■NEPAL
Boat sinks with 40 on board
At least 29 people were missing after a crowded boat sank in the Kosi River yesterday, police said. The incident took place in Sunsari District, 200km southeast of Kathmandu. “Eleven of the estimated 40 people on the boat have been rescued and the search for the rest is continuing,” the police control room in Kathmandu said. Details were not available.
■BANGLADESH
Millions receive vaccine
Twenty-two million children were vaccinated against polio on Saturday, in the second round of a fresh drive against the incurable disease that re-emerged in the country nearly three years ago, health officials said. The first round of the campaign to immunize all children under five was held on Nov. 28, with the assistance of UNICEF and the WHO. The country was declared polio-free in August 2000 and has launched several rounds of vaccinations since the disease re-emerged in March 2006. Field workers from the health and family welfare ministry, along with some 600,000 volunteers, administered oral polio vaccines to some 22 million children and vitamin A capsules to 21 million children at 140,000 sites, officials at the health directorate said.
■AUSTRALIA
Medical planes too small
Increasing obesity has prompted a state to seek larger planes for the country’s famous “Flying Doctor” service, government officials said on Saturday. New South Wales has put out a tender to assess the cost of two new, larger planes for its air ambulance fleet, which is flown under contract by the Royal Flying Doctor Service to service remote areas. International surveys have placed Australians as among the most obese people in the world.
■NEW ZEALAND
Jet skier survives at sea
A 26-year-old man was recovering yesterday after spending 24 hours swept out to sea by a storm when his jetski broke down. Nathan Maclure was picked up 13km off the coast of the South Island on Saturday evening when a Russian trawler came across him in what police described as the “good luck story of the year.” Maclure, who took his jetski out for a spin on Friday in a river estuary, survived two severe storms that pelted him with hail and was menaced by three sharks, attracted by jellyfish swimming underneath him. He fell off his jetski twice before he managed to rope himself to it and told the Sunday Star-Times, “I was really scared.”
■HONG KONG
‘Olympic’ sturgeon dies
A third rare sturgeon has died in an aquatic park, a spokeswoman said yesterday, the latest misfortune to strike a school of the endangered fish donated from China to mark the Olympics. The Chinese sturgeon died at Ocean Park on Friday suffering from a head injury and blood clotting, a spokeswoman said. “We will be doing more investigations [to find out what happened],” said the spokeswoman. The death is the third among a group of 10 sturgeon donated to the theme park to mark China’s hosting of the Olympics in August, the first time the fish has been sent outside mainland China. The first was killed by a bite from barracuda in the aquarium and was a diplomatic embarrassment for Hong Kong, prompting the city’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) to demand a full report.
■CHINA
Traffic deaths down: ministry
Traffic deaths declined 10 percent last year to 73,484 helped by a nationwide safety campaign during the Olympic Games, the Ministry of Public Security said yesterday. The explosive growth of China’s auto market, the world’s second largest, lax enforcement of rules and poor quality roads have resulted in one of the world’s worst traffic safety records. A greater focus on safety, however, has reduced the number of traffic deaths from over 100,000 as recently as 2003.
■AUSTRALIA
Base jumper survives fall
A base jumper survived a 60m plunge from a bridge yesterday despite his parachute failing during the stunt, officials said. The man, aged in his late 20s, injured his feet and ankles after he jumped off the EJ Whitten Bridge in Melbourne, ambulance spokesman Ray Rowe said. Rowe could not confirm at what point the man’s parachute failed, but news agency AAP said it was believed to be when he was close to the ground. “He’s a very lucky man, I’ll say that,” Rowe said. “It could have been just so much worse.”
■PAKISTAN
Tear gas used on protesters
Police in nation’s industrial hub of Faisalabad launched tear gas shells and fired in the air on Saturday to disperse hundreds of protesters angered by months of rolling blackouts, witnesses said. Angry mobs burned tires in the streets and pelted police with stones during a day of protests across Faisalabad, which is located 250km south of the capital Islamabad. More than 30 people were arrested. Many of the protesters were workers at local textile factories, which have suffered badly during the months of electricity load-shedding, or rolling blackouts, due to a nationwide power shortage.
