■ PHILIPPINES
Second bomb discovered
A second unexploded bomb was recovered in Iligan City yesterday, three days after twin explosions killed three people and injured dozens, police said. The explosive, made from an 81mm mortar shell, was found in a garbage dump, police said. It was the second unexploded bomb found in the city since two shopping centers were bombed on Thursday. On Friday, a bomb was found inside a bakery just hours after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo left the city. Authorities said no group claimed responsibility. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has denied involvement in the bombings.
■MALAYSIA
Pre-nuptial HIV test urged
The government will urge non-Muslim couples to take voluntary HIV screening tests before tying the knot due to high levels of infection among married women, the deputy premier said. Such screening is already compulsory for Muslims as part of a pre-marital course. While new HIV infections dropped to 3,452 this year, compared to 6,756 in 2003, infections among women through sexual intercourse rose from 5.02 percent of total cases in 1997 to 16.3 percent last year.
■THAILAND
Southern violence kills two
Separatist insurgents shot dead a railway security guard and two bombs killed one woman and injured 11 people in the restive south, police said yesterday. A 49-year-old railway security guard was shot dead in troubled Yala Province in a drive-by shooting as he left his house late on Saturday morning, they said. Later the same day a small bomb hidden inside a motorcycle and triggered by a mobile phone, detonated in front of a convenience store in nearby Pattani Province and injured eight people.
■ CHINA
Nation favors miracle pig
A pig that survived 36 days buried in the rubble of May’s massive Sichuan earthquake has been voted the nation’s favorite animal, but the attention has made him fat, lazy and bad-tempered, state media said. The hog, trapped in a sty after the 7.9 magnitude quake, was bought by a local businessman who was moved by its ordeal and named it “Zhu Jianqiang,” or “Strong Pig.” It survived by eating charcoal and drinking rainwater. Now it has been voted top of an online poll of animals “who moved China” this year, the weekend edition of the China Daily said. People come from all over to see the pig at its new home in a museum, the newspaper said, but it was becoming increasingly spoiled and ungrateful.
■AUSTRALIA
‘Bad’ drugs sicken dozens
A dozen people were hospitalized and 20 more received medical treatment after a “bad batch” of drugs was distributed at a party in Melbourne, ambulance officials said yesterday. Paul Holman of the state medical service Ambulance Victoria said more than 30 people aged between 17 and their early 20s fell seriously ill at a party on Saturday night. Emergency room staff treated symptoms ranging from fits to breathing problems after the partygoers took the drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate, known as GHB.
■PAKISTAN
Blaze kills eight, six missing
The death toll from a massive fire that gutted a major shopping mall in the garrison city of Rawalpindi has risen to eight, with six others still missing, officials said yesterday. Rescuers were combing through the debris in search of survivors at Ghakhar Plaza, which partially collapsed 12 hours after the blaze erupted in the early hours of Saturday, Deputy City Commissioner Haseeb Athar told reporters. “Eight people have died and 59 were injured. Six are still missing,” Athar said. The cause of the massive blaze, which engulfed hundreds of shops, was not immediately known. Plaza owner Shahid Zafar, a former federal minister, told private Geo television that the blaze in Rawalpindi — the twin city of the capital Islamabad — had caused millions of dollars in losses to shopkeepers.
■AUSTRALIA
Drug-user takes bad trip
A 25-year-old man who thought he could fly after taking a hallucinogenic drug was hospitalized with critical injuries after falling five stories from his apartment on Saturday in suburban Sydney, paramedics said. The man said he thought he could fly the 80m from his balcony to the water’s edge at Homebush Bay, the AAP news agency reported. His fall was broken by a patch of bushes, but he still suffered serious head injuries and a fractured right arm.
■CHINA
Woman detained for porn
A woman who became an online sensation after posting a homemade pornographic film of herself on the Internet has been detained in Shanghai, the China Daily said in its weekend edition. The 12-minute-video showed the woman, surnamed Huang, performing “sex acts,” the newspaper said, without elaborating. “It soon became one of the most popular downloads on the mainland, with thousands of people downloading it last month,” the report cited the local police as saying in a statement. The woman set up a blog, hoping to profit from her notoriety and sell interviews for up to 30,000 yuan (US$4,383) apiece, the newspaper said.
■MAURITANIA
Police to free president
Security forces forcibly removed the recently deposed president early yesterday from the village where he had been under house arrest, his daughter said. A police official confirmed that police were given orders to take ousted President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi into custody and drive him to his home in the capital, Nouakchott, where he was to be freed. A military junta deposed Abdallahi in a coup on Aug. 6 and placed him under house arrest. Both the US and France canceled aid, demanding Abdallahi’s release. The US has also placed a travel ban on the leaders of the junta. Bowing to the international pressure, the junta recently announced that the former president would be freed unconditionally before the end of the month.
■RUSSIA
Rebel bombs kill five
Police said on Saturday that five people, four of them police officers, have been injured in explosions set off by rebels in the south. Also, in the province of Kabardino-Balkariaya, police tracked down a suspected militant on Saturday. He refused to surrender and was killed in a skirmish, the regional office of the Interior Ministry said. The Interior Ministry’s branch in the province of Dagestan said three police officers were injured on Friday when their vehicle hit a radio-controlled land mine laid by the rebels on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Makhachkala.
■ITALY
Court sentences general
A general was sentenced to two years in prison Saturday for failing to provide proper security at a base in southern Iraq where 19 Italians died in a suicide attack, ANSA news agency said. But General Bruno Sato was spared jail time by the military court judge that heard his case in Rome. Instead he handed him a suspended sentence. Sato, another general and a colonel were charged last year with “omissions of military defense measures.” General Vincenzo Lops was acquitted while Colonel Georg Di Pauli still faces military justice. In November 2003, a small truck burst through the guard post at the entrance to the Nasiriyah base before exploding and killing 27 people.
■FRANCE
Police arrest ‘extremists’
Three people detained in and around Paris on suspicion of links to Islamic extremist groups that send fighters to Iraq were charged on Saturday, a judicial source said. The three, who were charged with “association with criminals with terrorist aims,” were among seven people arrested on Tuesday. The other four have been released. Intelligence officers and anti-terrorist police first arrested a young man who had converted to Islam and then hauled in six people he associated with.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Attenborough hospitalized
Oscar-winning British director and actor Richard Attenborough was in a stable condition after an accident at his home, a hospital spokesman said on Saturday. The 85-year-old director of Gandhi was forced to pull out of a plaque-unveiling ceremony on Thursday after suffering a fall. A spokesman for St George’s Hospital in London, said: “Richard Attenborough suffered a fall at his home and is receiving care. He is currently in a stable condition.” Attenborough had been due to honor Brief Encounter star Celia Johnson on the centenary of her birth, but a spokeswoman for the event said: “He had a fall and he wasn’t able to do it.”
■UNITED STATES
Space shuttles for sale
For anyone with an interest in the starry skies and around US$42 million to spare, NASA may have an interesting proposition. The space agency has announced it is selling three used space shuttles when they are retired in 2010, after 30 years of service. Sadly for enthusiasts planning their own voyage of discovery, the orbiters will only be made available for display in museums and other educational institutes. One of the three craft — the most complex aircraft ever built, which launches into space like a rocket before gliding back to Earth like a plane — has already been earmarked for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
■UNITED STATES
James Bevel passes away
Reverend James Bevel, who fought for civil rights alongside Martin Luther King in the 1960s and who more recently was convicted of incest, died at his daughter’s home in Virginia, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. He was 72. Bevel died on Friday in Springfield, Virginia, his daughter Sherrilynn Bevel told the daily. Bevel was one of King’s top aides and was a key figure in the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Bevel was convicted by a Virginia court of having sexual intercourse in the early 1990s with one of his teenage daughters. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail, but was released on bond because of ill health.
■MEXICO
Extraditions to US rise
The government has extradited a record 85 criminal suspects to the US so far this year. US officials have praised the increase in extraditions. The government does not extradite anyone to the US who might face the death penalty there. The Attorney General’s Office says 83 suspects were extradited last year. Sixty-three were sent north in 2006. The office announced the latest batch of extraditions on Saturday, including three men accused of homicide in the US. Two are accused of killings in the state of Illinois, and another faces charges in Washington state.
■PERU
Fifteen killed in van crash
At least 15 people were killed on Saturday, including a child, when a van full of school teachers plunged 100m into a ravine, police said. Rescue crews were retrieving the bodies from the accident site near Yanac, in La Libertad department, they said. The accident, the cause of which has not been determined, brings the country’s road death toll for last week to 37.
■UNITED STATES
Chevy crushes competition
A Chevrolet dealer literally crushed his Asian auto competition — but found the stunt harder to pull off than expected. Island Chevrolet general sales manager James Severtson arranged for a Chevrolet Suburban SUV outfitted with massive tires costing US$5,000 apiece to drive over a Honda Accord in Hilo, Hawaii. On the first attempt on Friday, the monster truck blew a hydraulic hose and leaked vital fluid, while the Honda remained intact and ready for more. After several hours, the truck was repaired and driver Ryan Kepiki tried again. This time a second victim, a Hyundai Excel sedan, was parked next to the Honda. Kepiki drove over the cars’ hoods, destroying the windshields to the seeming delight of the rush-hour crowd. Severtson said the dealership had been planning the crush-fest for a while.
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
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