■ INDIA
Grenade injures at least 17
At least 17 people were injured when suspected militants lobbed a grenade at a crowded area in the restive northeast, police said. "A man threw a grenade near a police station in Guwahati injuring 17 people, including a paramilitary soldier," senior police official G.P. Singh said late on Sunday. Police suspect the attack was carried out by rebels from the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom, which is fighting for an independent homeland in northeastern Assam State. Assam's health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, said the government had information that the outfit was planning strikes ahead of India's annual Republic Day celebrations on Jan. 26.
■ INDIA
Thousands of chickens die
Nearly 20,000 chickens have died in eastern India in the past week, triggering fears of an outbreak of bird flu, officials said yesterday. Samples from dead birds have been sent to a laboratory in central India to determine if the deaths were because of the H5N1 virus. "The dead birds showed the flu symptoms," said S.K. Bhowmic, the chief health officer of the affected district in eastern West Bengal State. The poultry deaths were reported from farms in the state's Morgram village, about 125km from state capital Kolkata. Preliminary tests suggest bird flu to be the cause of the deadly infection, state animal resources development minister Anisur Rehman said. A final report was expected later yesterday.
■ INDIA
Leader joins separatists
A popular independence leader announced yesterday he was joining separatist moderates in Indian Kashmir who have been holding talks with New Delhi on how to end the insurgency in the region. Shabir Shah, 54, dubbed the "Nelson Mandela" of Kashmir after spending more than 20 years in Indian jails, announced his decision to join the moderate wing of the separatist alliance Hurriyat at a news conference. "Our movement is for the right to self-determination," Shah said in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, where a deadly revolt against New Delhi's rule has raged since 1989.
■ CHINA
Landslide buries 12 workers
As many as 12 workers are feared dead after being buried by a massive landslide at a quarry in northern China, state media reported yesterday. Rescuers have so far pulled one body out of the quarry near the city of Tianjin, where the landslide happened early on Sunday, the Xinhua news agency said, citing the local government. Rescue work proceeded slowly and cautiously as 10kg of explosives were believed to have been buried along with the workers. Officials said the accident was the result of a natural landslide, Xinhua said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Party host may get big bill
A teenager who held a wild house party while his parents were away was yesterday facing a US$17,850 bill after police called in a helicopter to disperse the revelers. The 16-year-old boy hosted a party on Saturday night which spiraled out of control when hundreds of people turned up to his house in the Melbourne suburb of Narre Warren. When some of the 500 party-goers began throwing bottles at police cars and vandalizing the street, the dog squad and a police helicopter were deployed. Victoria Police chief commissioner Christine Nixon said police were now considering asking the boy to foot the bill for the operation, which involved 30 officers.
■ RUSSIA
British Council defies ban
Britain's overseas cultural arm, the British Council, reopened its Saint Petersburg office yesterday in defiance of a Moscow ban. "The British Council wants to continue its work in Russia and Saint Petersburg. We hope we'll find a solution to this," the head of the office, Stephen Kinnock, told journalists. Yesterday's opening after a Christmas break came in defiance of a requirement by the Russian Foreign Ministry that the British Council close regional branches in Saint Petersburg and Yekaterin-burg from the start of this year.
■ RUSSIA
Six killed in gas explosion
A gas explosion ripped through an apartment building in a southern city yesterday, killing six people, emergency officials said. The blast occurred on the upper floor of a five-story building in the city of Zheleznovodsk, about 1,200km south of Moscow. Six bodies were pulled from the rubble after the pre-dawn explosion, said Sergei Kozhemyaka, duty officer for the Emergency Situations Ministry branch in southern Russia. Rescuers continued to search the site, but no other residents were feared missing, he said. The dead included a four-month-old child, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
■ SOMALIA
Ten killed in clashes
Ten people were killed in fighting between Somaliland and Puntland troops in the north over the weekend, a Puntland government official said. The breakaway republic of Somaliland has clashed for years over its border with the neighboring semi-autonomous Puntland region, which is aligned with Mogadishu's transitional federal government. "At least 10 people died from our side," Puntland presidential spokesman Bile Mohamud Qabowsade said in a press conference on Sunday. "If Somaliland does not stop its aggressive attacks we will take a decisive measure against it," he said.
