■ China
Little hope for lost miners
Rescuers have little hope of finding 122 missing coal miners after weekend rains from Tropical Storm Sanvu forced a halt to search efforts in a flooded mine in southern China. The miners have been missing in the Daxing Coal Mine in Xingning, Guangdong Province, since water poured into the mine Aug. 7. The government has blamed the disaster on violations of safety rules. Rescuers have been pumping water out of the mine but say they have found no sign of the missing miners. Rains swept through the area during the weekend. "There is now almost no hope of finding the trapped miners alive," the China Daily said.
■ Indonesia
Hash lands Australian in jail
An Australian businessman was sentenced yesterday to five months' jail for hashish possession on Bali. Adelaide native John Pyle was detained in May after authorities found 1.8g of hashish at his Bali residence. Judge Nyoman Gede Wirya disregarded evidence that an Australian doctor was treating Pyle for drug addiction. Pyle's lawyer had argued that his client should be spared jail time because he was seeking medical help.
■ Japan
Corruption probe widens
A top bureaucrat was indicted yesterday in a widening probe into bid-rigging involving highway construction. Michio Uchida, vice president of state-run Japan Highway Public Corp, was charged with helping fix the bid for a bridge construction project. He was arrested last month as Japan investigates an alleged cartel of 45 companies arranging who would win highway projects. Prosecutors already indicted 26 companies and eight businesspeople on charges of violating the Anti-Monopoly Law in connection with highway bridge projects.
■ Hong Kong
Pork `not contaminated'
Chinese officials said yesterday they had recalled some pork in Shenzhen but tests showed it was not contaminated with a bacteria that has killed nearly 40 people in Sichuan Province. A pig-borne disease caused by the streptococcus suis bacteria has infected more than 200 people in Sichuan and killed 39 of them in recent weeks. Authorities recalled over 1,270kg of pork, which originated from Henan Province, from two Shenzhen markets on Saturday. Officials in Shenzhen posted notices at some housing estates promising refunds to residents who surrendered pork that they bought from the markets. Those who had consumed the meat were ordered to register their names, but were not told why. Although China has suspended exports of Sichuan pork to Hong Kong, sales of the meat have fallen markedly in the city, which gets most of its food from the mainland.
■ Philippines
Two wounded in clash
Two soldiers were wounded in fresh clashes with Moslem Abu Sayyaf rebels led by their chieftain Khadafi Janjalani in the southern Philippines. Army Colonel Franklin del Prado said the fighting erupted when patrolling troops encountered Janjalani's group in Talayan town. "We have dispatched more troops into the area to look for Janjalani," he said. Thousands of troops are already hunting down Janjalani, the elusive Abu Sayyaf chieftain, one of the most wanted criminals in the Philippines with a 10 million peso (US$178,571) bounty on his head. "It will be very hard to locate Janjalani's group because the area is thickly forested and the terrain is difficult," Del Prado said. The US has also offered up to US$5 million for his arrest.
■ Germany
Plane overshoots runway
A British Airways flight on Sunday overshot the runway at Hanover airport, ending up in a meadow 150m past the landing strip, the airport said. The 45 passengers and four crew members were not injured, and were able to walk off the jet, which started its journey in Birmingham, England. It was raining at the time of the accident, but it was not known whether that was a possible cause for the mishap, which occurred just before 5pm. The plane's landing gear sank into the wet soil, and the plane was to be left in place until yesterday as the accident was investigated.
■ Sudan
Curfew lifted in Khartoum
Sudanese authorities have lifted a curfew imposed two weeks ago to stop the capital's worst violence in decades, which killed at least 111 people, Interior Ministry officials said yesterday. "We have lifted the curfew," the ministry official said. "There will be no checkpoints, but the forces will still be out on the streets." News of the sudden death of former southern rebel leader and newly sworn-in first Vice President John Garang two weeks ago sparked riots in Khartoum's central commercial streets and suburbs. Tit-for-tat violence followed, polarizing the capital's northern and southern communities.
■ Italy
Sub wheeled through city
An Italian navy submarine stopped road traffic and awed thousands of spectators Sunday as it was trucked through Milan to its new, retirement home at the city's Museum of Science and Technology. Riding aboard a 240-wheel flatbed, the Enrico Toti was taken at a speed of less than 1kph through the streets, where dozens of utility poles and stop lights were removed to give the submarine room. Curious Milanese turned out before dawn to see the retired submarine, which was escorted by police on motorcycles. Thousands more lined up to look at it inside the museum, where it will be prepared for people to take tours inside.
■ United Kingdom
BBC cuts self-harm scene
The BBC says it has dropped footage of Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty cutting himself with a broken bottle, after a mental-health charity warned that teenagers could try to imitate him. The images of supermodel Kate Moss' on-again, off-again boyfriend engaging in self-harm were included in a rough edit of the BBC fly-on-the-wall TV show Who the F*** is Pete Doherty? and appeared in the press last week. Yesterday the BBC said it had removed the footage from the documentary after the Samaritans, a suicide helpline service, warned that it could have encouraged young people to follow Doherty's example.
■ Egypt
Bus explodes in Sinai
A small bus in an airport which is used by the multinational observation force in Sinai exploded yesterday and initial reports indicated there were dead and injured, an Egyptian security source said. "A microbus inside the airport exploded," the security official in North Sinai said. He said he did not know the reason for the blast. The source said the blast occurred at an airport at El Gorah, a camp in the North of Sinai which is used by Multinational Force and Observers, which was set up to supervise the implementation of the security provisions of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
■ Brazil
US professor shot to death
A US anthropology professor on a research trip was shot and killed on Saturday in an Amazon rainforest town. James Petersen, 51, of the University of Vermont, was shot while he was being robbed in a restaurant in the town of Iranduba, about 22km west of Amazonas state capital Manaus. Three suspects were taken into custody on Sunday morning in connection with Petersen's murder.
■ United States
Man shot twice in same spot
Kenyatta Bostic was shot by Georgia police twice in the same shoulder at two different times on the same night. The girlfriend of Bostic, 33, called police with a domestic violence complaint early Saturday. He returned soon after, but when police ordered him to turn off his car's engine he sped off, barely avoiding an officer who dived out of the way. An officer fired through the car's passenger window, hitting Bostic in the shoulder. Police then chased him through the Atlanta metropolitan area until Bostic returned to his girlfriend's apartment complex, where he crashed his car and set out on foot. During the ensuing chase, he was shot in the same shoulder. He is now being held on several charges.
■ Cuba
Castro urges release of `spy'
President Fidel Castro managed to speak by telephone with a suspected Cuban spy jailed in the US and urged Washington to free the man and four others whose US convictions were recently overturned. Castro was meeting with the family of the five imprisoned Cubans Saturday when one of the men was allowed to call his wife in Havana. Castro, who was celebrating his 79th birthday, spoke with the prisoner, Gerardo Hernandez. Hernandez was arrested in Florida in 1998 along with four others accused of monitoring US military installations. They were convicted of spying in 2001.
■ Peru
Toledo's ratings sink, more
President Alejandro Toledo's approval rating has sunk to 8 percent after his appointment of a controversial foreign minister. A poll published in El Comercio newspaper showed Toledo's popularity inched up to 14 percent last month and had hit 16 percent at the start of this month but last Thursday's appointment of Fernando Olivera slashed it by half. It was Toledo's worst showing since May of last year when his rating hit 6 percent. His appointment of the abrasive Olivera -- until now his closest ally -- was greeted with incredulity from ministers who disagreed with him over a regional law in southern Peru legalizing some cultivation of crops that make cocaine. Olivera, the head of the government's junior coalition party, is widely distrusted for his priviliged access to the president.
■ United States
Hurricane Irene turns away
Tropical Storm Irene strengthened into the season's third hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday but turned away from the US East Coast on a path that posed no threat to land. Irene's top winds reached 30kph, crossing the 119kph to become a minimal hurricane. Irene was expected to turn more to the northeast and fizzle by midweek as it moved over colder water. Irene was the ninth tropical storm of a busy Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season that is just approaching what is traditionally the most active period. Irene was this year's third hurricane, marking the first time since 1966 that three have formed so early.
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
‘INCREDIBLY TROUBLESOME’: Hours after a judge questioned the legality of invoking a wartime power to deport immigrants, the president denied signing the proclamation The US on Friday said it was terminating the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, giving them weeks to leave the country. US President Donald Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history and curb immigration, mainly from Latin American nations. The order affects about 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the US under a scheme launched in October 2022 by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, and expanded in January the following year. They would lose their legal protection 30 days after the US Department of Homeland Security’s order is published in the Federal
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