CHINA
Man kills eight with bus
Police have detained a 48-year-old unemployed man surnamed Qiu (邱), who hijacked a bus in Fujian Province’s Longyan after a dispute with a neighborhood official that resulted in eight people being killed, Xinhua news agency reported late on Tuesday. “The initial police investigation showed that on that day, the suspect had a conflict with an official of the neighborhood committee, with whom he had long been at odds, during the official’s visit to his home,” Xinhua said. “He then attacked people with a knife, hijacked a bus and used it to hit pedestrians.” Eight people were killed and 22 injured, one seriously, the report said.
INDONESIA
Weather poses new threat
Authorities yesterday warned of “extreme weather and high waves” around the erupting Anak Krakatoa volcano, urging people to stay away from the coast already devastated by a tsunami that killed more than 400 people. Clouds of ash spewed from Anak Krakatoa, almost obscuring the island. Rough weather around the volcano could make its crater more fragile, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency said late on Tuesday. “We have developed a monitoring system focused specifically on the volcanic tremors at Anak Krakatoa so that we can issue early warnings,” agency head Dwikorita Karnawati said, adding that a 2km exclusion zone had been imposed.
SYRIA
Israeli missiles ‘shot down’
Air defenses on Tuesday shot down Israeli missiles near Damascus, state media reported, while Israel said it was protecting itself from anti-aircraft fire. Air defenses “intercepted hostile missiles launched by the Israeli warplanes” from over Lebanese territories, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported, citing a military source. The majority of them were downed before reaching their targets near Damascus, it added. Three soldiers were injured and an ammunition depot damaged. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment, but the military said in a statement: “An aerial defense system went off against an anti-aircraft missile launched from Syria. No damage or injuries were reported.” The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor also reported “an Israeli raid.” If confirmed, the strike would be the first by Israel since the US withdrawal of troops was announced.
UNITED STATES
Baltimore buys back guns
Baltimore police last week collected 1,860 weapons, including a rocket launcher, as part of a buy-back program aimed at reducing violence. The three-day operation was announced in a bid to rid the streets of illegal weapons in a city where the number of homicides has surpassed 300 for the fourth year in a row. Authorities offered US$25 for large magazines, US$100 for handguns and rifles, US$200 for semiautomatic rifles and US$500 for automatic rifles, as well as promised anonymity.
GERMANY
Carriage collision hurts 20
Police said that 20 people were injured, two of them seriously, on Tuesday, when two horse-drawn carriages collided during a Christmas Day outing. The Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted Bavarian police as saying that the two carriages were approaching a rail crossing single file when the first carriage halted. The second did not and overturned during the collision. One man had to be taken to hospital by helicopter. The driver of one of the carriages was also seriously hurt. The other 18 injured people included children.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
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