SOUTH KOREA
Refugee brings his dog
One of the 21 North Korean refugees who fled to the South in a small boat had brought his dog with him in an unprecedented case of canine defection, a report said yesterday. The dog and the human refugees were found aboard a 5 tonne boat off an island near the disputed Yellow Sea border on Oct, 30, Yonhap news agency said. The refugees, who all expressed their desire to live in the South, are under interrogation at a safe house in the western port of Incheon, it said. “The dog surprised me,” an unnamed government official told Yonhap. The owner of the dog was from Sonchon on the North’s northwest coast, Yonhap said, adding that refugees had never previously before brought pets like dogs.
NEPAL
Fog-bound tourists hike out
Hundreds of foreign tourists stranded by heavy fog in the Everest region are hiking their way to safety across the Himalayas, an official said on Sunday. With continuing bad weather hampering their rescue, up to 400 of the thousands of stranded trekkers have given up waiting for the fog to lift and are heading to Jiri, a four-day walk away, to pick up buses back to Kathmandu. Managers on Wednesday were forced to close the only airstrip in Lukla, the gateway for climbers heading to Everest and surrounding mountains, grounding all flights in and out of the region. About 500 travelers fly in and out of Lukla on a normal day when weather conditions are good.
HONG KONG
Voters turn pro-Beijing
Pro-Beijing parties in the territory trounced the opposition as voters expressed discontent with pro--democratic parties in elections that may predict the outcome of more important polls next year. Results from Sunday’s poll were released early yesterday for individual candidates, but the government did not immediately provide a breakdown by political party. The South China Morning Post said candidates from major parties that support the central government in China won 146 of 412 seats, while those from mainstream pro-democracy parties lost ground, garnering only 54 seats. About 1.1 million, or 38 percent of the 2.9 million people registered to vote, cast ballots in Sunday’s election.
MYANMAR
EU official hails changes
A senior EU diplomat has hailed political changes under way in the military-dominated country, where a new nominally civilian government has made a series of gestures toward reform. “There are important changes going on in this country,” Ambassador David Lipman, head of the EU delegation to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, told reporters late on Sunday. “The European Union is very much hoping to support and to encourage this momentum of change.” Lipman was in Yangon for a two-day workshop, organized by the EU, on financial reform and poverty reduction that began yesterday.
AFGHANISTAN
Roadside bomb kills three
A roadside bomb ripped through a police vehicle in the south, killing a district police chief and two of his bodyguards, police said yesterday. The blast happened late on Sunday as the group drove from Lashkar Gah, the capital of troubled Helmand Province, to Garmser district. The attack happened on the same day seven people were killed by a suicide bomber as they returned from prayers at the start of Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha in northern Baghlan Province.
GREECE
Historian rejected, like Putin
California-based art historian Paul Koudounaris admitted he is “a bit macabre.” He has spent three years touring ancient ossuaries, documenting seldom-seen artworks crafted from human bones. His journey led him to Mount Athos in Greece. “They [Orthodox monasteries] paint the skulls to identify the bones of monks raised to sainthood ... I dearly wanted to photograph those skulls,” Koudounaris said. So he asked if he could. “It was like going to see the Wizard of Oz. I was on my knees before this old abbot who looked like Rasputin,” he said. The answer was no: Nothing personal, but he had to comply with God’s wishes. As Koudounaris turned to leave, the abbot told him that another man had once come with the same request. His name? Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister. “He visited the monastery, and even gave them [US]$1 million for repairs,” Koudounaris said. “Putin asked if he might take some photos of the skulls, but they told him no.” Then the abbot offered something more: “If it makes you feel better, frankly you are a much better photographer than Putin.”
GERMANY
Adidas’ Web site attacked
Adidas, the German sportswear and equipment maker, said on Sunday that all its Web sites remained closed down after what it called a “sophisticated and criminal” attack. “Our preliminary investigation has found no evidence that any consumer data is impacted. But, while we continue our thorough forensic review, we have taken down affected sites,” Adidas said in a statement, which replaced the home page on its Web site. It said the attack first came to light on Thursday, with its Reebok unit and several online shops all affected. The company did not give any further information about the attack or who may have been behind it in the statement.
