■ China
25 killed in fireworks blast
At least 25 people died and nine were injured after fireworks exploded at a firecracker factory in northern China's Shanxi province, local officials said yesterday. State media said most of the victims of the accident Tuesday afternoon at the Xiangliu firecracker factory were young women. Police were searching for the factory owner, who fled after the explosion, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The cause of the accident was under investigation, it said.
■ Vietnam
China `attacks' fishermen
The Chinese coast guard fired on two Vietnamese fishing boats in separate attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin, killing nine Vietnamese fishermen and wounding six others, an executive said yesterday. Nguyen Phi Phuong, director of Hung Cuong Fishing Cooperative in northern Thanh Hoa province, said two Chinese coast guard boats armed with machine guns attacked one of his company's vessels on Saturday. The Vietnamese were fishing in waters jointly shared by Vietnam and China when they came under fire, Phuong said. However, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Hanoi said the embassy had received an unconfirmed report that Vietnamese pirates attacked Chinese fishermen who were fishing in China's territorial waters, he said.
■ China
Israel denies drone report
The Israeli military denied reports that Israel had suspended an upgrade for drone aircraft it sold to China in the 1990s. Rachel Niedak-Ashkenazi, spokeswoman for the Israeli Defense Ministry, said Tuesday that Israel had not returned parts to the Chinese military as earlier reported. Several Israelis close to the deal had said Israel returned the parts without upgrading them in apparent deference to Washington's concern that the Harpy attack drones threatened Taiwan. However, another Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed Niedak-Ashkenazi's assertion that the parts are still in Israel.
■ Hong Kong
`Longhair' strikes again
Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) was forced to delay his policy address speech by 15 minutes yesterday when rebel Legislator Leung "Longhair" Kwok-hung (梁國雄) shouted protests as he entered the legislative council chamber. Legislative Council President Rita Fan (范徐麗泰) adjourned the speech and took Leung to one side to seek an assurance that he would allow Tung to continue his speech uninterrupted. Leung then delivered a brief, defiant speech before walking out. "I just want to say one thing -- that is that absolute power leads to absolute corruption," he said.
■ India
Homeless seek tsunami aid
Beggars from the south Indian technology capital Bangalore have shifted operations to the tsunami-hit coastline where aid cash and supplies is overflowing, a newspaper reported yesterday. The traditional haunts of Bangalore's beggars -- temples, mosques and churches as well as train and bus stations -- are virtually deserted, The Times of India said. No one has an official count for the number of beggars, but Karnataka state's Beggar Relief Committee has noticed the migration. "In fact we expected more beggars from Tamil Nadu and other tsunami-affected areas to inhabit the city," committee superintendent Chandrappa B. Madar told the Times. "We are happy the numbers have reduced in the city for now," he said.
■ United States
Kicking bunny' on trial
A Playboy Playmate accused of grabbing a dance pole and karate-kicking the ex-girlfriend of NFL quarterback Jeff Garcia went on trial on a misdemeanor assault charge. Carmella DeCesare, who is dating the Cleveland Browns player, faces a misdemeanor assault charge in the Aug. 21 barroom fight with Kristen Hine. According to testi-mony Tuesday, Garcia dated Hine, 32, four or five times but later dropped her for DeCesare, 22. Nasty phone calls and threatening voice mails followed and culminated in a confron-tation last Aug. 21 at the Tramp nightclub. Name-calling ensued, and a friend of Hine's dumped a drink on DeCesare. Each woman had to be restrained and when Hine tried to walk away, DeCesare allegedly grabbed a dance pole and kicked Hine in the head, snapping her head back.
■ United Kingdom
Three die in heavy storms
Three motorists have been killed as heavy storms lashed Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland, leaving thousands of homes without power, police said yesterday. The full force of the weather was unleashed in Scotland, where 60,000 people lost electricity after gales brought down trees and telegraph poles. A Spanish fishing trawler with a crew of 19 was missing in the Outer Hebrides, 200 miles off the coast of Skye, Scottish coast guards reported. But northern England and Northern Ireland were also badly hit by the high winds, which blew over two trucks, claiming the lives of two motorists.
■ Switzerland
Geneva buys costly toilets
Switzerland is renowned as one of the richest, cleanest and most efficient countries in the world. Now, authorities in Geneva are bringing the city's public conveniences up to scratch -- at a cost of US$13 million for just 35 new toilets, Swiss daily Le Matin reported on Tuesday. Each facility is designed by a different architect at a cost of 370,000 Swiss francs (US$313,000) -- about the same as a one-bedroom, city center apartment. "Inside they are functional and equipped to a high sanitary standard," the city council said on its Web site. "On the outside, each public toilet is different and adapted to its surroundings."
■ United States
Jackson trial re-enacted
Two television companies found a creative way around the ban on cameras for Michael Jackson's child-molestation trial: dramatic re-enactments. E! Entertainment Television and satellite company British Sky Broadcasting, BSkyB, are joining to present daily recreations of the trial, executives announced on Tuesday. Given international interest in the pop star's case and the lack of cameras, the series will "bring the trial to life," said Ted Harbert, president and chief executive officer of E! Networks. Court transcripts will be used to highlight the previous day's testimony and court events, with each network packaging the recreations with its own hosts.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
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
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
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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