■CHINA
Man collects odd names
Unhappy with your name? Then spare a thought for those rare families who surnames mean “zero,” “ghost” or even “death.” A man in Jiangxi Province has spent the last 20 years compiling a list of unusual family names, broadcaster CCTV said. Most Chinese people share a few common surnames, like Zhang, Wang, Li, Liu and Chen. The expression for “ordinary people” literally means “the old one hundred surnames.” But Cheng Yinglian’s interest was piqued after reading a newspaper many years ago and discovering a person with the surname Gui, meaning “ghost,” CCTV said. Since then, he has scoured newspapers, books and other publications to find similar rare surnames, coming up with about 2,000 to date.
■CHINA
No Chinese on hijacked ship
Beijing said yesterday that none of the crew on board a cargo ship seized by Somali pirates at the weekend in the Indian Ocean were Chinese nationals, contradicting earlier reports. The Maritime Search and Rescue Center said it had confirmed with the EU naval force and local authorities that the crew members of the Rak Africana were from India, Pakistan and Tanzania. On Sunday, the Kenya-based Seafarers Assistance Program said the 23 crew were all Chinese. Officials in Beijing put the total number of crew at 26.
■PHILIPPINES
Alleged molester nabbed
An American fugitive accused of sexually assaulting his two stepdaughters has been arrested after 27 years on the run, an immigration bureau official said yesterday. Richard Wright Laguardia, 66, who was charged by US authorities with 11 counts of child molestation in 1983 for the attacks on the girls in the same year, was arrested last month and is now facing deportation, the official said. It was only in 1996 that a manhunt began after US authorities learned of his presence in the country, said the official, a lawyer in the bureau’s legal department who declined to be named.
■SOUTH KOREA
Suspected spy arrested
A man has been arrested for allegedly spying for Pyongyang and working with its military to kidnap activists who helped North Koreans defect, officials said yesterday. The 55-year-old man, who was arrested last week and who denies the charges, is accused of taking up the spy job after meeting a female North Korean agent in 1999 in Shandong Province, China, where he was believed to be engaged in drug trafficking, the official said on condition of anonymity because an investigation was ongoing. The man, surnamed Kim, allegedly traveled to Pyongyang in 2000 for 15 days of spy training and received US$10,000 and 2kg of narcotics from the North, the official said.
■MYANMAR
Aung San Suu Kyi hospitalized
Detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was admitted to hospital briefly on Sunday over concerns about her heart, an official said. “Suu Kyi was taken to Yangon General Hospital to check her heart condition for about 45 minutes,” the official said on condition of anonymity. He said she returned to her lakeside house, where she is held under house arrest, on Sunday night. Another official confirmed she left the hospital, but neither could give further details. Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyer, Nyan Win, said he was as yet unaware of the visit, which is thought to be her first to hospital since 2003, although the 64-year-old has monthly medical check ups by a doctor at her home.
■UAE
Two assassins sentenced
A court convicted two men yesterday of involvement in last year’s assassination of Chechen military commander Sulim Yamadayev in Dubai, and handed them a life sentence. The men, Makhsood Jan Asmatov of Tajikistan and Iranian Mehdi Taqi Dahuria, were charged with aiding and abetting in the murder of Yamadayev, who was shot dead in the car park of a luxury seaside apartment block with a Russian-made handgun. Sulim Yamadayev, a foe of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, had challenged Kadyrov for control of local security forces until 2008, when he was dismissed from command of an elite battalion and forced to flee.
■YEMEN
Manhunt for al-Awlaki
The country said on Sunday it is trying to detain a Muslim cleric wanted dead or alive by Washington, but has yet to receive intelligence from the US on the US-born militant’s activities. US officials said last Tuesday that the administration of US President Barack Obama had authorized operations to capture or kill US-born Anwar al-Awlaki — a leading figure linked to al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based regional wing which claimed responsibility for a failed bombing of a US-bound plane in December. Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi did not give details of any manhunt by Yemeni security forces to arrest Awalaki, but referred to an air raid on a suspected al-Qaeda gathering in December which the cleric reportedly had attended.
