■CHINA
Shaikh family receives help
British consular officials were in Xinjiang region yesterday to assist the family of Akmal Shaikh, a British man set to be executed for drug trafficking. Shaikh, a 53-year-old father of three who supporters say suffers from bipolar disorder, faces execution today after losing his final appeal in the Supreme Court, the British government and his legal team say. “We have consular staff in Urumqi [the capital of Xinjiang]. They are there to assist the Shaikh family,” embassy spokesman David Shaw said. The London-based legal aid group Reprieve said on Sunday that Shaikh’s two cousins had gone to Urumqi in a last-ditch bid for clemency. “The Shaikh brothers are … hoping to visit Akmal on Monday morning,” the charity said in a statement. “This will ... be the first time he will have had direct contact with a family member for two years.”
■CHINA
Miners killed in explosion
Seventeen coal miners have been killed and six others trapped in two gas explosions, state media said yesterday, in the latest accidents to strike the country’s notoriously dangerous mining sector. A dozen workers were killed in a blast late on Sunday at the Donggou coal mine in the city of Jiexiu, Shanxi Province, the coal-producing heartland, Xinhua news agency quoted local authorities as saying. The accident happened after the workers “violated a safety rule” by demolishing a wall between the shaft and a disused area of the mine where gas had accumulated, a spokesman for the local work safety administration said. Police have so far detained five mine executives over the incident, Xinhua said.
■PHILIPPINES
Politician slain by gunmen
A politician was killed when gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying about 50 people yesterday, police said, echoing a horrific election-linked massacre last month. Six other people traveling in the convoy, including two village officials and a police escort, were wounded, Ilocos Norte province police director Senior Superintendent Benjamin Lusad said. Four hooded men ambushed the convoy, which was carrying candidates and supporters of the opposition Nationalista Party just outside Dingras town in Ilocos Norte, Lusad said.
■PHILIPPINES
Search for survivors still on
Coast guard and military vessels scoured the seas yesterday in a desperate search for passengers missing from a pair of Christmas ferry tragedies, amid fears the death toll could surpass 50. Authorities said they had not given up hope of finding dozens of people still missing from the latest accidents to hit the archipelago’s notoriously dangerous water-travel industry, but warned against expecting miracles. Twenty-three people remain unaccounted for after a small inter-island ferry, the MV Baleno-9, sank off the southern coast of Luzon island just before midnight on Saturday.
■AFGHANISTAN
Spanish troops visited
Spanish Defense Minister Carme Chacon arrived in Kabul yesterday on an unannounced visit to her country’s troops serving in the country, Spanish media reported. After arriving at Kabul airport the minister had breakfast with Spanish troops who are tasked with guarding the facility. While Kabul airport once exported terror, today “it is open for people bringing hope,” she was quoted as saying. Accompanied by the Spanish military chief-of-staff, General Jose Julio Rodriguez, Chacon was also scheduled to visit the Qala-i-Naw base in the west, where 300 Spanish soldiers are stationed.
■NORWAY
‘Kon-Tiki’ adventurer dies
Knut Haugland, the last surviving member of the Kon-Tiki expedition that crossed the Pacific Ocean on a balsa wood raft, has died, press reported on Sunday. He was 92. Haugland, who died on Friday, was radio operator on the expedition led by compatriot Thor Heyerdahl that crossed from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. The six-man raft, named after a South American sun god, made the 8,000km crossing in 101 days. Its objective was to prove that the Polynesian islands could have been populated by peoples from South America and not just those from Southeast Asia. Prior to the Kon-Tiki adventure, Haugland was decorated for his role in the Norwegian resistance during World War II.
■ISRAEL
Soldier killed by comrade
A soldier was killed on Sunday by a comrade when a fight broke out between the two at a shopping mall in the desert town of Beersheva, officials and local media said. The shooting occurred in the food court of the shopping center in Beersheva between two Bedouin soldiers, but the nature of the dispute was not immediately known, media said. The victim was shot in the chest and died from his wounds shortly after at nearby Soroka Hospital, medics said. “Despite all our efforts, we couldn’t save him,” a hospital official told public radio. Police said that the suspect was in custody. “We have arrested the soldier suspected of opening fire,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
■GREECE
Bomb damages building
A makeshift bomb went off late on Sunday outside the offices of the National Insurance company in Athens, causing damage to the building and nearby cars but no injuries, police said. “There was a warning phone call to a newspaper about 15 minutes before the explosion but no claim of responsibility,” a police official said. Police said the explosive device was placed near the entrance of the company’s building. The company is a subsidiary of National Bank, the country’s biggest lender. The incident is the latest in a series of gas canister and bomb attacks by leftist and anarchist groups since the police shooting of a teenager sparked riots last December.
