■ 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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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