INDIA
Forty-four killed in bus crash
At least 44 people were killed in the north yesterday, when a passenger bus crashed into a gorge in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, police said. “Forty-four people have died in the accident. At least three others are injured. The rescue work is still ongoing,” Deepesh Chandra Kala, a disaster-management officer from Pauri Garhwal district, where the accident occurred, told reporters.
CHINA
Collision kills 18 people
Eighteen people were killed and 14 injured in a head-on collision between a passenger bus and a truck on a highway in a central region, police said on Saturday. The accident took place on Friday evening in Hunan Province. Video from the scene showed the heavily damaged vehicles along the rain-slicked highway. It appeared that one of the vehicles might have crossed a center divider. The accident appeared to be one of the worst in recent months.
NIGERIA
Four die in militant attack
Boko Haram militants killed four people during a raid on a camp for civilians displaced by the Muslim group’s violent insurgency in the country’s troubled northeast, security sources said on Saturday. The assailants entered the camp in the town of Banki near the border with Cameroon on bicycles and on foot on Friday night and opened fire. “Boko Haram terrorists entered Banki IDP [internally displaced people] camp last night and killed four people, injured four others and took supplies away with them,” a military officer in the town told reporters. The shots drew the attention of soldiers and policemen outside the camp, who engaged the militants in an hour-long gun battle, said the officer, who asked not to be named. “Two terrorists were killed in the fight and the rest fled,” he added.
UNITED STATES
Veteran’s account drained
Someone obtained the personal information of a Texas resident who is believed to be the oldest man in the country and used it to drain his bank account. The family of Richard Overton said Social Security and banking account numbers for the 112-year-old Austin man were used to make seven withdrawals over the past several months. His cousin Volma Overton declined to say how much was stolen, but said it was a “significant amount of money.” The money was used to purchase savings bonds, he said. A police report was filed on Friday. The money was separate from a 2015 online campaign that raised more than US$300,000 for Richard Overton, the nation’s oldest World War II veteran who was at Pearl Harbor just after the Japanese attack.
SOUTH KOREA
Maritime channel reopens
North and South Korea yesterday reopened a maritime communication channel, with vessels from the two countries making radio contact for the first time in a decade, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. A North Korean patrol boat responded immediately when the navy contacted it via an international radio channel at 9am in the western sea, normalizing the maritime communication channel for the first time in 10 years, the ministry said. The move showed the two Koreas were “taking practical steps” to uphold agreements made on April 27 when their leaders decided to defuse military tensions in a gradual manner, an official from the ministry said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
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