CHINA
Flood-trapped miners freed
Two miners were rescued early yesterday after spending 10 days trapped underground by a flood, state news services reported, in a rare success for the accident-prone industry. A total of 42 workers were underground when water began pouring into the state-owned Zhengsheng coal mine on Sept. 28 and although 30 escaped, a dozen were stuck inside, Xinhua news agency said. Rescue efforts in Fenyang, Shanxi Province, have been continuing ever since, Xinhua added, citing the mining company’s rescue headquarters. The two miners were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening problems and searchers were still trying to reach the remaining 10. The pair’s fate stands in stark contrast to that of hundreds of miners every year. Last year, 1,384 people were killed in coal mining accidents, according to official figures.
CHINA
Official fired for wedding
The country’s anti-graft watchdog has fired a village official who spent more than 1.6 million yuan (US$260,000) on a lavish three-day wedding for his son, state media said, the latest step in the government’s crackdown on waste and extravagance. Ma Linxiang (馬林祥), a deputy village head from the Beijing suburb of Qingheying, hosted the estimated 250-table wedding at an upmarket convention center during the week-long National Day holiday last week, newspapers reported. Ma told the Beijing News that the wedding was hosted by both families and that he “couldn’t stop” the bride’s family from splurging on the venue, as well as a troupe of performers that included two celebrities. Ma said he only paid for the two days of festivities in his village that cost 200,000 yuan and that he received a fraction of that back in gifts, the newspaper said. Ma also said luxury cars used at the wedding were only “borrowed.”
MYANMAR
Pardon given to 56 prisoners
The government released 56 political prisoners, including some former ethnic minority separatists, in a presidential amnesty yesterday, according to government and activist sources. The prisoners were freed from at least a dozen detention centers across the country, a senior Ministry of Home Affairs official, who declined to be identified, told reporters. Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner who now works for the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, a body that monitors prisoners of conscience held or political activists facing charges, said that former members of ethnic minority rebel groups were among those freed. The move came just ahead of the annual ASEAN forum in Brunei. In a speech made during a trip to Britain earlier this year, President Thein Sein promised to free all political detainees by the end of the year.
SOUTH KOREA
North threatens US over drill
Pyongyang yesterday warned Washington of a “horrible disaster” and put its troops on alert over a massive joint naval drill involving a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier, and South Korean and Japanese vessels scheduled for this week. The warning came after the government and Washington last week signed a new joint strategy to counter the growing threat from the North. Pyongyang said the situation on the Korean Peninsula was “getting strained again” and warned the US that the closer its forces came “the more unpredictable disasters their actions will cause... The US will be wholly accountable for the unexpected horrible disaster to be met by its imperialist aggression forces.”
UNITED STATES
Self-immolator identified
Police have identified the man who set himself on fire on the National Mall and later died of his injuries. Washington police spokesman Paul Metcalf said in a news release on Monday the man was 64-year-old John Constantino of Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Police said on Saturday that Constantino’s injuries were so severe that authorities needed to use DNA and dental records to identify him. The man poured the contents of a red canister of gasoline on himself in the center portion of the mall on Friday last week. He then set himself on fire, with passing joggers taking off their shirts to help put out the flames.
ITALY
Divers ‘unpack’ bodies
Deep sea divers “unpacked a wall of people” from the hull of a smuggler’s trawler on the sea floor near Lampedusa Island on Monday, gingerly untangling the dead would-be migrants in the latest and most painstaking phase of a recovery operation following the ship’s fiery capsizing. It was the first time the divers had been able to reach the hull and authorities said 38 more bodies were recovered, raising the death toll from the tragedy on Thursday last week to 232. Scores more are believed missing; most, if not all, were Eritreans trying to reach Europe in search of asylum and a better life.
UNITED STATES
Lost journalist survives
As her husband went for help, Cathy Frye lay on the ground of a remote Texas state park, hiding from the sun under a small tree. She was alone for two days until someone on high ground spotted her. Frye, an award-winning reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, remained in an El Paso hospital on Monday, one day after she was airlifted by helicopter to safety. Rescuers found Frye, the 43-year-old mother of two children, in a dry creek known as an arroyo. The partial federal government shutdown had forced Frye and her husband, Democrat-Gazette photographer Rick McFarland, out of their original destination, Big Bend National Park, but they took a local employee’s advice and went west to Big Bend Ranch State Park, which remained open. The couple headed toward a popular hiking trail, but overshot their mark and spent that night near a scenic overlook, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. They found the right trail the next day, but then lost it again. That night, the couple slept in wet clothes and with no material to start a fire. On Friday, Frye told her husband she could not go any further. They decided McFarland should carry on toward their truck to find help.
ARGENTINA
President in for surgery
Doctors prepared to drill into President Cristina Fernandez’s skull yesterday morning to siphon out blood that is pressuring her brain two months after she suffered an unexplained head injury. Experts described the procedure as generally low risk and almost always having positive results, but the surgery on the 60-year-old leader worried many Argentines, who have struggled to imagine their country with anyone else at its center. Fernandez was diagnosed with “chronic subdural hematoma,” or fluid trapped between the skull and brain. As people age, it can happen with a head injury so mild that they do not remember it. In the president’s case, doctors initially prescribed a month’s rest, but decided surgery was required after she complained of numbness and weakness in her upper left arm on Sunday.
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
RSS