PHILIPPINES
Storm kills seven
Big waves sank a boat off Palawan Island, killing at least five people yesterday, while 54 more fishermen were rescued, after monsoon rains inundated southern villages. The MV Jociel 2 sank shortly before midnight on Tuesday before reaching Palawan, coast guard spokesman Lieutenant Commander Armand Balilo said. An unknown number were still missing. Two more people were killed when heavy rains lashed the island of Mindanao.
SOUTH KOREA
China boycotts conference
Chinese delegates taking part in a World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB) conference abruptly flew home yesterday in an apparent protest against Tibetan participation, organizers said. The 17 Chinese monks and officials returned home a day after lodging a complaint about Tibet’s presence, a spokeswoman for the organizing committee said. On Tuesday three Tibetan delegates were forced to leave a delegates’ assembly meeting after Chinese officials threatened to boycott the meeting, she said. “The WFB secretary-general accepted the Chinese demand that the Tibetans leave so the meeting could go smoothly,” she said, calling the decision by the WFB chief “embarrassing.” The three Tibetans are still taking part in other events at the five-day conference, she said.
NEW ZEALAND
US student pleads guilty
A US college student who crashed a minivan, killing three of his Boston University classmates and injuring four more, pleaded guilty to careless driving yesterday and was disqualified from driving. Stephen Houseman, 20, had crashed on May 12 while driving to a central North Island hike. Police said the crash appeared to happen when the minivan drifted to the side of the road and Houseman tried to correct his course, but ended up rolling the van several times. At Auckland District Court, Houseman pleaded guilty to seven counts of careless driving causing injury or death. Each charge had carried a maximum jail term of three months.
AUSTRALIA
Cat hurled from bridge
A man was recovering yesterday after a cat which was hurled from a bridge smashed into the windscreen of his car, in an incident police described as “sick.” The 60-year-old driver was lucky to escape injury when the fully grown cat struck his car on Tuesday evening as he was driving along the busy Hume Highway, cracking the windscreen and causing extensive damage to the roof. “Police were called to the scene and found the body of a fully grown cat lying on the road approximately 100 metres behind the car,” police said in a statement. “Investigators suspect the animal was thrown from the overpass, as it is partially enclosed making climbing difficult.”
CHINA
China outranks US
For the first time, people responding to a global survey are more likely to view China and not the US as the world’s leading economic power. The Pew Research Center yesterday said that 41 percent of people interviewed in 21 countries ranked China as the No. 1 economy, while 40 percent put the US in first place. The trend was especially strong in Europe. About 58 percent of people in Britain saw China as the leading economy, versus just 28 percent for the US. The survey also found China’s image has grown more negative over the past year in the US, Japan and parts of Europe.
IRAN
Dissident gets 13 years
A prominent human rights lawyer has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by a Tehran revolutionary court, his daughter said. Maede Soltani, who lives in Germany, said her family was officially notified on Monday of last week’s ruling, which came during the appeals process. Her father, Abdolfattah Soltani, co-founded a human rights group with Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. He was arrested last year. A court in March initially sentenced the 58-year-old to 18 years in prison on various charges, including co-founding the Center for Human Rights Defenders, spreading anti-government propaganda and endangering national security.
BULGARIA
‘Vampires’ to be shown
The National History Museum plans to display a “vampire” skeleton next week after unearthing the 700-year-old remains of two men stabbed through the chest with iron rods. Archeologists, excavating a monastery near the Black Sea city of Sozopol, discovered the skeletons, which were buried in a pagan ritual that they said was aimed at keeping the men from turning into vampires. “This was a pagan belief widespread in the Bulgarian lands in the 12th to 14th centuries. People were very superstitious then,” museum head Bozhidar Dimitrov said.
PAKISTAN
NATO hopes to reopen road
NATO’s chief hopes to soon reopen military supply routes through the country despite new transport agreements with other Afghanistan neighbors providing alternatives. NATO this week struck agreements with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan allowing the military to evacuate hardware from Afghanistan and bypass Pakistan. Pakistan closed its southern supply routes six months ago after US airstrikes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The US recently said a negotiating team was returning home without a deal to reopen the routes, but NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters in Australia yesterday that he hopes Pakistan routes will reopen “in the not too distant future.”