■JERUSALEM
More homes planned
The government has invited tenders to building hundreds more homes in Jewish settlements in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, the independent Channel 10 television said on Sunday. In all, the housing ministry sought bids for the construction of 692 new homes in the settlements of Neve Yaacov, Pisgat Zeev and Har Homa, among a dozen that ring the city, the channel said.
■ITALY
Seven killed in avalanches
Seven people have been killed in a string of deadly avalanches in the Alps. The bodies of the victims, including four rescuers, were being recovered yesterday. A German boy hit by one of the avalanches while snow-boarding is fighting for his life at a hospital in Bolzano. The rescuers died in the Val Lasties area east of Bolzano. Members of a party of seven mountaineers, they had climbed to 2,000m in search of avalanche victims but were caught in an avalanche. The bodies of two tourists were located by a bigger expedition of tracker dogs and 40 rescuers. West of Bolzano, a third avalanche struck three Germans. A 12 year-old boy was killed, while his brother and a friend survived.
■UNITED STATES
Tugboat reaches port
A crippled tugboat that spilled fuel into Alaska’s Prince William Sound after hitting the same reef that caused the Exxon Valdez oil disaster 20 years ago reached port early on Sunday morning, a spokesman for the tug’s owner said. The Pathfinder arrived under tow into Valdez, and crews will now work to determine how much diesel fuel spilled into the bay after the tug ran aground on Wednesday, Crowley Maritime Services spokesman Jim Butler said. The Coast Guard said that two of the tug’s tanks — containing an estimated 126,800 liters of diesel fuel — were damaged. In Valdez, responders were checking the stability of the Pathfinder in preparation to begin removal of about 352,000 liters of fuel from seven of the vessel’s eight undamaged tanks. After the grounding, diesel fuel sheens of 1.5km and 5km spread across the waters on two separate occasions. Officials said no animals were injured and the fuel didn’t reach land.
■UNITED STATES
Times Square prepares
The New Year’s Eve crystal ball that drops in Times Square will have a new kind of sparkle when it descends at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, and revelers will be able to toast the new year without popping a cork. Organizers of the celebration unveiled a new design on Sunday for nearly 300 Waterford crystal triangles to be installed on the giant ball. The crystals feature an interlocking ribbon pattern, woven into a Celtic knot, to illustrate the theme for next year: “Let There Be Courage.” They also demonstrated a new “Clink-Clink” iPhone application for virtual toasts, which Waterford helped design. It enables two people make a toast with images of Waterford champagne flutes and cocktail glasses displayed on their phones’ tiny screens. “It is a way for people to share a virtual toast all around the world,” said Regan Iglesia, Waterford’s senior brand director.
■UNITED STATES
Lucky in Kentucky
Anyone who bought a lottery ticket in Kentucky is going to want to double-check it. Kentucky lottery officials say there was a single $128.6 million winning lottery ticket sold in Georgetown, 105km east of Louisville, making it the largest jackpot won in the history of the Kentucky lottery. The lottery drawing was on Saturday night. Prior to this jackpot, the largest jackpot won in Kentucky was US$89.3 million in January 1996.
■UNITED STATES
‘Perpetrator’ scares Jon
Jon Gosselin’s apartment was ransacked by someone who slashed furniture, stole his TV and left a note pinned to his dresser with a butcher knife while he visited his children for Christmas, his lawyer said on Sunday. The reality show star was “devastated” by the destruction he found when he returned on Saturday from Pennsylvania, attorney Mark Jay Heller said in a statement. Gosselin’s clothes, bed and other furniture were cut up, and a family-heirloom vase was shattered, Heller said. His TV, other electronics and his dishes were taken by a “very troubled and sick perpetrator,” Heller said. The burglary marks the latest real-life drama for the 32-year-old Gosselin, who was half of the couple who rose to fame as the prolific parents on TV show Jon & Kate Plus 8 before splitting up this year. Viewers watched their 10-year marriage disintegrate amid allegations that both had been unfaithful, which they denied. The breakup itself became an entertainment event, announced in an episode watched by more than 10 million people.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month
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