■ SOLOMON ISLANDS
Howard condemns official
A lawyer sought in Australia on child sex charges was sworn in yesterday as the Solomon Islands' attorney general, sparking condemnation from Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Julian Moti, an Australian who evaded extradition last October when he escaped custody in Papua New Guinea, is a close friend of the Solomons' Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. Sogavare has repeatedly blocked Australia's efforts to have Moti return to face child sex charges arising from an incident in Vanuatu in 1997. "It is a very provocative and insensitive thing for somebody who is wanted on a criminal charge in this country to be sworn in as the attorney general," Howard told reporters.
■ PHILIPPINES
Landslide kills five
A landslide at a mountain gold-rush area in the south killed five people, including a pregnant woman, and injured three, police said yesterday. The landslide on Mount Diwata in Compostella Valley Province, occurred late on Monday after a week of heavy rains, damaging three shanties and burying four small-scale miners and a miner's wife who was five months pregnant, said Senior Inspector Antonio Rotol. Three residents, who were able to crawl out or were pulled from the debris, were rushed to a nearby health center, he added.
■ INDONESIA
Thousands flee volcano
Thousands of people were evacuated from the slopes of a volcano in eastern Indonesia after it spewed hot clouds of smoke, ash and rocks for a second day, officials said yesterday. Mount Gamkonora's alert has been raised to the highest level, meaning a major eruption could occur within days or weeks, said Saut Simatupang, who is monitoring the activities of the volcano on Halmahera island. Seismic activity at the 1,635m mountain increased sharply on Monday and two major eruptions were recorded early yesterday, shooting debris 3,000m into the air, he said. Some 8,400 villagers evacuated to safer areas in the last 24 hours, Simatupang said.
■ CHINA
Workplace deaths fall
Workplace accidents killed 7,321 people in the nation last month, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The number was down 10.4 percent from a year ago, the State Administration of Work Safety said, but still more than triple the figure in the US, using the most recent government figures and adjusting for the differences in population. Informants helped investigators bring to light four accidents that had been covered up that in total left 22 people dead or missing, Xinhua said. One of the cover-ups involved a water leak that killed six people in Chenjialing Village, Shanxi Province.
■ CHINA
Fake bottled water probed
The food safety watchdog promised yesterday to probe a report that more than half of the water coolers in Beijing use counterfeit branded water. The water is either tap water or purified water from small suppliers put into the water jugs and sealed with bogus quality standard marks, the Beijing Times newspaper said on Monday. It reported yesterday that local officials shut down a Beijing bottled water distributing station and seized safety seals and labels bearing the names of local brands. A food safety official said the agency was investigating the report, but noted a May inspection of Beijing's drinking water products found more than 96 percent were safe.
■ CANADA
Support urged for AU
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Monday urged the EU to help fund a unified African government. "The EU has to make financial commitment to enable Africa to move towards unity," Napolitano said in an address to the speaker of Ghanaian parliament. Ghana currently holds the rotating presidency of the African Union and recently hosted the organization's summit. The continental body has long backed a goal of creating an Africa-wide government, though progress has been slow.
■ RUSSIA
Armored vehicle attacked
Assailants detonated a roadside bomb and opened fire on an armored vehicle in Chechnya, killing three Russian servicemen and wounding five others, officials in the war-scarred region said yesterday. The attack on the Interior Ministry forces occurred early on Monday in the Vedeno district, a stronghold of separatist militants. Mostly Muslim Chechnya, the site of two wars pitting rebels against Russian forces since 1994, remains plagued by violence. The assailants fled the scene and wounded servicemen were in the hospital, officials said.
■ GREECE
Power plant protest ends
Unemployed protesters called off an occupation of the country's largest power plant yesterday, ending a threat of blackouts. The protesters, who had occupied the lignite-fired Agios Dimitrios plant since Saturday, said they had ended the action to consider labor proposals made by the government. The protesters are demanding more jobs at the plant for local residents. Plant officials late on Monday said they were willing to reconsider hiring practices at the plant. Electricity supply was already under strain following heat wave last month when temperatures reached 46?C.
■ UGANDA
Writing prize awarded
A young Ugandan is this year's winner of a ?10,000 (US$20,000) prize for African writing, three years after she was a finalist for the award, the judges announced on Monday. Monica Arac de Nyeko's short story Jambula Tree was the eighth winner of the annual Caine Prize, created in honor of the late Sir Michael Caine, a British businessman with a deep interest in Africa who chaired the committee of what is today known as the Man Booker Prize. Arac de Nyeko was shortlisted for the prize in 2004 for another story, Strange Fruit. Arac de Nyeko, born in 1979 in Uganda's civil-war-torn north, writes of conflict and poverty, but also of love and family.
■ LIBERIA
Police skirmish wounds 34
Allegations that seaport police were stealing fuel shipments sparked a brawl between national and port forces that sent dozens to hospitals on Monday, authorities said. The skirmish broke out early Monday when members of the national police force tried to arrest the suspected port officers, said National Police spokesman Alvin Jask. He said the fighting shut down the port and UN peacekeepers were called in. "Twenty-two of our own police officers are currently hospitalized," Jask said. Jask said Police Director Beatrice Munah Sieh was briefly taken hostage by the seaport officers when she arrived to make the arrests. Deputy Port managing director Reginald Pratt said at least 12 port workers were injured.
■ UNITED STATES
Traffic accident kills 3
Three illegal immigrants died and 14 were taken to hospital on Monday after the man who was transporting them lost control of his vehicle in a high-speed chase with Texas police. At least 19 men were crammed into a Ford Explorer sports utility vehicle which normally seats seven, police said. The chase started shortly before midnight when a police officer from Natalia, Texas, spotted the overstuffed vehicle speeding on the highway towards San Antonio. The driver pushed the truck up to speeds of more than 160kph before a tire blew out and the truck spun out of control.
■ UNITED STATES
Wrecking ball wreaks havoc
A 680kg wrecking ball broke loose from a crane cable and raced downhill, smashing into cars and injuring three people before coming to rest in the trunk of a car at an intersection. The wrecking ball, about 100cm across, was being used Monday to demolish part of a library at Allegheny College, north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when the cable snapped, police said. The crane operator tried to stop it, but it rolled nearly 1,200m downhill, damaging more than a dozen vehicles as it bounced from curb to curb, police said.
■ HAITI
Officials crackdown on meds
Health officials announced a crackdown on counterfeit medicine in the capital, where street vendors by the hundreds sell unmarked antibiotics and cold medications out of buckets and plastic bags. Officials will seize any contraband medicines and also shut down unlicensed pharmacies selling drugs that have not undergone safety testing, Health Director Gabriel Thimothe said on Monday. No penalties were announced for people caught selling the medications. The WHO group says counterfeit pharmaceuticals are rampant in less developed countries.
■ UNITED STATES
Groups oppose execution
US anti-death penalty groups have joined Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu and singer Harry Belafonte in opposing the July 17 execution of a Georgia man many believe is innocent, after the US Supreme Court denied his appeal. Troy Davis, an African American, was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder of a white police officer in Savannah in 1989. Since his trial, most of the witnesses against Davis, now 38, admitted they had lied, many under pressure from the police. One has said that he could not have seen the killer's face and could not read, yet he was given an affidavit to sign naming Davis as the killer. All of Davis' appeals have been rejected on technicalities.
■ UNITED STATES
Mother admits neglect
The mother of a three-year-old boy who wandered along an interstate highway in Indiana while she slept in their apartment pleaded guilty to three counts of child neglect and faces up to two years in prison. Nancy Dyer, a 31-year-old mother of two who is pregnant with another child, admitted she had placed her son, Damon Stewart, and his younger sister in danger by sleeping while the children were without supervision. The boy, wearing only a soiled diaper and a Superman T-shirt, slipped out of their Indianapolis apartment Dec. 30, walked onto Interstate 465. Authorities said at least six cars and a semitrailer swerved into other lanes to avoid the boy. Police officers reported finding human waste and trash strewn about the apartment. The children now are living with other relatives.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
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