PHILIPPINES
Billiard hall blast kills three
The death toll from a bomb blast in a billiard hall near a crowded town carnival has risen to three, officials said yesterday. The death toll rose overnight after one of the wounded died in hospital, said Captain Jo-ann Petinglay, an army spokeswoman. Another 22 people were wounded in the blast. Mayor Joselito Pinol said two men left the bomb, which was apparently concealed in a bag, at the billiard hall late on Sunday in the town of Mlang in North Corabato province. The two men left hurriedly on a motorcycle before the blast happened. Pinol said bomb shrapnel and flying debris hit people in the billiard hall and at a nearby carnival. The blast damaged the billiard hall. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
CHINA
Excrement fells building
A cesspool filled with excrement has exploded, injuring 15 people and knocking down a building, state-run media reported. The blast was apparently sparked by a local man burning waste close to the cesspool, igniting methane gas which was emanating from the pit, Xinhua news agency said late on Sunday. The incident in Zhangjiajie, in the central province of Hunan, caused a residential building to collapse and three of the injured had to be hospitalized, Xinhua said. China’s urban infrastructure has often been hastily built with little regard for safety as hundreds of millions of people have moved from the countryside to cities in recent decades. In another excrement-related incident, a man and his mother both died trying to retrieve his wife’s new mobile phone — worth 2,000 yuan (US$320) — from a septic tank, reports said in May. The man jumped in to try to locate the phone, but was overcome by fumes and passed out, according to Dahe, a Web portal run by the provincial government in Henan Province.
FRANCE
WWII bomb wreaks havoc
Three thousand people were evacuated from their homes in the center of Rennes on Sunday while a 250kg British bomb from World War II was being diffused. The bomb was found near the city’s town hall during the building of a new metro line in the capital of the Brittany region, Rennes Mayor Nathalie Appere said. She said it was packed with 70kg of high explosives and police bomb disposal experts faced a very “delicate operation” to disarm it. “They are having to diffuse it manually rather than with one of their radio-controlled devices,” she said. Police evacuated all homes and businesses within 270m of the scene just before 9am, including a fire station and 90 residents of a home for the elderly. Several hundred people were taken to a nearby hall, where volunteers offered them coffee and hot chocolate. Rennes, a major railway junction, was the target of several raids by Britain’s RAF during the war, including a major attack in 1944.
UNITED KINGDOM
Band Aid 30 grab No. 1 spot
Band Aid 30’s reworked version of Do They Know it’s Christmas, a song intended to raise money to fight the spread of Ebola in Africa, went straight to the top of the singles charts on Sunday, Official Charts Co said. The track was inspired by a celebrity song of the same name with different lyrics which was recorded in 1984 and raised millions to fight famine in Africa. The new song has drawn criticism from some Africans, who say it is patronizing and perpetuates unhelpful myths about the continent’s problems. The track’s organizers have strongly rejected those comments, saying it will raise much-needed funds to fight Ebola.
UNITED STATES
Zoo escapee hit by car
A bighorn sheep escaped from the Los Angeles Zoo at Griffith Park on Saturday and dashed around the hills in the park for hours before it ended up on a residential street where it was struck by a car and died, a zoo spokeswoman said. The sheep got free from its enclosure and darted through an area where visitors were gathered. It escaped the zoo, probably by jumping a fence, and scampered around the hills of the park, zoo spokeswoman April Spurlock said. The animal was struck by a car on a residential street near the Greek Theatre, she said. The concert venue is about 3.2km southwest of the zoo. Veterinarians and animal care staff set up a perimeter around the sheep and tranquilized it. The animal died a short time later, Spurlock said, and it appears the sheep succumbed to injuries from being hit by the car but a necropsy is planned to determine the exact cause of death. The car’s driver did not stop after hitting the bighorn.
UNITED STATES
Kitty traveler’s home found
An Albuquerque cat owner can sleep easier now that the kitten that went missing last month will be home for the holidays, despite a mysterious 3,701km side trip to Maine. Patsy Murphy, who runs an animal refuge center in Westbrook, Maine, said the kitten was brought to her shelter on Nov. 11 by a man who found it in a duffel bag while unloading furniture at a Catholic charity. The kitten was found inside the bag with food and kitty litter. Murphy said Maine resident Bob Watterson brought the kitten home on Nov. 5, and cared for it for six days before he turned it over to the animal refuge, which found a microchip in the cat that could identify it. Murphy was shocked when the cat was traced back to New Mexico, and it remained unknown exactly how the cat made its way to Maine. “We immediately contacted the owner to begin working on returning her the kitten,” Murphy said, adding that a Maine businessman offered to pay the cat’s transportation cost home. She said the cat would be sent home after it is treated for a respiratory infection, likely in about a week’s time.
UNITED STATES
Chestnut wins turkey eat
Competitive eater Joey Chestnut has won a turkey-eating contest in Connecticut, setting a record by devouring an entire bird. Ten contestants vied to see who could eat the most of a 9kg turkey in a competition on Saturday at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket. Chestnut ate 4.24kg of meat off the bone in 10 minutes. According to Major League Eating, he bested the previous record, which was held by Sonya Thomas, who ate 2.38kg of turkey in November 2011. Chestnut, a San Jose, California, resident who turns 31 tomorrow, is ranked the top competitive eater in the world. Chestnut took home a US$5,000 check.
PERU
Sea lion deaths probed
Authorities are investigating the deaths of about 500 sea lions whose rotting corpses were found on a northern beach. Environmental police on Sunday told the official Andina news agency that the decomposing bodies of adult and juvenile sea lions were found on a beach in Santa Province about 400km north of Lima. Police are investigating a complaint from the governor of Samanco district, who said the sea mammals had been poisoned by marine farmers and fishermen who harvest shellfish. City workers hauled away the corpses, which risked posing a health hazard.
‘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