CANADA
‘Hero’ to be ambassador
A sergeant-at-arms hailed as a hero for killing the gunman who stormed parliament last year is to become the nation’s ambassador to Ireland, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on Thursday. Kevin Vickers, a 58-year-old Irish-Canadian, has been feted by world leaders ever since the Oct. 22 attack in Ottawa. The white-haired former Mountie likely saved countless lives by shooting Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who had just killed a soldier posted at the nearby National War Memorial and then charged into parliament with a handgun and opened fire. “Kevin Vickers has shown profound leadership and a dedication to the security of Canada and its national institutions,” Harper said in a statement. “His extensive experience working with Parliament, as well as his bravery and integrity, will serve to deepen close bilateral relations between Canada and Ireland in the years ahead.”
PERU
Fujimori jailed for graft
A court on Thursday sentenced former president Alberto Fujimori, already in jail for a government-backed massacre, to eight years in prison on charges of embezzling state funds to manipulate the media. The sentence has only symbolic effect since jail time does not accumulate in Peru, where prisoners serve only the longest of their concurrent sentences. Fujimori is currently jailed on a 25-year sentence over the killing of 25 people by a government-backed death squad in the course of the nation’s war against the Maoist Shining Path rebel group. Fujimori was also ordered to pay US$1 million in civil damages for ordering funds diverted from the Armed Forces and National Intelligence Service to newspapers to discredit his political opponents. Fujimori, 76, said he would appeal.
UNITED STATES
Facebook aids hiker rescue
Officials say an emergency dispatcher in training used Facebook to locate a Northern California hiker critically injured after falling 45m down a cliff while hiking. Ryan Pritchard was hiking with his son in the remote Blue Ridge Loop Trail when he slipped and fell. His 11-year-old called for help, but the phone call got cut off before he could tell dispatchers where his father was. Dispatchers were hitting a dead-end trying to make contact when trainee Breanna Martinez decided to do a search for Pritchard on Facebook. She told CBS13 in Sacramento that the very first post on Pritchard’s page was a picture of his two sons standing in front of Lake Berryessa and the comment “Hiking the Blue Ridge Trail today.” That post helped bring rescue crews to the area in time to get Pritchard out before sunset.
UNITED STATES
US$300,000 for Elvis record
An acetate recording of the ballad My Happiness, the first song Elvis Presley ever recorded, was sold at an auction for US$300,000. An undisclosed buyer placed the winning bid on Thursday at Graceland, the museum and tourist attraction that was Presley’s former home. Bidding began at US$50,000. Presley recorded it in 1953 at Sun Records, the Memphis studio operated by Sam Phillips. Presley, then 18, paid US$4 for the recording. As the story goes, Presley left Sun and went to the home of friend Ed Leek to listen to it. However, Presley, whose family did not have a record player, left the record there. Leek had kept the record and after he and his wife died, their niece inherited it. She contacted Graceland, and it was offered for auction.
MYANMAR
Four killed in landslide
Authorities said at least four people have been killed in a landslide at a jade mine in Phakant, Kachin State, about 960km from the main city of Yangon. Local government official Than Shwe said a rescue mission in the mining town was called off late on Thursday after a search team recovered four bodies, including those of two women. He said heavy rain caused the landslide on Tuesday night.
PHILIPPINES
Man dies in religious parade
One man has died during an annual Roman Catholic procession in Manila. The major religious festival in is also a prelude to a much larger turnout expected during next week’s visit by Pope Francis. Manila Vice Mayor Francisco Moreno said one volunteer accompanying the statue of the Black Nazarene being paraded died of a heart attack early yesterday. The devotees believe the centuries-old black statue of Jesus Christ carrying a cross is a source of miraculous powers that could cure ailments and provide good health and fortune.
JAPAN
Objects found in burger
A woman has claimed she found fragments identified as “dental material” in a McDonald’s hamburger, the company said yesterday — the latest in a series of food contamination woes for the fast-food giant. The claim comes two days after McDonald’s held a news conference acknowledging that several foreign objects had been found in its food, including a human tooth in a container of french fries at an outlet in Osaka. In television footage aired yesterday, the unidentified woman told the Asahi network that she found three tiny fragments of what looked like teeth in a burger she bought at a McDonald’s in Kushiro in September.
‘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