■GERMANY
Wolfgang Wagner tribute
About 1,500 people including German Chancellor Angela Merkel have paid tribute to Wolfgang Wagner, the grandson of Richard Wagner and longtime leader of the Bayreuth opera festival. Wagner died on March 21 at age 90. He led the festival dedicated to his grandfather’s works from 1951 until 2008. Sunday’s memorial service at the opera house built by the composer featured music from Lohengrin, Goetterdaemmerung and Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg, directed by star German conductor Christian Thielemann.
■SPAIN
Judge appeals his indictment
A judge known for indicting Osama bin Laden and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet lodged an appeal on Saturday against his own indictment for abuse of power in initiating a probe into the country’s Civil War atrocities. Baltasar Garzon’s lawyer, Gonzalo Martinez-Fresneda, presented the appeal before the Supreme Court. Garzon was charged last Wednesday by the court’s magistrate Luciano Varela with knowingly acting beyond his jurisdiction by launching the probe in 2008. He had begun looking into tens of thousands of wartime and postwar executions and disappearances attributed to forces loyal to general Francisco Franco, despite the crimes being covered by an amnesty decreed in 1977.
■GERMANY
Climate talks revived
About 175 nations agreed a plan on Sunday to revive climate talks after the Copenhagen summit, but the UN’s top climate official predicted a full new treaty would be out of reach for this year. Delegates at the three-day talks, which were held up for hours by bitter splits between rich and poor nations, agreed to hold two extra meetings, each at least a week long, in the second half of this year after the Copenhagen summit last December failed to reach a binding deal. The extra sessions, and a linked agreement to prepare new draft texts about fighting climate change, will help prepare the next annual meeting of environment ministers in Cancun, Mexico, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 10.
■ CHILE
Disaster advice sought
The country’s new president, Sebastian Pinera, is looking to New Orleans and its recovery after Hurricane Katrina for lessons to help him lead the South American nation’s own comeback from a devastating earthquake and tsunami. Embarking on his first trip to the US since taking office last month, Sebastian Pinera was scheduled to meet with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin on Sunday. Pinera calls himself the “reconstruction president.” Nagin and Pinera were to “discuss the ways that New Orleans has used this devastating experience to rebuild a better city than before,” the mayor’s spokesman James Ross said.
■AFGHANISTAN
Booby trap kills soldier
A Canadian soldier was killed on Sunday after stepping on an improvised explosive device during a foot patrol near Kandahar City in Afghanistan, the Canadian Department of National Defense said. The soldier was identified as 26-year-old Private Tyler William Todd, originally from Kitchener, Ontario. He was serving the 1st battalion Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton. The explosion occurred near the village of Belanday, in the district of Dand, about 8km from Kandahar City. The death brings to 142 the number of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002.
■UNITED STATES
Mild aftershocks continue
A cluster of moderate earthquakes near the US-Mexico border has rattled parts of southern California as a swarm of seismic activity continues one week after a magnitude 7.2 quake slammed the area. The US Geological Survey says a magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck at 9:42am on Sunday about 8km west of downtown Calexico. More than two dozen other quakes in the magnitude 3 range were also reported in the same area on Sunday. No damage or injuries have been reported. Scientists say the increased seismic activity is normal following the magnitude 7.2 earthquake last Sunday.
■HONDURAS
Drug hitmen kill nine
Suspected drug hitmen killed nine people in Tegucigalpa in one of the deadliest attacks in Honduras since Mexican drug kingpins escalated their war over smuggling routes, police said on Sunday. Masked men with automatic weapons opened fire in the street in a poor area of the Honduran capital on Saturday night and then burst into two houses, killing seven men and two women, police said. Several bodies lay in the street, oozing blood, police said. Since last year, drug violence has been rising in Honduras, a key transit route for Colombian cocaine heading to the US, as powerful Mexican cartels fight over smuggling corridors through Mexico and Central America.
■MEXICO
Journalist’s throat cut
The body of a kidnapped Mexican journalist has been found with his throat slit, federal prosecutors said on Sunday. The family of Enrique Villicana Palomares, a columnist for the daily newspaper The Voice of Michoacan in central Mexico, reported him missing last week after he didn’t make it to a university where he taught writing. Federal prosecutors said in a written statement that his body was found on Saturday in the state capital, Morelia, after someone demanded a ransom. The statement did not say whether a ransom was paid, and prosecutors were not available. Investigators have not determined if Palomares was targeted because of his work as a journalist.
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
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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