■ China
Peacekeepers to go to Haiti
China is sending 125 riot police on a UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti, the Caribbean nation which has full diplomatic ties with Beijing's rival Taiwan, state media reported yesterday. Xinhua news agency said this will be the first time China has ever sent riot police abroad to take part in a UN peacekeeping mission. The 125 policemen and women from forces in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chonqing will leave in two groups on Sept. 12 and 27, it said. Haiti is among 27 countries resisting pressure to abandon Taiwan and to forge ties with China.
■ China
19 die in flash flooding
At least 19 people died and 21 were missing after rainstorms brought flash floods and landslides to parts of southwestern China's Sichuan province, state media said yesterday. Mountain torrents, landslides, and mud and rock flows hit Sichuan during continuous rain since Thursday, Xinhua news agency said. Total rainfall reached 25cm in 24 hours in Sichuan's Quxian county on Friday and Saturday. In the whole province, at least 19 people died, 21 were reported missing and 40 were seriously injured, the officials said. Severe summer weather has caused floods and landslides that have killed more than 800 people in China this year..
■ bangladesh
Bomb near cinema kills 2
Two people were killed and 10 wounded in a bomb blast in northeastern Sylhet town yesterday, police said. The blast occurred outside a cinema hall. Police had no immediate clue who might be involved. Doctors at Sylhet Medical College Hospital said they admitted seven blast victims, with a few in critical condition. Sylhet has been the scene of several bombings since May in which at least seven people have been killed and over 250 wounded, including British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury. US terrorism expert J. Cofer Black arrived in Dhaka yesterday to help investigate a grenade attack at an opposition rally last month that killed 19 people and wounded 150.
■ Malaysia
Anwar arrives in Germany
Former Malaysian deputy leader Anwar Ibrahim arrived in Germany yesterday for back surgery, days after being released from six years in prison. A Malaysian Airlines flight brought Ibrahim and his family to Frankfurt, his aide Azmin Ali said. Anwar is scheduled to undergo endoscopic surgery today at a private clinic for an injury he suffered partly during a police beating six years ago. At Anwar's departure, several thousand supporters brought Malaysia's main airport terminal to a standstill in a potent reminder of the charismatic sway he holds over the country. The crowds overwhelmed Kuala Lumpur airport security as they surged toward Anwar's car when he arrived.
■ Indonesia
Mutiny claims 7 Thai sailors
Myanmarese crewmen threw seven Thai sailors into the sea during a mutiny aboard an Indonesian-operated fishing vessel, the navy said yesterday. Navy personnel who boarded the Chum Pol Naval-30 south of Ambon island in eastern Indonesia found seven Thai crewmen missing, said a navy spokesman. The 26 Myanmarese crew members were questioned by the navy and told them that they had thrown seven Thai sailors, including the captain, overboard. The ship and its crew were taken to the navy base in Ambon.
■ Pakistan
Lethal home brew kills 31
A toxic batch of home-brewed alcohol has killed 31 people in several towns in central Pakistan, police and hospital officials said yesterday. Most of the deaths occurred in the city of Multan where unconscious patients were admitted to hospital early Saturday, district police chief Hamid Mukhtar Gondal said. Doctor Imran Rafiq said yesterday all 17 people brought to one Multan hospital in the past 24 hours had died within hours. "It was an extremely poisonous alcohol, which affected their lungs and kidneys," he said. Alcohol is officially banned for Muslims in Pakistan but those determined to drink can purchase locally made spirits or black-market imports.
■ United States
Diver sets scuba record
An American man beat his own record for staying underwater with scuba gear after five days in a lake -- complete with recliner, a checkerboard, music and good friends to keep him company. Then Jerry Hall cheerfully signed a pledge to his wife never to do it again. "I had the easy job," Hall said. "It was my dive team that did all the work. I kept them hopping all the time, and they never once complained. Whatever I wanted or needed, they were there for me." Hall, 39, of Bluff City, Tennessee, already is in the current edition of the Guinness World Book of Records for staying underwater with scuba gear for 71 hours, 39 minutes and 40 seconds. He surpassed that at 9:56am Wednesday and didn't leave Tennessee's Watauga Lake until Friday with a time of 120 hours, 1 minute and 25 seconds.
■ Germany
Opposition win likely
Voters went to the polls yesterday in regional elections in Saar state which are expected to result in a heavy defeat for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD). Some 818,000 electors were eligible to vote for a new state assembly in the first of four local elections in Germany this month which could see a voter backlash against the SPD amid anger over the government's welfare reforms.
■ Gaza
Militants seize office
Palestinian gunmen yesterday seized the local government offices in a southern city, demanding that the Palestinian Authority do more to assist families left homeless by an Israeli military operation last week, witnesses said. It was the latest case of violence directed toward Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which has been widely accused of corruption and ineffectiveness. About 15 gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with loose ties to Arafat's Fatah movement, seized the governor's office in Khan Younis early yesterday and expelled most of the 22 workers in the building, witnesses said.
■ Iraq
Fighting kills 2
Two Iraqis were killed and nine wounded yesterday as US troops and insurgents battled in the northern Iraqi town of Tall Afar for a second straight day. Fighting erupted after gunmen fired on a US Army convoy outside the town, 60km west of Mosul, said police lieutenant Ghaith Mohammed al-Obeidi. US soldiers and Iraqi national guardsmen then poured into Tall Afar and clashes broke out in the town center, lasting for about two hours before the US and Iraqi forces withdrew, he said, adding that US helicopters opened fire on insurgents.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
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