SOUTH KOREA
Maestro plans joint concerts
A renowned South Korean conductor said yesterday he had agreed with North Korean musicians to hold regular joint performances by the two countries’ orchestras to ease cross-border tensions. “I think music can move the hearts of people a little bit, although it wouldn’t do such a thing as to change the entire regime,” Chung Myung-whun said a day after his return from a rare visit to Pyongyang. Chung said the joint orchestra, if approved, would be made up of an equal number of musicians from each country. Performances would be held alternately in Seoul and Pyongyang, with the first scheduled in December.
CHINA
General’s son detained
China has detained the 15-year-old son of a well-known general for beating a couple while their young child looked on in an incident that sparked public outrage, the state Xinhua news agency said. The move came after hundreds of thousands of people went online to express their outrage at the actions of Li Tianyi (李天一), the latest in a series of scandals involving the children of high-ranking Chinese officials. Li, the son of General Li Shuangjiang (李雙江), who is a popular singer and a household name in China, was “found to have physically assaulted a couple and damaged their car” on Sept. 6, Xinhua said on Thursday, citing police. Li was sent to a government correctional facility for one year after confessing under police interrogation, the report said.
THE PHILIPPINES
Ex-general rearrested
A retired Philippine military budget chief whose plunder charges were dismissed by a civilian court has been rearrested by the military. He will serve a two-year prison term for a prior conviction of hiding assets and holding a US green card. Retired Major General Carlos Garcia became a poster boy for military corruption, but escaped conviction on charges of stealing 303 million pesos (US$7 million) when he struck a plea bargain with civilian prosecutors in May. Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Garcia was brought to military prison yesterday on orders of President Benigno Aquino III.
AUSTRALIA
Aborigines lag in transplants
An Australian government report indicates that indigenous kidney patients are far less likely than other Australians to receive an organ transplant. The report by the government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, released yesterday, found that only 12 percent of Aborigines suffering the most severe stage of chronic kidney disease have a functioning transplanted kidney, compared with 45 percent of other Australians. The report says Aborigines are also four times more likely to die of chronic kidney disease than other Australians.
AUSTRALIA
Chemical fire causes chaos
Emergency services were battling a huge chemical fire in the capital Canberra yesterday although concerns over the spread of toxic smoke plumes were diminishing, officials said. Around 100 nearby residents were evacuated and people within a 10km radius of the northern industrial suburb of Mitchell were told to stay indoors. Reports said that during the night flames leapt hundreds of meters into the air. There were no reports of casualties. The blaze, which could be seen from several kilometers away, caused traffic chaos with roads closed, bus services cancelled and schools shut. It was not immediately clear what started the fire.
UNITED STATES
Arctic sea ice shrinks
The National Snow and Ice Data Center says Arctic Sea ice melted this summer to the second lowest level since scientists started keeping records more than 50 years ago. The amount of ice covering at the Arctic hit its lowest point late last week. Scientists calculated 4.3 million square kilometers of ice. Only in 2007 was there less summer sea ice, which has dramatically declined since scientists started using satellites to monitor melt in 1979. Other records go back to 1953. The summer minimum is a crucial measurement for scientists monitoring manmade global warming. This year’s level is 36 percent below the average minimum of 6.7 million square kilometers.
UNITED STATES
Obama honors war hero
President Barack Obama on Thursday awarded a US Marine, who saved 36 ambushed men during a Taliban firestorm in Afghanistan, with the nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor. Former marine sergeant Dakota Meyer, 23, and a comrade Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, defied orders and repeatedly drove into a village despite enemy fire, to rescue Afghan troops and their US trainers after a deadly ambush in northeastern Afghanistan. Obama told how Meyer, despite machine gun fire, bullets, grenades and mortars, loaded up injured and trapped Afghans into his vehicle and took them to safety, returning to the line of fire no less than five times.
UNITED STATES
Search on for toe assailant
Police in Conway, Arkansas have received two complaints in the past week about a man who seems desperate to suck women’s toes — whether they want him to or not. On Saturday last week Ruth Harris, 83, told police she was sitting in a chair in front of her apartment when a man approached and said he liked her feet. According to a police report, the man took off one of her shoes and began sucking on her toe. The man left quickly after people walked into the apartment complex’s courtyard. On Tuesday, police received another call from a woman who said that on Saturday she was shopping when she noticed a man staring at her. The man then told the woman that he had a foot fetish and that “her toes are so long and succulent” and he wanted to suck them. When the woman’s cellphone rang, the man retreated.
UNITED STATES
Man admits role in murder
A Vermont drifter has admitted his role in the slaying of a 79-year-old woman who was beaten to death with a hammer as she made biscuits. Fifty-three-year-old Charles “Punky” Haynes pleaded guilty on Thursday to second-degree murder and one count of burglary in exchange for 20 years to life in prison. Police say he attacked 79-year-old Raynetta Woodward in her mobile home in Woodstock in July 2009. Police say Woodward’s money belt was missing US$470, which is what Haynes was carrying when he was arrested. They say a blood stain on his pants matched her DNA.
UNITED STATES
Corpse abuse charge filed
Two men accused of driving around with a dead friend, using his ATM card and visiting a strip club have been charged with abusing a corpse, identity theft and criminal impersonation. It is unclear how Jeffrey Jarrett died, but the men, Robert Jeffrey Young and Mark Rubinson are not charged in his death. The Denver Post reported. An affidavit accused Young and Rubinson of leaving Jarrett’s body in the car while they drank at a bar on his tab on Aug. 27.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
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