■CHINA
Flooding kills 35
At least 35 people have died and 49 are missing after torrential downpours in Fujian, Sichuan and Guangxi provinces triggered heavy floods, and authorities have warned of more rain to come, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. More than 100,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes due to the floods, which damaged 7,000 houses and caused economic losses of 830 million yuan (US$120 million), Xinhua said. The country’s meteorological center has warned local authorities to prepare for more flooding and landslides.
■CHINA
Plant denies radiation leak
The operator of a nuclear power plant in Guangdong Province has acknowledged possible cracks in fuel tubes but, contradicting Hong Kong authorities, denied that any radiation had leaked out. “Daya Bay’s two reactor units are functioning safely and stably. There has been no radioactive leak,” China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group said in a notice posted on its Web site on Tuesday. However, the notice said that on May 23 technicians detected abnormally high radioactivity in the plant’s systems, which it said may have been due to cracks in fuel tubing. Daya Bay is located about 50km north of Hong Kong and is part-owned and managed by CLP Power, Hong Kong’s largest electricity supplier.
■INDIA
Eight Maoist rebels killed
Security forces have killed eight suspected Maoists during an ongoing operation to clear a rebel stronghold in the country’s east, police said yesteday. The Maoist rebels, including two women, were shot dead in the Sijua forests of Midnapore district, 170km from Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state. Senior police officer Surojit Kar Purokayastha said paramilitary forces attacked rebel hideouts where the Maoists had assembled for a meeting. A government offensive was launched last year to tackle the insurgency, but since then the Maoists have launched a series of bold and bloody attacks, including the massacre of 76 policemen in April.
■AUSTRALIA
Rudd lacks on charity bids
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s waning popularity took another hit yesterday when his female deputy and his leading opponent attracted higher bids at an online auction for charity. Rudd received just 10 bids, the highest for A$6,300 (US$5,440), on an eBay auction for a barefoot lawn bowls session or an intimate dinner at his official residence. Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard drew 15 takers and an A$10,100 bid for her offer to host dinner for six. Opposition leader Tony Abbott, a fitness fanatic, drew 17 bids — with a high of A$7,500 — for a private surfing lesson or dinner with him.
■UNITED STATES
Pakistan needs NSG consent
Washington said on Tuesday it had sought clarification from China on the sale of two civilian nuclear reactors to Pakistan, saying the deal must be approved by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The Financial Times reported in April that Chinese companies will build at least two new 650-megawatt reactors at Chashma in Punjab Province. “This appears to extend beyond cooperation that was grand-fathered when China was approved for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. “We believe that such cooperation would require specific exemption approved by consensus of the NSG, as was done for India.”
■IRAQ
Baby twins face surgery
Conjoined twins were to be flown in coming days to Saudi Arabia to undergo separation surgery after the Saudi king offered to pay for the operation, officials said on Tuesday. Two-week-old twins Zainab and Ruqqaya Naseer, from the Shiite holy city of Najaf, are joined at the hip and have problems with their digestive and reproductive systems. Salim Mohammed, spokesman for Najaf Health Authority, said that the family was waiting for passports to be issued to allow the girls to travel.
■TURKEY
Court rules on orphanage
The European Court of Human Rights ordered the country on Tuesday to return a former orphanage to the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate, a case seen as a test of Ankara’s commitment to EU-inspired pluralism. The Strasbourg-based court originally ruled in July 2008 that the government had violated the Church’s property rights by seizing the building. Judges have now ordered Ankara to register the property in the patriarchate’s name and pay damages and expenses totaling 26,000 euros (US$35,000), a press statement from the court said.
■SUDAN
US calls for investigation
The US on Tuesday called on the government to conduct an investigation into the escape from jail of four Islamists sentenced to death for the 2008 murders of a US diplomat and his driver. The US embassy in Khartoum “requests the government of Sudan to initiate a thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding this escape from one of Sudan’s most secure prisons,” it said in a statement. The four escaped last Thursday from Kober jail in northern Khartoum.
■GERMANY
Merkel’s popularity sinks
A new survey finds that 86 percent of Germans are dissatisfied with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and her own popularity has hit a new low. The ARD television poll yesterday found only 12 percent satisfied with Merkel’s center-right government — the worst showing for an administration since 2004. It found 40 percent satisfied with Merkel, down eight points from the end of last month and the lowest since she became chancellor in 2005.
■UGANDA
Children die in fire
Police say two children died in a fire while their parents watched a World Cup football match on television nearby. Police have warned parents against leaving children alone in houses following the death of an eight and a 10-year-old in the Kayunga district west of the capital Kampala. Kayunga police official Henry Kolyanga said the house in which the children were sleeping caught fire. “The mother and father of the children left a candle burning and went to watch the match on television in a nearby trading center,” Kolyanaga said.
■FRANCE
Man kills dog for barking
A man convicted of killing his dog by tying it to his car and dragging it because it barked too much was sentenced to six months in prison on Tuesday, a court source said. The man had attached the Dalmatian to his trailer hitch on Saturday in the town of Origny-Sainte-Benoite. Angry residents who saw what was happening chased after him, so he loaded the dying dog into his car and drove away. He was later identified through his license plate and mobile phone, which he dropped at the scene.
■UNITED STATES
Jesus hit by lightning
A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a Ohio highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm on Monday night and burned to the ground, police said. The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati. The sculpture, almost 19m tall and 12m wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown in a game of football. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early on Tuesday.
■MEXICO
Trains crash in fiery pileup
Three trains, one apparently carrying undocumented migrants, crashed in a fiery pileup on Tuesday in the northwest, killing at least 11 people and leaving four more hurt, authorities said. The accident took place early on Tuesday on the track at a station in the town of El Fuerte in Sinaloa state. “There are 11 people killed, including a mechanic, as well as four people injured,” Sinaloa Civil Defense chief Miguel Diaz said. A train coming from the western city of Guadalajara apparently suffered a brake failure and crashed into two other trains, one of which was carrying out a maneuver on the track, Diaz said. Some 300 rescue workers toiled at the massive accident, which involved a total of 75 train cars.
■PERU
Canadian tourist dies
A Canadian woman suffered a heart attack and died on Tuesday after her canoe sank on the Vilcanota River, police said. Rosemary Wilson, 64, had a heart attack as she was being rescued from the river, in the Llaucac area of Cusipata, in Cusco department, regional police chief Jorge Tejada said. Fellow Canadian Alison Schirkot, 48, was with Wilson and sustained minor injuries. Three other people in the group were unharmed during their ordeal on the river popular with tourists, police said.
■UNITED STATES
General Petraeus faints
General David Petraeus fainted during a congressional hearing on Tuesday as he was being grilled by senators skeptical about strategy in Afghanistan. His collapse came about an hour into the hearing as a Republican Senator John McCain questioned him about recent setbacks. McCain stopped mid-sentence, his face frozen, as Petraeus slumped forward from his seat on to the witness table. The hearing was suspended as Petraeus, looking dazed, was led out by Army colleagues. He returned 20 minutes later, blaming not McCain’s questions, but dehydration. He told the senators he wanted to continue, but Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin overruled him, and postponed the hearing until this morning. The hearing was being held against a backdrop of growing unease about the war in Afghanistan and rising violence.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
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