SOUTH KOREA
Ten dead after bus crashes
Ten people were killed and nine injured after their bus caught fire on a highway, officials said yesterday. Twenty people, including the driver, were on the bus when it smashed into the guardrail and caught fire on the Gyeongbu Expressway near the southeastern city of Ulsan on Thursday night, the Ministry of Public Safety and Security said in a release. Ulsan officials said the passengers are retirees of a petrochemical company and their spouses who were returning home from a tour to China. The exact cause of the fire was under investigation, but authorities suspect it started after a ruptured tire caused the bus to hit the guardrail, with the friction from the bus sliding sparking flames, Ulsan officials said. Ulsan officials said the injured were treated for smoke inhalation and burns.
UNITED STATES
Clinton hints at China ‘ring’
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton privately said the US would “ring China with missile defense” if the Chinese government failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear program, a potential hint at how the former secretary of state would act if elected president. Clinton’s remarks were revealed by WikiLeaks in a hack of the Clinton campaign chairman’s personal account. The e-mails include a document excerpting Clinton’s private speech transcripts, which she has refused to release. A section on China features several issues in which Clinton said she confronted the Chinese while leading the Department of State. Clinton said she told Chinese officials that the US might deploy additional ships to the region to contain the North Korean missile threat. If North Korea successfully obtains a ballistic missile, “they could actually reach Hawaii and the west coast theoretically,” Clinton said. “We’re going to ring China with missile defense. We’re going to put more of our fleet in the area,” Clinton said in a 2013 speech.
UNITED STATES
Rahimi pleads not guilty
The Afghan-born American wanted for bomb attacks that rattled New York and New Jersey last month pleaded not guilty from his hospital bed on Thursday to charges of attempted murder. Ahmad Khan Rahimi’s public defender entered a plea of not guilty on state charges that his client attempted to murder five police officers and unlawfully possessed weapons while on the run in New Jersey. Bail was set at US$5.2 million. Rahimi was shown lying in bed in a hospital, where he is being treated after being critically wounded in a shootout with police on Sept. 19 that led to his capture.
VENEZUELA
Assembly rebukes legislator
The opposition majority legislature on Thursday censured a lawmaker from President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist party for throwing a microphone at a colleague during a debate. Legislator Hugbel Roa was speaking against a motion to congratulate newly named Cardinal Baltazar Porras — a stern Maduro critic — when he lost his temper with opposition lawmaker Marco Bozzo, who was in favor. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Roa said before throwing the microphone at Bozzo. Bozzo lunged toward him to retaliate, but colleagues intervened to keep the two men apart. The scuffle was just the latest chaos to engulf the National Assembly, of which the opposition took control in January, ending the left’s 17-year monopoly on power. The center-right opposition won a landslide in mid-term elections as voters punished the socialists for a devastating economic crisis.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS