■ China
Bo Yibo cremated
The remains of Bo Yibo (薄一波), the last of the "Eight Immortals" who launched the country's economic reforms and crushed the 1989 pro-democracy protests, were cremated yesterday at a ceremony attended by President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and other senior officials. Bo, a veteran of the 1949 communist revolution, died on Monday at 98. Bo was the last survivor of the generation of leaders that included supreme leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
■ China
Seven jailed for explosion
A court has jailed seven people for an explosion at a hospital that killed 35 people after a cache of dynamite that was improperly stored in the building ignited, a news report said yesterday. The disaster, which occurred last April in the northern city of Yuanping, was the biggest in a recent series of deadly explosions blamed on improper storage of explosives by mines or the fireworks industry. The hospital administrator, who operated a private coal mine on the side, was accused of storing 3,700kg of dynamite and 10,000 detonators at the hospital and received a death sentence that was suspended for two years.
■ Japan
Military exchanges agreed
Japan and China are planning to increase their military exchanges as bilateral relations continue to warm, a report said yesterday. The expanded exchange program will see naval vessels making reciprocal visits to Chinese and Japanese ports. The port calls were agreed to in 2000, but the plan has been in diplomatic limbo since then due to the repeated visits by former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi to a Tokyo war shrine.
■ Indonesia
Quake rocks north Sulawesi
A strong earthquake shook the city of Manado yesterday evening but there were no immediate reports of casualties in the city of 400,000 people in northern Sulawesi island. "People panicked and ran out of their homes. They are still outside their homes," a witness said about 30 minutes after the quake struck in the Molucca Sea, 165 km east of Manado near the northern tip of Sulawesi. The US Geological Survey Web site put the quake's magnitude at 7.3 while Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency gave its strength as 6.5 on the Richter scale and initially said it could pose a tsunami risk. An agency official later said: "There is no report of significant damage so far."
■ Australia
Private eyes paid for sex
Local politicians paid private detectives thousands of dollars to have sex with prostitutes so they could use the evidence to shut down illegal brothels, reports said yesterday. Nick Ebbeck, mayor of suburban Ku-ring-gai Council, defended the practice, saying evidence was needed. "We have to employ private investigators to actually go through with the act and come up with reports that will suffice in a court process," Ebbeck told the Sunday Telegraph. "On numerous occasions over numerous days and times, they had to fulfil the act." Nine Sydney councils have spent AU$25,000 (US$19,730) over the past three years to fund the sexual forays, the paper said.
■ Nepal
Curfew imposed in the east
Authorities imposed a curfew in an eastern town yesterday to prevent clashes that allegedly began with a group of communist rebels opening fire on a crowd killing one person earlier this week. Chirajivi Adhikari, a local administrator in Siraha District, said they were forced to impose a new curfew after Maoist rebels and local people clashed again yesterday. The curfew in Lahan, a town about 250km southeast of Katmandu, would continue until this morning, Adhikari said. The trouble in Lahan began on Friday when a group of rebels, traveling by bus through the town, were stopped by locals who were trying to enforce a general strike. The rebels objected and a fight broke out.
■ Malaysia
Temple gets ISO certificate
A Hindu temple has reportedly become the first in the world to receive an international quality service certification, a news report said yesterday. The Sri Sundararaja Perumal temple in Klang, just outside of Kuala Lumpur, received the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 9001:2000 certificate last November, the national news agency Bernama said. "We wanted to set a benchmark by achieving this award so that people will know we provide quality services in religious faith," the temple's president S. Anandakrishnan was quoted as saying. "By standardizing our religious procedure, devotees will get similar and fair treatment in terms of wedding ceremony and other rituals," he said.
■ Malaysia
Florist burgled 30 times
Florist Auvaroza Abraham's shop was broken into again. That's life, you might say. But not if it has happened more than 30 times, a news report said yesterday. The New Straits Times reported that the flower shop in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak State on Borneo, has been robbed four times this month alone, the latest on Saturday. It said Auvaroza estimated her total losses so far at 200,000 ringgit (US$56,300) in the serial burglaries that have occurred since 2004. Auvaroza has filed police reports 30 times but police have come to her shop to investigate only three times, the newspaper said.
■ Nigeria
Gunmen seize six from ship
Kidnappers have snatched six Filipino workers from a merchant ship in the latest hostage-taking to hit the country's restive southern oil-producing region, officials said. The boat, with 14 crew on board, was heading to the city of Warri when unidentified gunmen boarded and took away the foreign workers on Saturday, said Delta state spokesman Ozoene Sheddy.
■ France
Royal drops in on squat
Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal on Saturday visited a Paris squat where homeless families have taken shelter, and said the fight against homelessness should become a priority. Royal pointed out that many city halls did not meet the French law requiring towns with more than 3,500 inhabitants to make 20 percent of their housing state-subsidized. Already, cities must pay fines if they fail to meet that goal, but Royal said that was not enough. "The state must step in for the faulty mayors by taking over land and building state-subsidized housing itself," Royal told reporters. She spoke during a brief appearance on Saturday at a squat that was taken over by homeless families last month.
■ France
Gendarme shot dead
A member of an elite intervention squad was killed and two others were injured in an operation to arrest an armed man who had holed himself up in his home after firing on police, officials said. The 66-year-old man had fired his shotgun on Friday at officers in the town of Gensac-sur-Garonne, in southwestern France, before locking himself in his house and continuing to fire shots from inside. Police attempted to negotiate with the man for hours before giving the green light to break into his home. As police burst into the house, one gendarme was killed and another officer was injured, regional prefect Andre Viau said. The gunman was brought under control and placed in police custody, said Paul Michel, prosecutor of the nearby city of Toulouse.
■ Italy
Minister rejects pullout
The nation's foreign minister rejected calls by far-left parties in Premier Romano Prodi's coalition to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, saying such a move would isolate Italy in the international arena. Greens and communist lawmakers in the center-left government have threatened to vote against more financing for the nation's 1,800-strong contingent in Afghanistan. They were angered after Prodi said his government would not oppose a US request to expand a military base in northern Italy. "Leaving Afghanistan ... where no country, not China, not Russia, is maintaining that they have to leave, isn't a political act," Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said on Saturday in a speech to members of his center-left Democrats of the Left Party. "It would be a choice that would isolate it."
■ DRC
Bemba wins senate seat
The former warlord who lost his bid for the country's presidency has won a seat in the country's Senate, according to provisional election results released on Saturday. Jean-Pierre Bemba, who lost a landmark vote to President Joseph Kabila late last year, won one of 108 seats in the Senate. He will be one of eight senators representing the capital, Kinshasa. Bemba won 42 percent of the presidential ballot last year to Kabila's 58 percent.
■ United States
Actor passes away
Ron Carey, an actor best known for his work as a cocky, height-challenged policeman on the 1970s TV comedy Barney Miller, has died. He was 71. Carey died of a stroke on Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said Michael Ciccolini, an extended relative and family spokesman. Carey had a recurring role on Barney Miller from 1976 to 1982 as Officer Carl Levitt, who yearned for a promotion to detective in New York. Carey also appeared in several Mel Brooks movies. He took pride in being a supporting player and a character actor. "Stars are stars," he told Newsday in 1989. "But without us, the show wouldn't go on."
■ United States
Pilot dies on the job
The pilot of a Continental Airlines flight became ill after takeoff and was later pronounced dead after the plane made an emergency landing, a company spokeswoman said. The 210 passengers on the flight, which departed from Houston, Texas, were never in danger and the co-pilot landed the plane safely on Saturday, Continental spokeswoman Macky Osorio said. The airline said only that the pilot suffered a "serious medical problem." The flight, bound for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, took off from Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and was diverted to McAllen-Miller International Airport in Texas. The flight continued to Mexico with a new crew, Osorio said.
■ United States
Duck lives refrigerated
Wildlife officials in Tallahassee, Florida, said a feathered Lazarus had been shot by a hunter and put into his refrigerator for two days. That's when the hunter's wife opened the door and the duck lifted his head, giving her a scare. "She freaked out and told the daughter to take it to the hospital right then and there," said Laina Whipple, a receptionist at Killearn Animal Hospital.
The hospital's staff had the daughter take the 450gm female ring-neck to Goose Creek Wildlife Sanctuary, where it has been treated since Tuesday for wounds to its wing and leg.
Sanctuary veterinarian David Hale said it has about a 75 percent chance of survival, but probably will not ever be well enough to be released back into the wild.
■ United States
Man falls 16 floors, lives
A man crashed through a double-paned window in a hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and plummeted 16 floors -- but survived when he was caught by a roof overhang. Joshua Hanson, 29, was taken to a hospital. Police and fire officials said he had multiple broken bones and internal injuries. Hanson and two friends returned from a night of drinking at about 1:30am on Saturday. When the elevator reached the 17th floor, Hanson ran down a short hallway toward a floor-to-ceiling window. He apparently lost his balance and crashed through the glass, then fell 90m, landing on the roof overhang one floor up from the street.
■ United States
Tribune looks at offers
An independent Tribune Co board committee reviewed prospective offers for the media company, but announced no initiatives designed to satisfy investors. The Chicago-based media giant has been entertaining offers amid pressure from investors to boost the company's sagging stock price. The committee was formed in September to oversee the development of strategic alternatives for creating additional shareholder value.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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