building near the site after he was questioned by police.
JAPAN
Fuji eruption drill executed
Nearly 4,000 people took part in a mass evacuation drill yesterday to test responses to a possible eruption of Mount Fuji, weeks after a nearby volcano blew its top and killed at least 56 people. The 3,776m-tall Fuji last erupted in 1707, but geologists have included it as one of 47 volcanoes in the Pacific-Rim country believed to be at risk of eruption in the coming century. About 3,900 residents in Shizuoka, Yamanashi and Kanagawa prefectures were taking part in the drill, said Hayato Mochizuki, a disaster management official for the Shizuoka Prefectural Government. Fuji is just 100km west of Tokyo. In Gotemba, about 800 people used their cars to evacuate because public transportation is scarce, Mochizuki said, while elderly people in need of care were moved by bus. Mochizuki said the drill — whose scale was unprecedented — was planned for three years and based on an eruption about 2,000m up at 11am, with ash and smoke soaring 20km and lava flowing from craters. In the event of such an eruption, 470,000 people would be forced to evacuate, officials estimate.
AFGHANISTAN
Erdogan, Ghani sign pact
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday, the latest world leader to visit the war-ravaged country since President Ashraf Ghani took power. Erdogan met Ghani, Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ghani’s former rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who has the new role of “chief executive” under a power-sharing pact that ended an election standoff. Erdogan and Ghani held a joint press conference after signing an agreement on closer bilateral ties. Ghani awarded Erdogan the country’s “highest civil medal,” calling Turkey “an example of peace and stability in the world of Islam.” During his one-day tour, Erdogan was also to visit Turkish troops based in the nation.
UNITED STATES
Ebola plush toys sell out
Ebola-themed toys have proved such a hit that one US-based company has sold out. The Web site of Giant Microbes advertises three Ebola toys as a “uniquely contagious gag gift” that can help you “learn all about this fearsome front-page disease.” On Friday, the site reported that the items were out of stock, under a five-star rating based on 10 reviews for a US$9.95 stuffed toy called “Ebola.” The “Ebola Gigantic doll” is US$29.95 and the “Ebola Petri Dish” is US$14.95. The Connecticut-based company has sold more than 10 million stuffed animals that look like microbes. Among its offers are toys representing anthrax, black death, cancer, cholera, gonorrhea and diarrhea.
FRANCE
‘Butt plug’ tree trashed
Vandals attacked a giant green inflatable sculpture in one of the most famous squares in Paris in the early hours of Saturday after its resemblance to a sex toy sparked an outcry. The 24m canvas artwork by US artist Paul McCarthy was unveiled on Thursday in Place Vendome, famous for its luxury jewelry stores and the Ritz Hotel. “An unidentified group of people cut the cables which were holding the artwork, which caused it to collapse,” police officers told reporters. “The person responsible for the piece then decided to deflate it to avoid it being more seriously damaged.” The deflated sculpture was being removed from the square on Saturday afternoon. McCarthy told French newspaper Le Monde that his work, Tree, was inspired both by a sex toy called a butt plug and a Christmas tree. It was part of the International Contemporary Art Fair taking place in Paris this week. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the attack was unacceptable and also denounced an assault on McCarthy the day he installed the work, when a man hit him in the face before running away. “Paris will not succumb to the threats of those who, by attacking an artist or a work, are attacking artistic freedom,” she said in a statement. “Art has its place in our streets and nobody will be able to chase it away.”
UNITED STATES
Devil’s death sparks inquiry
Authorities are looking into the death of a Tasmanian devil found with its skull fractured in a pool of blood at a New Mexico zoo. Investigators suspect it was killed. The animal was one of four provided to the Albuquerque BioPark Zoo last year by the Healesville Sanctuary as part of an effort to start a breeding program for the endangered species, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The animal was discovered dead in its outdoor enclosure on Wednesday, the newspaper reported. Investigators suspect the animal was killed by someone who hit it with a piece of asphalt that was found near its body, an Albuquerque police report said.
UNITED STATES
Sea in ‘Death Star’ moon?
Saturn’s battered moon Mimas might have a thin global ocean buried kilometers beneath its icy surface, raising the prospect of another “life-friendly” habitat in the solar system, scientists said on Thursday. An underground ocean is one of two explanations for why the 250km diameter moon wobbles as it orbits Saturn, scientists using data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft said. Another possibility is that Mimas has a rugby ball-shaped core. Additional measurements should provide more answers, the scientists said. Either way, the findings point to a more complex and intriguing history for a moon best known for a large crater on its surface, making it look like the “Death Star” from the movie Star Wars.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in