■CHINA
Mine death toll reaches 33
Rescuers recovered five more bodies from a huge coal mine that flooded two weeks ago in the north, bringing the death toll in the disaster to 33, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The recovery of the bodies leaves five workers still unaccounted for in the unfinished Wangjialing mine in Shanxi Province, which flooded on March 28. The flood had left 153 workers trapped underground, but 115 were rescued alive last week, raising hopes of finding more of the workers who were building the mine. However, those hopes have dimmed in recent days as officials have reported levels of harmful gases were building up in the colliery, hampering rescue efforts. Rescuers were still searching for the missing, Xinhua said, despite the risk from the gas and potential further flooding.
■CHINA
Lip-synching singers fined
Two singers have become the first people in the country to fall foul of new rules banning lip-synching nearly two years after widespread criticism of miming at the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony. The two young female singers were spotted lip-synching during a concert in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, last year, Xinhua news agency said on its Web site. “No signals were received from their microphones while the show was on,” it quoted an official with the local government’s cultural affairs office as saying. The two have been fined 50,000 yuan (US$7,329) each, Xinhua said. Feisty Internet users frequently blame famous singers of short-selling their fans by lip-synching on stage, but some have also wondered why these first fines were leveled against two almost unknown singers rather than more famous stars.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
The US will help bolster the Philippines’ arsenal and step up joint military exercises, Manila’s defense chief said, as tensions between Washington and China escalate. The longtime US ally is expecting a sustained US$500 million in annual defense funding from Washington through 2029 to boost its military capabilities and deter China’s “aggression” in the region, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview in Manila on Thursday. “It is a no-brainer for anybody, because of the aggressive behavior of China,” Teodoro said on close military ties with the US under President Donald Trump. “The efforts for deterrence, for joint resilience
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