CHINA
Coal mine accident kills 12
Twelve people were killed in a coal mine accident in Jilin Province, state media reported yesterday, the latest incident in the country’s notoriously dangerous industry. Coal gas flooded a colliery in Baishan, killing the miners, Xinhua news agency said. One was rescued and the cause of the accident on Sunday was being investigated.
CHINA
MH370 relatives file suit
Relatives of a dozen passengers aboard missing flight MH370 began filing suits against Malaysia Airlines at a Beijing court yesterday, a day ahead of the second anniversary of its disappearance and a legal deadline to do so. The flight, with 239 people — including 153 Chinese citizens — on board, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, and authorities said it went down in the southern Indian Ocean. Under international agreements, families have two years to sue over air accidents. However, many families were “deeply conflicted” over the decision to go to court, said lawyer Zhang Qihuai (張起淮), whose Lanpeng firm represents the group who were filing suit yesterday. Even while suing for the wrongful deaths of their loved ones, many express beliefs that the passengers are still alive, perhaps being held at an unknown location.
PAKISTAN
Bomber kills eight at court
A suicide attack at a court compound killed at least eight people in the northwest yesterday, officials said, the latest in a series of attacks in areas around the volatile Mohmand tribal area. Senior police official Sohail Khalid said that three police personnel were among at least eight people killed, and 27 others were wounded in the blast. Saeed Wazir, another police official, said that the attacker targeted the court building in the town of Shabqadar.
INDIA
Mob attacks church
Police arrested three men after a gang attacked a church during Sunday Mass, an investigator said, in the latest attack against Christians in the religiously diverse country. Women and children were injured after a group of about 50 men barged into the church in Kachna village near Raipur, the state capital of Chhattisgarh. Witnesses said the crowd of young men stormed into the church chanting slogans and demanding that the church be shut down. “About 40-50 people, who had covered their faces with cloth, attacked the gathering and damaged the chair and musical instruments,” local Shiv Kumar said.
AUSTRALIA
Facebook ‘rat-biter’ charged
A man known as “Mad Matt” appeared in court yesterday after filming himself allegedly biting the head off a live rat and posting the video on Facebook. Matthew Maloney, 24, was charged with animal cruelty following a raid by Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals investigators after the bizarre stunt in January. He appeared briefly in the Brisbane Magistrates Court, making no plea, with the case adjourned until April 6, a court official said. The video shows Maloney storming into a room, allegedly biting off the rat’s head and washing it down with three shots of vodka. He then gets punched in the face and has a chair broken over his back before saying “beat that.” The clip, which remains on his “Mad Matts vids” Facebook page and been viewed more than 230,000 times, was reportedly an attempt to create a disturbing new social-media challenge.
IRAN
Billionaire to appeal
Billionaire Babak Zanjani, who was sentenced to death in an oil fraud case, is going to appeal the verdict, his lawyer said. “The sentence is not final and there is room to dispute it,” Rasoul Kouhpayezadeh told the Iranian Students News Agency on Sunday. “We will for sure appeal.” Zanjani, who has denied all wrongdoing, was accused of embezzling US$2.7 billion from the state-run National Iranian Oil Co during transactions intended to circumvent international sanctions on crude exports, according to state-run media. Officials said Zanjani used the Tajikistan branch of his own bank, First Islamic Investment Bank, to funnel the money out of the nation.
UNITED KINGDOM
Bomb-making cache found
Police in Northern Ireland on Sunday announced the discovery of a large cache of bomb-making materials, explosives and partially constructed devices, raising fears of an attack in the province. The cache were found buried in plastic barrels in a forest park in a predominantly unionist area near Larne, 50km north of Belfast. In a separate incident on Sunday, a suspicious object was found in a residential area of Derry, leading to the evacuation of several houses, a day after two explosive devices were also found and defused in west Belfast. Police have warned that some “people within dissident republican groupings” wanted to mark the centenary of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising with violence.
UNITED STATES
Hogan-Gawker trial opens
Gawker yesterday began the legal fight of its life with opening statements in a lawsuit between the New York media company and the mustachioed wrestling and reality TV star Hulk Hogan over the publication of a sex tape involving him. At issue is a post Gawker ran in October 2012 that included a video showing the wrestler, then 58, appearing to have sex with a woman called Heather Clem, who at the time was married to Hogan’s best friend, talk radio DJ Bubba “the Love Sponge” Clem. The post included the video and an essay describing the intercourse in not entirely flattering terms. Hogan is asking for US$100 million in damages for defamation, emotional pain and loss of privacy.
UKRAINE
Protesters attack embassy
Angry protesters on Sunday threw stones and eggs at the Russian embassy in Kiev, breaking several of its windows, after earlier smashing cars and throwing smoke pellets as anger boiled over at Moscow’s refusal to free a hunger-striking pilot. Hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside the embassy to demand the release of Nadiya Savchenko, a 34-year-old pilot who is on trial in Russia for the killing of two journalists. Savchenko began a hunger strike on Thursday last week, rejecting both food and water, to protest delays in her trial.
NORWAY
Police seek fish’s owner
Police in the northwestern town of Bodo are taking care of a goldfish as they seek its owner, news agency NTB reports. Officers found the goldfish in a jam jar at the Nordlandshall indoor soccer stadium and decided to take it back to the police station because they could not find the owner. Ina Selfors, spokeswoman for the Nordland police district, said that somebody likely had bought the goldfish and taken it to the stadium and forgot it there. Selfors says she hopes the owner will contact the police, adding that until then the fish “will stay in the jam jar and keep us company.”
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
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