IRELAND
Gas station blast kills seven
The number of people killed in an explosion at a gas station in County Donegal on Friday has risen to seven, with search and recovery efforts continuing, police said yesterday. The explosion happened shortly after 3pm at the Applegreen station on the outskirts of Creeslough. Eight people were receiving treatment in hospital, police said. They have not addressed the cause of the explosion. Photographs from the scene showed a residential unit above the station store with walls blown out and a partially collapsed roof, and debris scattered across the forecourt where several vehicles were parked. Local Sinn Fein lawmaker Pearse Doherty said at the scene on Friday that the “massive explosion” was heard from miles around, adding that the gas station was the only supermarket in the village, also housing a post office and hairdressers and that it would have been busy at that time.
INDIA
Twelve die in bus fire
At least 12 people died and two were in critical condition after a bus caught fire in Nashik yesterday, a police official said. More than 30 injured were being treated at the local Civil Hospital, while an investigation into the cause of the accident was underway, another local police said. The bus caught fire after hitting a diesel tanker, local media reports said. Videos on social media showed the bus engulfed in a massive ball of fire. “Anguished by the bus tragedy in Nashik. My thoughts are with those who have lost their loved ones in this mishap,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter, adding that families of the deceased would receive 200,000 rupees (US$2,415) each, while the injured would get 50,000 rupees each.
HONG KONG
Diamond sells for US$57m
A rare pink diamond on Friday sold for HK$453.2 million (US$57.73 million), setting a record for price per carat paid at auction for any diamond or gemstone Sotheby’s said. The 11.15-carat Williamson Pink Star fetched the second-highest price paid at auction for any jewel, Sotheby’s added. The winning bid, by an undisclosed buyer from Boca Raton, Florida, was more than twice the estimated US$21 million sale price. The stone was the second-largest pink diamond to be sold at auction. Pink diamonds are the rarest of the precious gems and the most in-demand on the global market. The world record for a pink diamond was set in 2017, when a stone known as the CTF Pink Star was sold in Hong Kong for US$71.2 million.
NEW ZEALAND
About 250 pilot whales die
About 250 pilot whales died after beaching on Chatham Island where the shark risk makes attempts to refloat them too dangerous, the government said yesterday. The pilot whales, members of the dolphin family, were reported to have been stranded on Friday on the northwest of the island, the Department Of Conservation said. “We do not actively refloat whales on the Chatham Islands due to the risk of shark attack to both humans and the whales themselves,” it said in a statement. A trained team euthanized surviving whales to prevent further suffering, it said. Indigenous peoples of New Zealand and Chatham Island were present to give support, it added. Such strandings are “not uncommon” in the Chatham Islands, off the eastern coast of South Island, it said, adding that the largest recorded event involved an estimated 1,000 whales in 1918.
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,
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