EGYPT
Tour bus overturns
Eleven Hungarian tourists were killed late on Sunday when a speeding tour bus overturned near the Red Sea resort town of Hurghada, police and medical officials said. The crash also injured 27 Hungarians. State-run MENA news agency said the dead and the injured were taken by ambulance to Hurghada hospital. Four children were among the injured, according to the al-Masry al-Youm daily. Security and medical officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, said the bus was carrying the tourists from their hotel in town to the airport on a highway. The driver lost control of the bus because of its high speed, the officials said.
KUWAIT
No plans to host US troops
The defense minister denied reports about plans to bolster US troops in the Persian Gulf emirate after their withdrawal from Iraq by year’s end, local media reported yesterday. “Not at all. We have [no plan] to relocate US troops to Kuwait or increase their numbers,” Minister of Defense Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al Sabah was cited as saying by al-Watan Daily. “They [US troops] will only pass through Kuwait from Iraq [on their way] to the United States,” he said. About 23,000 US troops are permanently stationed at Camp Arifjan, one of the largest military bases in the Gulf. The minister’s comments came in response to reports that Washington was studying options to relocate some of the 39,000 US troops due to leave Iraq to the emirate apparently because of concerns over the perceived Iranian threat.
UNITED STATES
Informant key in Bout case
The conviction of an ex-Soviet officer known as “the Merchant of Death” can be credited in part to the work of an informant who has made more than US$9 million for his undercover work over the past 15 years. Carlos Sagastume was a star witness at the weapons sale trial of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout that ended on Wednesday with a conviction that could land Bout in prison for life. Former federal drug agent Thomas Pasquarello said Sagastume was perfect for the probe that resulted in Bout’s 2008 arrest in Thailand. He said a man like Bout was not going to fall for a rookie informant.
COLOMBIA
Search for survivors goes on
Rescuers are searching for signs of life amid mud and rubble after a rain-fueled landslide buried homes in the northwest, killing at least 29 people. Red Cross rescue director Cesar Uruena said between 20 and 40 people remained missing from Saturday’s landslide in Manizales. President Juan Manuel Santos said on Sunday that 29 bodies had been identified. Rescuers are using back hoes and earthmovers to search for survivors. Uruena said they think “there is still a chance of finding life.”
BRAZIL
Cameraman dies in crossfire
A TV cameraman was killed while filming an intense shootout between police and drug traffickers that claimed at least four other lives in Rio de Janeiro. Gelson Domingos da Silva, an experienced crime photographer working for the Bandeirantes TV network, was reportedly hit in the chest by a high-caliber rifle shot while covering a dawn special forces raid on the Antares favela in western Rio. Four alleged drug traffickers also lost their lives in the shootout.
MEXICO
Newspaper office set on fire
More than a dozen people barged into the offices of a newspaper on Sunday, dousing it with gasoline and setting it aflame. Veracruz state Deputy Attorney General Enoch Maldonado said no injuries had been reported following the attack on El Buen Tono in Cordoba, about 210km east of Mexico City. About 20 employees were inside the building at the time. The newspaper, which began publishing a month ago, has sharply criticized some local authorities, but the motive for the attack is unclear and the state Attorney General’s Office announced it was investigating the incident. Veracruz has seen an upsurge in violence recently as gangs battle over smuggling routes and extortion revenues.
VENEZUELA
Survivor summit called
President Hugo Chavez on Sunday announced a summit early next year of Latin American leaders who have beaten cancer, including Brazil’s current and former presidents. The 57-year-old Chavez had surgery in June to remove a malignant tumor. After several rounds of chemotherapy, mostly in Cuba, he claimed last month that he was cancer-free. Popular former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 66, was diagnosed with throat cancer late last month and began chemotherapy treatments. Lula’s successor, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, 63, was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 2009 before she was elected to Brazil’s top office. Doctors say she is currently cancer-free. Also invited is Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, 60, who was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in August last year. After treatment, doctors in December declared him cancer-free.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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