■ ITALY
Three killed in avalanche
An avalanche in the north killed at least three people and injured six, while three others were still missing, state TV said on Sunday. The group of 12 was hit by the avalanche on Mount Maniva, near the city of Brescia, as they were riding on snowmobiles, the fire brigade said. Rescuers dug the six injured people out of the snow, and were still looking for those missing. A cold snap has swept through the northern part of the country over the past few days, with heavy snow increasing the risk of avalanches. Two young skiers died in the popular resort of Livigno on Saturday.
■ TUNISIA
Journalists create union
Journalists created their first union on Sunday in hopes of promoting the profession and improving the lot of journalists in a country where press freedom is tightly controlled. The National Union of Tunisian Journalists replaced an association that was more than 40 years old, most of whose leaders were closely linked to the power structure. The president of the International Federation of Journalists, Jim Boumelha, said he hoped the new union "will mark the start of a new era for Tunisian journalism." About 40 journalists were running for leadership posts in the new union, half of them listed as independents and half considered close to the power structure.
■ PARAGUAY
Oviedo to run for president
Lino Cesar Oviedo, a former Paraguayan army chief freed last September from prison and cleared of a coup-plotting conviction, has formalized his presidential nomination under an opposition party. Oviedo, a populist with support among Paraguay's poor Indian majority, was the only contender on the primary ballot for his National Union of Ethical Citizens, an opposition party he founded in 2000. The April 20 presidential election will decide who succeeds President Nicanor Duarte, whose five-year term ends in August.
■ CANADA
Palestinian aid offered
Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier on Sunday pledged US$300 million in new aid to the Palestinians, according to a statement from the Canadian government. Bernier said the money, to be allocated over five years, will be used for security and government reform. He said the pledge coincides with a pledge by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to aim for a peace treaty this year, made at the US-sponsored Middle East conference in November. He said the aid would be directed to Palestinian efforts to "promote tolerance and combat hatred and the incitement of violence."
■ UNITED STATES
Writer drove in fatal crash
Oscar-winning Pulp Fiction screenwriter Roger Avary was arrested on Sunday after a fatal car crash northwest of Los Angeles, officials said. Avary, 42, was charged with vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence, said Captain Monica McGrath of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department. He was released from jail after posting US$50,000 bail, she said. The collision occurred in the city of Ojai, 130km northwest of Los Angeles, at about 1am. A passenger in Avary's car, Andreas Zedini, a 34-year-old native of Italy, died of his injuries at a local hospital, McGrath said. Avary's wife, Gretchen, 40, was also taken to the hospital with serious injuries.
■ UNITED STATES
Battle of the ice boxes
A feud between two US cities over who owns the trademark "Ice Box of the Nation" is heating up. Fraser, Colorado, town manager Jeff Durbin said the Minnesota town of International Falls has replied to a lawsuit filed by Fraser with a countersuit. Fraser officials say their town has used the phrase since 1956, and officials in International Falls say they have used it since 1948. The Summit Daily News in Frisco, Colorado, reported an attempt to settle the dispute with a duel failed when Fraser wanted a snowshoe contest and the Minnesota mayor wanted a snowball fight. On Sunday afternoon, the National Weather Service said, Fraser was the warmer of the two cities at a balmy minus 17oC. International Falls was minus 18oC.
■ UNITED STATES
Man rides horse across US
An Oregon rancher who set off on a cross-country horseback ride seven months ago in search of what's good in America dismounted on Sunday, feeling encouraged by the spirit and stories of the people he met. Bill Inman began his journey on June 2 because he felt distress over how the country was being portrayed in news coverage and on TV shows. He rode his 16-year-old thoroughbred-quarter horse Blackie. His wife, Brenda, and a four-person support crew joined him. Among the people he met were all 17 people of a Colorado town who came out to see him. Inman finished his trip in Henderson, North Carolina under overcast skies.
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
BACK TO BATTLE: North Korean soldiers have returned to the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region after earlier reports that Moscow had withdrawn them following heavy losses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals as part of a push to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine’s war with Russia, on Monday said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees
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