■YEMEN
Tribesmen release tourists
Tribesmen have released a South African tourist and her two sons unharmed, a day after they kidnapped them in the southern province of Abyan to press for the release of a jailed fellow clansman, police officials said late on Saturday. The woman, the boys — aged 10 and 13 — and a Yemeni driver were kidnapped on Friday as they drove on a highway from the south eastern province of Hadhramout to the port city of Aden. Armed tribesmen from the al-Maraqisha tribe stopped the family’s vehicle near al-Khubar, 170km east of Aden. The hostages’ release was the fruit of “intensive engagement of police officials and tribal elders,” in talks with the abductors, a police official said. Tribal sources said that authorities had released the kidnappers’ relative, whom they demanded to be freed from police custody in exchange for setting the hostages free. The prisoner was a police officer jailed for misconduct, the sources said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Three die in plane crash
Three people died in Friday’s crash of a light aircraft near a main railway line in Staffordshire, police said on Saturday. Police had initially said at least two people were killed. On Saturday, they raised the death toll to three, identifying them as pilot Alan Matthews, 59, of Walsall, and passengers Nick O’Brien, 35 and his wife Emma, 29, from Shirley, Solihull. Matthews’ wife Jenny said he was an experienced pilot who loved flying. “He was loving, caring and would help anybody,” she said. The O’Briens leave two children, Callum, aged 10, and Joel, 18 months. The crash brought down overhead rail power cables and left debris near tracks, forcing the closure of the line which is used by trains running between London and Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. Police said the railway line was not expected to be fully restored this weekend and advised passengers to check with their train operator before traveling.
■COLOMBIA
Plane forced to land
An American Airlines plane headed to Miami with 148 people on board made an emergency landing on Saturday at the airport from which it took off, but no one was injured, an official said. “Fortunately, with all necessary precautions, the plane landed without incident,” at the airport in Rionegro, Colonel Donall Tasco, a Civil Aviation official, told Radio Caracol. “All the passengers are well.” Tascon said the plane, a Boeing 737, had problems with one of its engines upon takeoff from the airport some 380km northeast of Bogota.
■UNITED STATES
Jobless hotline mixed up
There used to be a time when people who called Linda Jahraus’ home in Laguna Beach, California, actually wanted to speak to her or her husband. But for the past several months, the majority of callers have been trying to reach an Alabama unemployment hot line. The call confusion has added to the frustrations of the state’s unemployed and has left at least two California households hoping for a little less ringing in the new year. “We almost didn’t pick up the phone,” Jahraus said on Friday after spotting an incoming Alabama number from reporters on her caller-ID. “It’s a pain in the neck, quite frankly. The day after Christmas we had 50 or more phone calls and they started at 5am. The Alabama Department of Industrial Relations administers unemployment benefits and set up a toll-free number for jobless Alabama residents to apply for benefits. Call centers in Montgomery or Birmingham are supposed to get the calls.
■UNITED STATES
Tough question at contest
A tricky question of morality is this year’s brainteaser in the annual philosophy competition called the Great American Think-Off. “Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?” is the theme of this year’s contest. The event is organized by Minnesota’s New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding the cultural and creative opportunities of rural Americans. Anyone can enter by submitting an essay of 750 words or less. Four finalists will be chosen to debate the question on June 13 before a live audience. Last year’s question was whether immigration strengthens or threatens the US.
■UNITED STATES
Monkey meat not welcome
A federal judge in Brooklyn has rejected a Liberian woman’s argument that she had religious reasons for smuggling endangered monkey meat into the country. District Judge Raymond Dearie ruled on Wednesday that Mamie Manneh’s faith didn’t preclude her from applying for permits to import exotic food or explain why she misled officials. Manneh was charged with smuggling the meat three years ago after customs agents seized a shipment of primate parts as it passed through Kennedy Airport on the way to her home in New York. Manneh’s lawyers claimed a First Amendment right, arguing that some Liberian Christians eat monkey meat for spiritual reasons.
■UNITED STATES
Child charged with murder
A 12-year-old boy who fatally shot his mother after an argument over his chores was found guilty of premeditated murder. Judge James Conlogue found the boy guilty after a hearing on Friday in Cochise County Superior Court in the southern Arizona town of Bisbee. The boy is not being identified because he was charged as a juvenile. Conlogue ruled that prosecutors had proved the boy acted intentionally and with premeditation when he shot Sara Madrid, 34, eight times on Aug. 1. The shooting happened after the boy had argued with his mother over his chores.
■UNITED STATES
‘Shadow’ illustrator dies
Edward Cartier, whose illustrations graced The Shadow and numerous other science fiction and mystery publications in a career that spanned several decades, has died at 94. Cartier died on Dec. 25 at his home in Ramsey, his son Dean Cartier said. The elder Cartier had suffered from Parkinson’s disease in recent years, his son said. Cartier’s artwork appeared in works by authors such as Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, but he is perhaps best known for the hundreds of illustrations he did for The Shadow in the 1930s and 1940s. Written by Walter Gibson, The Shadow novels appeared in pulp magazines and detailed the exploits of a mysterious, black-attired crime fighter.
■UNITED STATES
Small plane crashes
Federal investigators are trying to figure out what caused a fiery plane crash that killed two people in Illinois. Deputy Police Chief Patrick Kerr says the small plane was landing at Joliet Regional Airport just before 9pm on Thursday when it burst into flames. The crash happened near the end of a runway. The office of Will County Coroner Patrick O’Neil said the victims have been tentatively identified as 52-year-old Deborah Loiselle and 50-year-old Stuart Seffern of Madison. Airport manager Jennifer McFarland said the plane took off from Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said the plane was a Lancair.
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
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
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
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