MEXICO
Crime journalist disappears
A police beat reporter at a newspaper in the north and her infant son are missing and they are feared kidnapped, a newspaper employee said on Tuesday. Reporter Stephania Cardoso works for the El Zocalo newspaper in the city of Saltillo, about 320km from the US border. She has been missing since Friday, said Eduardo Mendoza, El Zocalo’s editor. The reporter’s mother, Sylvia Cardoso, told Mendoza that she fears that Stephania and her son were kidnapped. She said the house had been ransacked.
CANADA
Girls, 15, trafficked victims
Ottowa police have charged two 15-year-old girls with human trafficking for allegedly luring other teenage girls into prostitution. Staff Sergeant John McGetrick called the case shocking on Tuesday and said police have never seen anything like it before. Police allege that on three separate occasions, the teenagers lured three other girls between the ages of 13 and 17 to a residence for social reasons. From there, the victims were driven to other locations for the purpose of prostitution. The girls face multiple charges, including human trafficking, robbery, procuring, forcible confinement, sexual assault, assault, uttering threats and abduction.
UNITED STATES
Face-bite man may go blind
A homeless man who almost died after an assailant repeatedly bit his face is recovering well, but will likely go blind, doctors said on Tuesday. Ronald Poppo was hospitalized in critical condition after the May 26 incident in Miami dubbed the “zombie” attack. “He lost his left eye in the attack and his right eye is severely damaged,” Nicholas Namias, head of trauma at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center said. Authorities are still investigating the assault, which happened off a busy Miami highway and ended when police shot dead the assailant, 31-year-old Rudy Eugene. Police have suggested Eugene was under the influence of “bath salts,” a synthetic stimulant usually sold in shops selling drug paraphernelia which produces intense hallucinations and sparks erratic, violent behavior.
UNITED STATES
Flesh-eating virus beaten
A woman battling a flesh-eating disease is slowly improving and her father said on Tuesday she should be out of intensive care soon. The 24-year-old graduate student developed necrotizing fasciitis after cutting her leg in a fall on May 1 and her left leg, right foot and both hands have been amputated. Her father, Andy Copeland, said doctors believe his daughter should be out of intensive care and ready to move into the hospital’s rehabilitation clinic in two or three weeks.
ECUADOR
Ministers told to snub media
Cabinet ministers in President Rafael Correa’s government appear to be adhering to new orders: Do not give interviews to journalists employed by privately owned news media. Policy Coordination Minister Betty Tola said on Tuesday the plan is to “democratize information” in order to strengthen “public and communitarian media.” Correa has long complained that privately owned media are at the forefront of opposition to his government. On Saturday, Correa asked during his weekly radio and TV address why his ministers should be giving interviews to private media and thus lining the pockets of six families that comprise their owners.
UKRAINE
Plan to boost booze revenue
The country could create jobs and boost tax revenues by introducing regulations for domestic production of rum and whisky, two increasingly popular imported alcoholic drinks, Andriy Pinchuk a member of parliament said yesterday. A new draft law would help farmers boost grain production, increase sowing areas and create jobs, Pinchuk said. The alcoholic beverage industry has traditionally focused on horilka and vodka, common eastern European strong spirits and brandy.Economic growth in Ukraine was expected to slow down to 3.9 percent this year from 5.2 percent last year as global demand for its key export, steel, has been weakening.
UNITED STATES
KKK road plans get red light
The state of Georgia on Tuesday turned down an offer by members of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to adopt a stretch of highway to keep it tidy, saying the sight of the group’s name on a sign would be distressing. Members of the ultra-right organization applied to the “Adopt-A-Highway” program in the southern state last month. “The impact of erecting a sign naming an organization which has a long rooted history of civil disturbance would cause a significant public concern,” state transportation commissioner Keith Golden wrote in his letter of explanation.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
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