SOUTH KOREA
Marine’s death investigated
The Ministry of National Defense said it was investigating whether a marine found dead in an apparent suicide was harassed by colleagues. The death comes days after another marine’s shooting rampage killed four colleagues at a front-line unit. The ministry said yesterday that a lance corporal was found hanging in a bathroom at his base on Sunday and officials are investigating whether he had been bullied. All able-bodied males must serve about two years in the military. Reports of military bullying and verbal abuse are common. The country has one of the world’s highest suicide rates.
INDONESIA
Asylum seekers found
The maritime police said they have intercepted a ship heading to New Zealand with 85 Sri Lankan asylum seekers aboard. Colonel Yasin Kosasih said yesterday that the asylum seekers refused to leave the boat when it reached port in Tanjung Pinang, the capital of Kepulauan Riau Province. Those aboard told authorities they were determined to get to New Zealand.
CHINA
Flooded mine traps miners
State media said 21 workers are trapped in a flooded mine in the east in the country’s fourth serious mining disaster in the last 10 days. Xinhua news agency said yesterday that water flooded a pit in Weifang City in Shandong Province late Sunday. It said seven workers in the pit managed to escape, but the fate of 21 others is not known. Rescuers are still searching for 63 miners trapped from three other incidents, some for as long as nine days. Also in Shandong, 28 coal miners are still trapped after an air compressor caught fire on Wednesday last week. In Guangxi Province, 12 workers have been stranded in a coal pit since July 2. In Guizhou Province, 23 workers have not been seen since a colliery flood nine days ago.
CHINA
Two injured on escalator
At least two people were injured in an escalator accident at a subway station in Shenzhen, state media said yesterday, days after a 13-year-old boy died in a similar accident in Beijing. The two were taken to hospital, but were not critically injured in the accident on Sunday night, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a spokesperson for the company that runs the subway line. The escalator changed direction and was shaking, causing the people on it to fall over, Xinhua quoted witnesses as saying. However, spokesperson Xiao Ping, of the Hong Kong-based MTR Corp — which operates the Shenzhen line where the accident took place — denied that account and said the incident was still under investigation, it said.
INDONESIA
Volcano warning issued
Officials raised the alert for a volcano with history of violent explosions to its highest level following a series of eruptions over the weekend. Disaster management official Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said yesterday people living close to Mount Lokon in Sulawesi Province should be prepared to evacuate if necessary. Locals and tourists have been urged to stay up to 3.5km away from the 1,750m volcano. The last major eruption of Lokon was in 1991, when a Swiss hiker was killed and thousands of villagers were forced to flee their homes. Lokon is one of about 129 active volcanos in the country, which is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
HONDURAS
Ten die in bus crash
At least 10 people were killed and 18 wounded on Sunday after a King Quality bus crashed, fire department officials said. The accident occurred on a steep hill near the town of Los Hornos, fire department official Edgardo Orellana said by telephone. King Quality bus is a Salvadoran bus line founded in 1992.
FRANCE
Choreographer Petit dies
Acclaimed choreographer Roland Petit, whose creations dazzled stages from Paris to Hollywood and inspired dancers, writers and designers, has died at age 87. The Paris National Opera said Petit’s wife, Zizi Jeanmaire, informed them that the choreographer died on Sunday in Geneva. No cause of death was given. During a four-year stint in Hollywood in the 1950s, he collaborated with Orson Welles in The Lady in the Ice and choreographed Daddy Long Legs with Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron and Anything Goes with Bing Crosby and Zizi Jeanmaire. Among his notable ballets are Carmen and Le Jeune Homme et la Mort (The Young Man and Death).
UNITED STATES
Gray-haired worker sues
Sandra Rawline, whose hair turned gray when she was in her early 20s, was proud of her silver streaks. However, gray hair in the workplace was apparently not satisfactory to her Texan employer, Capital Title. In August 2009, Rawline said her boss told her to confect a more “upscale image” to go with her real-estate firm’s move to a new headquarters in Galleria. Rawline, 52, said she was told to come to work wearing “younger fancy suits” and that she had to dye her hair. When she refused, the Houston Chronicle reports, she was fired within a week and replaced by a woman 10 years her junior. Rawline has sued for discrimination. She told the newspaper her hair color had never before been an issue with the firm, where she had worked since 2003. Capital Title dismissed her allegations.
TURKEY
Media regulator detained
A court has jailed the former head of the state media regulator and three others pending trial in an investigation into embezzlement at an Islamic charity, state-run Anatolian news agency said yesterday. Police detained Zahid Akman, former head of the RTUK state media regulator, and three senior executives of the Kanal 7 TV channel on Wednesday. The investigation is linked to a 2008 court case in Germany, in which three senior members of the charity, Deniz Feneri, were found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to jail. The ruling AK Party has denied any links to Deniz Feneri, based in Germany, but the case triggered accusations of government corruption. The charity is accused of embezzling donations and sending some of the funds, mainly from Turks living in Germany, to Kanal 7.
BULGARIA
Toxic gas forces evacuation
About 2,300 residents were evacuated overnight after toxic gas escaped from a truck following a road accident, authorities said yesterday. A cloud of styrene gas, used for the manufacturing of plastic, was released over the town of Debelets after a Turkish truck traveling to Romania crashed near the town. As a precaution, about 2,300 residents were evacuated overnight and early yesterday, the authorities said. Environment protection services were closely monitoring the toxic cloud and fire fighters continued to spray the truck to limit the risk of explosion, as temperatures were expected to hit 35?C during the day.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS