UNITED KINGDOM
Terry Pratchett dies at 66
Fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, creator of the exuberant, satirical “Discworld’’ series and author of more than 70 books, has died. He was 66. Pratchett, who suffered from a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease, had earned wide respect in recent years for his dignified campaign for the right of critically ill patients to choose assisted suicide. Transworld Publishers said Pratchett died on Thursday at his home, “with his cat sleeping on his bed surrounded by his family.” The firm said Pratchett died of natural causes, from a chest infection combined with the worsening effects of his dementia. Prime Minister David Cameron said “his books fired the imagination of millions and he fearlessly campaigned for dementia awareness.” Transworld said Pratchett’s final book, The Shepherd’s Crown, is due to be published this year.
Photo: Reuters
BANGLADESH
Factory collapse kills seven
Rescuers searched through the wreckage of a factory yesterday, a day after it collapsed, killing at least seven people, and far fewer people were believed to have been trapped than an initial estimate of 100. Soldiers and sailors in the port town of Mongla helped emergency services search through rubble and pull out nearly 50 survivors, as well as two more bodies overnight. “Most of the people inside the building have been rescued alive, but rescue operations are still going on until the last body is recovered,” senior district official Mohammad Shah Alam Sardar said by telephone from the scene. Thirty people were injured, officials said.
TURKEY
Security bill withdrawn
The government has unexpectedly taken its controversial homeland security bill out of parliament and sent it back to a committee for further revision in a possible concession to the opposition, Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. More than half the articles in the 130-clause security bill have already been approved by parliament, but Minister of the Interior Sebahattin Ozturk has asked for the remaining 63 articles in the bill to be sent to a parliamentary committee before further debate, Deputy Speaker Meral Aksener was quoted as saying. Opponents fear that the bill, which the government says is necessary for the security of citizens during protests, will turn the nation into a virtual police state, with the police given sweeping new powers to arrest and even fire on protesters.
KOREAS
North test-fires missiles
North Korea’s military test-fired seven surface-to-air missiles off the country’s east coast on Thursday and leader Kim Jong-un appeared to have been an observer, South Korea’s military said yesterday. The missiles were fired into the sea, a South Korean defense ministry official said. “We believe they test-fired different kinds of surface-to-air missiles and the longest range is about 200km,” the official said. “It appears Kim Jong-un observed the firing.” The test came as the US and South Korea finished the first of two large-scale annual military exercises yesterday.
INDIA
Bride walks out over math
A bride walked out of her wedding ceremony after the groom failed to solve a simple math problem. The bride tested the groom on his math skills and when he got the sum wrong, she walked out. The question she asked: How much is 15 plus six. His reply: 17. The groom’s family tried to persuade the bride to return, but she refused. She said the groom had misled them about his education. Local police mediated between the families and both sides returned all the gifts that had been exchanged before the wedding, a police officer said yesterday.
GERMANY
Virus-denier told to pay up
A biologist who promised in 2011 to pay 100,000 euros (US$106,200) to anyone who could prove that the measles was a virus was ordered by a court in Ravensburg on Thursday to hand over the money. The biologist, who says the illness is psychosomatic, made the promise on his Web site. A doctor gathered various scientific publications on the subject and claimed the reward, but the biologist rejected the findings. The court said the doctor had offered sufficient proof.
UNITED STATES
Clapton adds birthday shows
English guitar legend Eric Clapton is to celebrate turning 70 by playing two concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Clapton on Thursday announced the shows for May 1 and May 2, two weeks ahead of a previously announced residency of six sold-out concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall. His birthday is March 30.
MEXICO
US producer sentenced
A onetime reality television producer from the US was convicted on Thursday of murdering his wife during a 2010 Cancun beach vacation. Bruce Beresford-Redman, a former Survivor producer, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, Quintana Roo state prosecutor Gaspar Armando Garcia Torres said. The family had been on vacation in Cancun when Monica Burgos Beresford-Redman’s body was found in a sewer cistern at the resort where they were staying.
UNITED STATES
LBJ letter sold
A condolence letter from then-president Lyndon Johnson to the widow of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr sold for US$60,000 at auction on Thursday after a legal battle over the correspondence. The typed letter to Coretta Scott King is dated April 5, 1968, the day after her husband was gunned down in Tennessee. Coretta Scott King gave the letter to Harry Belafonte in 2003. When Belafonte tried to auction it off in 2008, King’s children objected, and the sale was cancelled and the two sides became embroiled in a legal battle. A settlement last year allowed Belafonte to keep the letter and he gave it to his half-sister, who put it up for sale with other memorabilia.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion