■ China
Underground priest detained
Police in Hebei Province have detained an underground Roman Catholic bishop who previously spent some 20 years in prison, a US-based Catholic group said on Friday. Bishop Jia Zhiguo was detained at a church in his home diocese of Zhengding on Wednesday, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said. Jia, 69, is the bishop of Zhengding's underground Catholic church and was ordained in 1980. He has spent some 20 years in Chinese prisons and was arrested four times last year, the group said. He takes care of some 100 disabled orphans at his home in Zhengding, it said.
■ China
`Runaway' truck kills 28
At least 28 people died and 19 were injured after a container truck collided head-on with a bus in Fujian Province, Xinhua reported yesterday. The truck hit the bus on an expressway between Fujian's main cities of Fuzou and Xiamen on Thursday afternoon, the official news agency said. Twenty-four of the 45 people on board the bus died instantly, with four others dying on the way to hospital. The agency described the truck as a "runaway" vehicle but gave no details. It said the cause of the accident was under investigation.
■ Australia
Howard defends aid
Prime Minister John Howard defended Friday his decision to bypass the United Nations by negotiating a generous tsunami-relief package with Indonesia, saying it would be more effective. Australia has pledged A$1.06 billion (US$810 million) in aid -- the bulk of which will go to Indonesia over five years -- making it the biggest single donor in the international response to the Dec. 26 tragedy. Howard said the bilateral deal had the advantage of avoiding UN administrative costs and only Canberra and Jakarta would decide how the money was spent. "I'm not trying to sidestep anybody; I'm just trying to make sure that this huge amount of Australian assistance is delivered in the most effective way," Howard told Australia's Sky television in Jakarta. "I'm sure that the Australian taxpayer, who's after all providing the money, would want it that way."
■ Philippines
Pirates slay fishermen
Five fishermen were killed by suspected pirates off a southern Philippine city, police and local officials said yesterday. Police Chief Inspector Jones Tubig said an eight-year-old boy survived the attack on Thursday off Zamboanga City, 875km south of Manila, and told authorities about the incident. "The boy identified the five victims, one of whom was his father," Tubig said. Alibon Asakil, a village councillor, said unidentified gunmen fired at the victims while they were fishing aboard three boats. The boy was left floating on a piece of styrofoam, he said.
■ United Kingdom
Aid plan for Africa mooted
Finance minister Gordon Brown launched the UK's campaign for a Marshall plan for Africa on Thursday when he called on the international community to harness the "passion of compassion" generated by the Asian tsunami disaster to make this year a breakthrough year for the world's poorest continent. Unveiling the British government's three-pronged plan for greater debt relief, more generous aid and better trade access, Brown said the global response to the tsunami disaster was an expression of the public's demand for action to tackle poverty.
■ Kenya
Hippo befriends tortoise
A 120-year-old giant tortoise living in a Kenyan sanctuary has become inseparable from a baby hippo rescued by game wardens, officials said yesterday. The year-old hippo calf christened Owen was rescued last month, suffering from dehydration after being separated from his herd in a river that drains into the Indian Ocean. "When we released Owen into the enclosure, he lumbered to the tortoise which has a dark gray color similar to grown up hippos," Sabine Baer, rehabilitation and ecosys-tems manager at the park, said. She said the hippo's chances of survival in another herd were very slim, predicting that a dominant male would have killed him.
■ France
Thief's mother on trial
The mother of Europe's most prolific art thief was in court in France on Thursday, charged with throwing many of the priceless paintings her son had stolen into the local canal. When Mireille Breitwieser, a former nurse, found out that her son Stephane, 33, had been arrested on suspicion of stealing paintings worth tens of millions of dollars from museums across Europe, she rushed into his bedroom and started chopping up all the canvasses she found there, prosecutors said. On the same day in November 2001, she also allegedly forced works of art down the waste disposal system at their home in Alsace, eastern France, put others out for the rubbish collectors to take away and hurled the rest into the Rhine-Rhone canal.
■ South Africa
Mandela breaks AIDS taboo
Nelson Mandela broke one of South Africa's great taboos on Thursday by admitting his oldest and only surviving son had died of AIDS. Makgatho Mandela, 54, died in a Johannesburg clinic on Thursday morning after lengthy treatment for what had been an undisclosed illness. Hours later his father, looking frail but resolute, assembled journalists to the garden of his home to confirm what everyone had suspected. "We must not hide the cause of death of our respected families because that is the only way we can make people understand that."
■ Saudi Arabia
Telethon raises tsunami aid
A telethon held in oil-rich Saudi Arabia raised more than 308 million riyals ($82.13 million) for victims of the Asian tsunami, state media said yesterday. The 14-hour broadcast, shown on Saudi state television, appealed for help in dealing with the disaster which killed nearly 150,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless. Some commentators in the kingdom, the world's biggest oil exporter which employs tens of thousands of Asians, had criticized it for giving too little aid despite high revenues from record oil prices. Saudi officials, however, said their aid was generous in relation to its population and economy.
■ United States
Train wreck kills eight
At least eight people died and more than 200 were treated at hospitals after a 42-car freight train crashed into a smaller one early Thursday morning and leaked chlorine gas in Graniteville, South Carolina, the authorities said. Most of the injured were residents suffering from respiratory difficulty, said Thom Berry, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. Governor Mark Sanford declared a state of emergency for Aiken County, and officials told residents within a kilometer of the crash site to leave. Area residents went to two local schools, where paramedics evaluated them and sent many to hospitals, where more than 50 were admitted.
■ United States
Rat eating sparks lawsuit
Watching contestants eat dead rats on NBC's gross-out stunt show Fear Factor so disgusted a Cleveland man that he has sued NBC for US$2.5 million, saying he could not stomach what he saw. In a handwritten four-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Cleveland on Tuesday, paralegal Austin Aitken said, "To have the individuals on the show eat and drink dead rats was crazy, and from a viewer's point of view, made me throw-up as well an another [person] in the house at the same time." He said the show caused his blood pressure to rise so high that he became dizzy and light-headed, and when he ran to his room, he bumped his head into the doorway.
■ United States
Soldier on trial for killings
An Army platoon sergeant used unlawful military action when he ordered his troops to force two Iraqi cousins into the Tigris River for violating curfew, a prosecutor said in closing arguments. Army Sergeant 1st Class Tracy Perkins, who is accused in the drowning death of Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun, 19, is being tried on charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, obstruc-tion of justice and making a false statement. Jurors deliberated for four hours Thursday night before retiring for the night. They were to resume Friday morning. If convicted, Perkins could receive up to 26 years in a military prison.
■ United States
`Viagra' dealer pleads guilty
A man has pleaded guilty to smuggling tens of thousands of counterfeit Viagra tablets from China and manufact-uring hundreds of thousands more. Frank Fu Jen Huang, 58, entered his plea Thursday, the day his trial was to begin. He could face as much as 51 years in prison on charges of conspiracy, trafficking in counterfeit goods and causing a counterfeit drug to be made or sold, authorities said. Prosecutors said Huang dealt in US$5.6 million worth of the counterfeit male sexual potency pills, including importing at least 50,000 tablets into the United States from China.
■ United States
East coast feels tsunami
The tsunami that ravaged countries around the Indian Ocean also hit the eastern US, though only the tide gauges noticed. A tide gauge at Atlantic City, New Jersey, recorded the passage of a "train" of waves, just under 22cm from crest to trough, 32 hours after the earthquake struck off Sumatra's west coast on Dec. 26, said Alexander Rabinovich of the Canadian Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, British Columbia. A gauge at Port Canaveral, Florida, recorded 34cm waves 24 minutes later. Rabinovich has been spearheading an international effort to chart the course of the fading waves from the devastating tsunami triggered by the earthquake.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
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