CHINA
Man kills eight with bus
Police have detained a 48-year-old unemployed man surnamed Qiu (邱), who hijacked a bus in Fujian Province’s Longyan after a dispute with a neighborhood official that resulted in eight people being killed, Xinhua news agency reported late on Tuesday. “The initial police investigation showed that on that day, the suspect had a conflict with an official of the neighborhood committee, with whom he had long been at odds, during the official’s visit to his home,” Xinhua said. “He then attacked people with a knife, hijacked a bus and used it to hit pedestrians.” Eight people were killed and 22 injured, one seriously, the report said.
INDONESIA
Weather poses new threat
Authorities yesterday warned of “extreme weather and high waves” around the erupting Anak Krakatoa volcano, urging people to stay away from the coast already devastated by a tsunami that killed more than 400 people. Clouds of ash spewed from Anak Krakatoa, almost obscuring the island. Rough weather around the volcano could make its crater more fragile, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency said late on Tuesday. “We have developed a monitoring system focused specifically on the volcanic tremors at Anak Krakatoa so that we can issue early warnings,” agency head Dwikorita Karnawati said, adding that a 2km exclusion zone had been imposed.
SYRIA
Israeli missiles ‘shot down’
Air defenses on Tuesday shot down Israeli missiles near Damascus, state media reported, while Israel said it was protecting itself from anti-aircraft fire. Air defenses “intercepted hostile missiles launched by the Israeli warplanes” from over Lebanese territories, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported, citing a military source. The majority of them were downed before reaching their targets near Damascus, it added. Three soldiers were injured and an ammunition depot damaged. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment, but the military said in a statement: “An aerial defense system went off against an anti-aircraft missile launched from Syria. No damage or injuries were reported.” The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor also reported “an Israeli raid.” If confirmed, the strike would be the first by Israel since the US withdrawal of troops was announced.
UNITED STATES
Baltimore buys back guns
Baltimore police last week collected 1,860 weapons, including a rocket launcher, as part of a buy-back program aimed at reducing violence. The three-day operation was announced in a bid to rid the streets of illegal weapons in a city where the number of homicides has surpassed 300 for the fourth year in a row. Authorities offered US$25 for large magazines, US$100 for handguns and rifles, US$200 for semiautomatic rifles and US$500 for automatic rifles, as well as promised anonymity.
GERMANY
Carriage collision hurts 20
Police said that 20 people were injured, two of them seriously, on Tuesday, when two horse-drawn carriages collided during a Christmas Day outing. The Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted Bavarian police as saying that the two carriages were approaching a rail crossing single file when the first carriage halted. The second did not and overturned during the collision. One man had to be taken to hospital by helicopter. The driver of one of the carriages was also seriously hurt. The other 18 injured people included children.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema