■ CHINA
Students burned by balloons
More than 60 students at a school in the northwest suffered burn injuries when hundreds of small hydrogen balloons exploded, state media reported yesterday. The students, from Lanzhou Electric Power School in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, were taking part in a sports event when the accident happened on Sunday, the Xinhua news agency said. As more than 1,500 balloons meant to be used at the opening of the event caught fire, dozens of students suffered burns, some of them severe, to their faces, hands and backs, according to the agency.
■ NEPAL
Political crisis talks held
Political leaders held emergency talks yesterday with former rebel Maoists to try to persuade the ultra-leftists to remain in government and cancel protests planned for later this week. The Maoists have vowed to stage major demonstrations and quit the government if the country is not immediately declared a republic, a move that would deal a major blow to last year's landmark peace deal that ended a decade of civil war. Maoist leader Prachanda was "scheduled to meet the prime minister on Monday afternoon, and other leaders have been meeting leaders from the other parties," Maoist deputy commander Ananta said.
■ CHINA
Church leader released
Beijing has released a leader of the nation's underground Protestant Church after being detained for three years for illegal possession of thousands of Bibles, a Christian activist group said yesterday. Cai Zhuohua (蔡卓華) from Beijing was freed on Sept, 10, according to a statement from the US-based China Aid Association, having lost more than 20kg but in otherwise good health. Cai, who was first taken into custody on Sept. 11, 2004, and formally sentenced to jail a year later, was forced to work 12 hours a day making soccer balls for the 2008 Beijing Olympics while in custody, the group said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Navy pays for implants
The military on Sunday defended its decision to pay for some female sailors to have breast implants, saying the operations were not carried out for cosmetic reasons. Defense Force spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic did not say how many women had had the taxpayer-funded operation. But he said the military would consider paying for plastic surgery for personnel where there were medical, dental or compelling psychological or psychiatric reasons. Any suggestion that breast operations were carried out to make the women "look sexy" were not only wrong, but insulting, Nikolic said. "Under defense policy we do consider the holistic needs of our people, both physical and psychological," he said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Suspect thought to be in US
A man who abandoned a girl, thought to be his daughter, at a busy train station is believed to have fled to the US, police said yesterday. The well-dressed Asian child, who is aged about three, was found wandering the Melbourne city station on Saturday morning. Security footage showed her holding the hand of an Asian man wearing a suit and carrying a suitcase just 15 minutes before she was found at Southern Cross station. Police said they believed the man was the child's father and that the pair had come to Australia from Auckland days earlier.
■ AUSTRALIA
Howard would lose seat: poll
Prime Minister John Howard would lose the election in his home district of Sydney if parliamentary polls were held now, a poll said yesterday. The results of the Morgan poll published in Melbourne's Age newspaper heighten the pressure on the country's second-longest serving prime minister to relinquish power before elections expected by early December. Howard reiterated on Sunday that he would lead his center-right coalition to the election despite opinion polls throughout the year showing his government trailing the center-left Labor Party, which has been in opposition since 1996.
■ UNITED STATES
Centenarian rides in sidecar
Evelyn Warburton rode to her 100th birthday party on Saturday in a motorcycle sidecar. She sported a black leather jacket, a helmet and a pair of sunglasses for the 10-minute ride from her home in Lightstreet, Pennsylvania, to her granddaughter's house in Berwick. "It was fun today," Warburton said. Her chauffeur on the green 2000 Harley-Davidson Ultra was George Crawford, a friend who had been offering to take her to church on his motorcycle for several years. Warburton finally accepted Crawford's offer of a ride to her party. She had actually turned 100 on Thursday.
■ UNITED STATES
Bathroom draws tourists
When tourists ask for the bathroom in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, airport lately, it is usually not because they have to go. It is because they want to see the stall made famous by US Senator Larry Craig's arrest in a sex sting. "It's become a tourist attraction," said Karen Evans, information specialist at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. "People are taking pictures." Craig was arrested June 11 by a Minneapolis airport police officer. The Idaho Republican pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Just 15 minutes into her shift on Friday, Evans said she had been asked directions to the new tourist attraction four times.
■ UNITED STATES
Student defender arrested
A student government president in Pennsylvania was charged with drunken driving just weeks after saying the media had unfairly portrayed students as irresponsible. Christopher Bevan, 21, was pulled over last weekend after a campus police officer said he saw the Bloomsburg University student driving more than 80kph in a 24kph zone. A breath test showed Bevan's blood-alcohol level was .147 percent, authorities said, well over the legal limit. Bevan recently wrote a letter to the Press Enterprise of Bloomsburg about media coverage of the college's annual Block Party, an event critics have described as rowdy and alcohol-fueled. The stories have "painted BU students with a broad and negative brush and are both inaccurate and extremely unfair," Bevan wrote.
■ ZAMBIA
Resurrection investigated
Police on Sunday ordered a forensic probe into a bizarre report that a woman believed to have died and been buried 11 years ago has reappeared in the capital Lusaka. Police Chief Emphraim Mateyo said that he has ordered the exhumation of Grace following claims by her parents and relatives to the police that she had resurrected. "We want to establish the truth. We shall exhume the body ... and carry out tests," Mateyo said. The police boss said the story grew more complicated because two couples were also claiming to be Grace's parents.
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
Myanmar’s junta chief met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the first time since seizing power, state media reported yesterday, the highest-level meeting with a key ally for the internationally sanctioned military leader. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021, overthrowing Myanmar’s brief experiment with democracy and plunging the nation into civil war. In the four years since, his armed forces have battled dozens of ethnic armed groups and rebel militias — some with close links to China — opposed to its rule. The conflict has seen Min Aung Hlaing draw condemnation from rights groups and pursued by the
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