■ CHINA
Bodies recovered from mine
Rescue workers recovered two more bodies from a mine in southwest China, bringing the final death toll from a gas leak to 35, state media reported yesterday. Xinhua news agency said the cause of the accident at the Qunli mine in Nayong County in Guizhou Province on Thursday was still under investigation. Eighty-six workers were in the mine when the gas leak happened, but 51 escaped. The government warned recently that the country's mining industry would likely see more accidents as output was boosted for winter months.
■ INDONESIA
Sumatra struck by quake
An earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter scale struck Sumatra Island yesterday, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, the meteorology agency said. The epicenter of the quake lay 129km southwest of Bengkulu at a depth of 10km. There was no tsunami warning. The tremors were followed by a 5.7 Richter aftershock. Bengkulu was hit by a powerful quake of magnitude 8.4 in September that killed at least 25 people.
■ THAILAND
Man admits to killing spree
Police said yesterday they have charged a security guard with murder after he admitted beating to death eight coworkers he discovered sleeping on the job. Wittaya Jaikhan severely injured seven others in his violent spree, which began early this year, said spokesman Colonel Piyapun Pingmuang. "He confessed to killing the victims because he hated those who take naps at work, and he thought they were taking advantage of their employers," Piyapun said. "He used thick pieces of wood and iron pipes to kill them." The 30-year-old was arrested after using a mobile phone belonging to one of the victims to call his wife.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Singer's husband held
Retro soul-singer Amy Winehouse looked on tearfully on Saturday as a judge ordered her husband held on charges stemming from a case in which he is accused of assaulting a barman in June. Winehouse watched from the gallery in Thames Magistrates' Court in London as her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, 25, was ordered held in custody until Nov. 23. According to the charges read out in court, Fielder-Civil conspired with the alleged victim of the assault, persuading him to withdraw as a witness at the trial, which was to begin today. Fielder-Civil and Michael Brown, 39, face charges of assaulting the barman on June 20.
■ AUSTRIA
Kurds hold demonstration
About 1,200 people protested peacefully in Vienna on Saturday against a possible Turkish offensive in northern Iraq targeting Kurdish rebels, police said. The protesters, mostly Kurds, assembled at the State Opera and wound their way toward the Turkish Embassy through wind and rain. The march was organized by the Federation of Kurdish Associations in Austria (FEYKOM). Mevlut Kucukyasar, a FEYKOM official, said the aim of the demonstration was to call for a peaceful end to tensions between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
■ SUDAN
Ten sentenced to death
Ten people were sentenced to death on Saturday for last year's murder and beheading of a prominent Islamist journalist, a judicial source said. Amid tight security, a judge in the Bahri criminal court in Khartoum issued the verdict, which came at the end of a trial that lasted nine months, following a five-month police investigation. The 10 accused, who belong to the Fur tribe from the troubled region of Darfur, were found guilty of the killing of Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, editor-in-chief of the pro-Islamist newspaper Al-Wifaq.
■ SPAIN
Chinese tourists welcomed
A senior foreign ministry official said on Saturday that the country aims to receive between 200,000 and 500,000 Chinese tourists each year. "The number of Chinese tourists we get each year, between 20,000 and 30,000, is very low," the foreign ministry's director for Asia, Jose Eugenio Salarich, said. Since China eased restrictions on travel to Europe three years ago, Spain has taken steps to improve air links with the country. While most of China's 1.3 billion people live on just a few dollars a day, the country is producing a burgeoning middle class. Chinese tourists visiting foreign destinations are projected to number 100 million by 2020, up from 31 million in 2005.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
London aglow over Tut
Four London landmarks will be bathed in golden light every night next week to mark the return to the city for the first time in 35 years of the treasures of Tutankhamun, Egypt's boy king. The Tower of London, the Wellington Arch, the London Eye and the O2 arena, which will house the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibit, will be lit up in gold to emulate the precious metal that the tomb's discoverer Howard Carter said he saw everywhere in 1922. Organizers have sold 325,000 advance tickets for the exhibition which opens on Thursday and runs through August.
■ UNITED STATES
Bush jumps from plane
Former president George Bush celebrated the grand reopening of his presidential museum on Saturday with a surprise skydive. It was the former president's sixth skydive and his first since 2004, when he jumped to celebrate his 80th birthday. On Saturday, Bush was strapped to an expert from the US Army Golden Knights parachute team, as he was three years ago. Bush, now 83, had hip replacement surgery in January. He said at the time he planned to skydive in 2009 for his 85th birthday. Bush's first parachute jump came in 1944 when he was shot down over the Pacific island of Chi Chi Jima.
■ UNITED STATES
Senior citizen robs bank
Police say a 70-year-old Pennsylvania man told them he tried to solve his financial problems with a grocery bag, a bandanna and a 50-year-old handgun that does not work. Instead, Donald Cesare is in the Erie County Prison on federal bank robbery charges stemming from a holdup on Thursday at the First National Bank in Millcreek Township. Authorities say he has no criminal record and immediately apologized for the robbery when they tracked him down based on his description. Cesare also wants to apologize to the teller, police said. Police said they found a gun and about US$6,000 cash in a bag at Cesare's home.
■ UNITED STATES
Arnie undergoes surgery
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger underwent surgery to remove a metal plate and cables from his leg, a spokesman said. The hardware was used to help his upper thigh bone heal after he broke it while skiing on Dec. 23. Dr Kevin Ehrhart, who performed the 20-minute surgery at a Los Angeles hospital Saturday, said there were no complications. The governor "is in excellent health," Ehrhart said. He said removing the hardware is standard practice after the leg has fully healed. Ehrhart said the second-term Republican governor will use a crutch for several days. Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the governor turned over power to Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi for 90 minutes during what he described as "minor surgery.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
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