NEPAL
Tourist survives tiger attack
A Dutch tourist who survived a tiger attack over the weekend by climbing a tree in a jungle in the southwestern region of the nation on Monday said that he is lucky to be alive and would now have a story to tell when he returns home. Gerard van Laar said he was attacked by the tiger when he and his guide, Krishna, were hiking in Bardia National Park on Saturday. “I was super lucky to be alive. I would have been dead if it had not been for Krishna,” Van Laar said by telephone from Bardia, about 400km southwest of Kathmandu. “All of a sudden, I heard a roar and a growl, and the tiger was heading toward us at full speed,” said Van Laar, who has been traveling in the nation since last month. He was able to escape by climbing a tree, but Krishna was attacked and slightly injured as he ran away to draw the attention of the tiger. The tiger returned and circled the tree while Van Laar tried to stay as quiet as possible about 6m above the ground. About two hours later, Krishna returned with help, and they shouted and used sticks to drive away the tiger. Krishna was hospitalized for a day, but Van Laar was not hurt. Bardia, a protected national forest, is home to about 70 tigers. It is popular and receives thousands of visitors per year, but tiger attacks are rare.
UNITED STATES
New spiders identified
A tarantula named after singer Johnny Cash is among 14 new species identified by scientists, who spent a decade collecting the hairy spiders and studying nearly 3,000 of them. The tarantula is black and can be found near the California prison that is the setting of Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues. Chris Hamilton and colleagues from Auburn University and Millsaps College collected nearly 1,500 spiders from the 12 states where tarantulas live, and about 300 sent by the public. They analyzed DNA from more than 1,000 of those spiders and examined another 1,200 specimens lent by museums in New York and London. They have collapsed the number of US species from 55 to 29, including the 14 new ones.
VIETNAM
Death row inmate pregnant
Four prison guards in the north of the nation have been suspended for alleged negligence after a female inmate, on death row for drug trafficking, became pregnant, which means her death sentence is to be commuted to life in prison once her child is born, state media reported yesterday. The Thanh Nien newspaper said Nguyen Thi Hue, 42, was arrested in 2012 for drug trafficking and sentenced to death in 2014. A court rejected her appeal the same year. The paper reported that, while in prison, Hue paid US$2,300 to a male inmate to help her get pregnant. It said the 27-year-old male inmate twice put his sperm in a plastic bag with a syringe in a mutually agreed place and Hue inseminated herself. She became pregnant and is expected to give birth in about two months. In accordance with the law, Hue is to have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment for having a child younger than three years of age.
AUSTRALIA
Trapped miner rescued
A miner, who was trapped for a week underground in Indonesia after a tunnel collapsed, has been rescued and is recovering in hospital, Newcrest Mining said yesterday. Pak Mursalim Sahman had been stuck 300m below the surface since a Feb. 9 incident at Gosowong Gold Mine in Halmahera, Indonesia, which is operated by a Newcrest subsidiary. All other workers were safely evacuated at the time.
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
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