■ CHINA
Landslide death toll rises
The confirmed death toll in a landslide has risen to at least 34 after one more body was pulled from the debris, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Most of the dead in the landslide late last month in mountainous Badong County in Hubei Province were in a bus that was crushed by rocks and other debris, Xinhua said. The latest confirmed victim was believed to be a migrant worker, Li Qingzhong, who was clearing water from the road by the entrance to a tunnel with three co-workers when the landslide occurred. Only one survived.
■ CHINA
Bicycle theft targeted
Beijing, where 4 million bicycles are stolen a year, is clamping down on bike thieves and trying to end the vicious cycle of the second-hand market months before it hosts the Olympics, state media said yesterday. China is home to a world-record 470 million bicycles. Starting at the weekend, new bicycles must have identification numbers and buyers must register using their real names, the China Daily said. "The registration of names, ID and phone numbers will make it easier for police to trace stolen bicycles and return them to their rightful owners," the newspaper said. Around 4,000 people have been caught stealing bicycles this year in Beijing.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Teen jumps to his death
A teenager has jumped to his death after sneaking into a US base in Seoul, police said yesterday. US troops found the body on Sunday beneath a communications tower on the roof of a building inside the small US base on Mount Namsan near the city center, police and US officials said. "His family confirmed the body was their mentally ill son, a teenager who had been temporarily released from hospital for a family visit," a detective at Seoul's Jungbu police station said. "We have concluded that he committed suicide."
■ BANGLADESH
Extortion trial begins
Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina went on trial yesterday accused of extortion, her lawyer said. Hasina was brought to the court from a makeshift jail in the Parliament complex amid tight security, her lawyer Mahbube Alam said. After hours of debate, Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Azizul Hoque fixed Monday next week for the next hearing on the charge that she and two relatives received kickbacks to let a businessman build a power plant, Alam said. In June, businessman Azam Chowdhury, managing director of Eastcoast Trading, filed a case accusing Hasina, her sister and their cousin, of taking money in return for allowing his company to set up a power plant.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Minister pleads not guilty
A Cabinet minister who punched a political opponent in the face in the parliament building pleaded not guilty to assault charges yesterday. Environment Minister Trevor Mallard earlier apologized to parliament and to opposition National Party Legislator Tau Henare, whom he punched on the jaw on Oct. 24 after Henare made comments about Mallard's personal life. Henare called "Shut up, Sharon" while Mallard was speaking -- in a reference to a woman wrongly linked with the minister by gossip columns. Although Henare said he would not press charges, accountant Graham McCready launched a private prosecution. Judge Thomas Broadmore scheduled the hearing for Dec. 18.
■ UNITED STATES
Storm system hits northeast
A storm system slid across the northeastern US with snow, sleet and freezing rain, glazing roads and tying up air travel after blacking out thousands of customers in the Midwest. At least 11 deaths have been blamed on weather-related traffic accidents. Winter storm warnings were in effect into yesterday in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and into today in parts of New York state. On the other side of the weather system, warnings were issued for parts of Michigan, where freezing rain and sleet were turning to snow on Sunday.
■ UNITED STATES
Wedding ring saves life
Police say a Mississippi man's wedding band deflected a bullet and probably saved his life. Two men walked into Donnie Register's shop in Jackson on Saturday and asked to see a coin collection, police Sergeant Jeffery Scott said. When Register retrieved the collection, one of the men pulled a gun and demanded money. A shot was fired as Register threw up his left hand, and his wedding ring deflected the bullet, police said. "The bullet managed to go through two of his fingers without severing the bone," said his wife, Darlene.
■ UNITED STATES
Weapons take center stage
The evidence included Buffalo Bill's Winchester rifle, a pair of Colt six-shooters owned by General George Custer and Geronimo's bow and arrows when three antique gun enthusiasts went on trial yesterday on charges of bilking millionaire collector Owsley Brown Frazier. The Kentucky, philanthropist spent millions acquiring the antique arms and displaying them in a museum that he opened in 2004. But federal authorities say Frazier grossly overpaid for the weapons, thanks to an alleged scam hatched by the man he entrusted to find the famous firearms and run the museum. Prosecutors estimate that Michael Salisbury and his wife, Karen Salisbury, turned a profit of at least US$1.75 million from 1997 to 2002 by giving Frazier false appraisals. The grand jury also named R.L. Wilson, an authority on antique firearms, who appraised the weapons at inflated prices, federal officials said.
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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