■CHINA
Coal mine blast kills 11
An explosion at a coal mine in Ningxia killed 11 workers, injured seven and left three missing, the State Work Safety Administration said in a statement on its Web site yesterday. The incident occurred late on Wednesday at the Dafeng mine in the town of Shizuishan, it said. Workers were using dynamite to blast through rock when the accident occurred, Xinhua news agency reported. Only one person escaped unharmed, it said. An investigation was under way, the agency said, adding that the mine was owned by Shenhua Group, one of the nation’s mining giants.
■HONG KONG
Diet pill dangerous
Health officials issued a warning on Wednesday after a teenage girl became mentally ill after taking slimming pills she bought online. The 17-year-old became paranoid, began hallucinating and having suicidal thoughts after taking the pills named “Show Party,” they said. She was admitted to hospital after she began harming herself, the Department of Health said. Her mental state was said to be unstable. Tests showed the pills to contain a banned ingredient called phenolphthalein, which was once used for treating constipation but has been banned for its cancer-causing effects. The pills also contained a substance called sibutramine, an appetite suppressant that can lead to high blood pressure, psychosis and convulsions.
■CHINA
Senior general to visit US
US defense department spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters on Wednesday that General Xu Caihou (徐才厚), China’s second-highest ranking officer, will visit the US and meet Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Oct. 26. Xu is vice chairman of the People’s Liberation Army Central Military Commission. Morrell said Xu would visit military installations and organizations around the US, including the Naval Academy and the US Pacific Command. Morrell said that the more talks China and the US have, the less “chance there is for a misunderstanding between two very formidable powers on the world’s stage.”
■INDONESIA
Porn star loses role
An Indonesian film production company has canceled a planned visit by a Japanese porn star to Jakarta for the shooting of a comedy after protests from hardline Islamic groups, its producer said. Maria Ozawa was due to arrive on Wednesday for the filming of Kidnapping Miyabi, but members of the Islamic Defenders’ Front threatened to throng the Jakarta airport to force her to return to Japan. Acting Tourism Minister Muhammad Nuh later issued a letter requesting the production company, Maxima Pictures, to cancel Ozawa’s visit. “We’ve decided to cancel the visit because the situation isn’t favorable,” said Oddi Mulya Hidayat, the producer of the film.
■HONG KONG
Man fined for sneak shots
A senior immigration officer claimed that stress from working at the airport had led him to take sneak photographs with his mobile phone up a woman’s skirt, a court report said yesterday. Anthony Lo, 41, was chased and captured by security guards after he was spotted filming under the mini-skirt of a 20-year-old girl at one of the city’s train station exits. Police found four film clips of different women taken the same day with his phone in December. Lo, a married man who has worked in the immigration department for 20 years, appeared in court on Wednesday charged with behaving in a disorderly manner in a public place and was fined HK$4,000 (US$516).
■UNITED KINGDOM
Singer punched at signing
A man punched singer Leona Lewis in the head at a book signing session in central London on Wednesday, her spokesman said. Stuart Bell said Lewis, 24, had been meeting members of the public at a book store in central London for about 90 minutes when a man from the line came up and hit her. He was immediately led away by security guards and later arrested by police. Bell said Lewis, who was launching her autobiography, was shaken up by the incident and went to see a doctor as a precaution. Lewis shot to fame after winning the X Factor reality show in 2006. Police said a 29-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of assault and is being held in custody.
■ICELAND
‘Lost Symbol’ translation lost
Police are looking for someone who might be reading the Icelandic translation of Dan Brown’s new novel, The Lost Symbol. A burglar who broke into the offices of the Bjartur publishing house on Tuesday got away with the first proof copy of the translation. “Possibly the burglar gave up on his English copy of the long novel and in his desperation decided to get a copy of the Icelandic translation before anyone else,” Gudrun Vilmundardottir, chief of publishing for Bjartur, said on Wednesday. The burglar apparently fled after being disturbed by a photographer arriving for work, she said. Vilmundardottir said another copy of the translation was sent to the proofreader, and she wasn’t worried about the translation leaking out on the Internet or some other form. “Although you have to wonder a little, seeing as the burglar did take a computer scanner as well,” she said.
■GERMANY
Sweet sorrow for boy
An eight-year-old boy swiped nearly 2,000 euros (US$3,000) from his parents but was caught out when he tried to spend some of his ill-gotten gains on candy, police said on Wednesday. The boy asked for 15 euros’ worth of candy, prompting the suspicious kiosk owner to ask him whether he had enough money. The boy then pulled out a wad of notes totalling 1,680 euros. Police were called and the parents came to pick up their sweet-toothed son. The boy said he had stolen the money from his parents’ drawer, police in the town of Viersen said.
■IRAQ
University classes suspended
Classes were suspended and political activities banned at one of Baghdad’s leading universities following student protests on campus, a government spokesman said on Wednesday. The student union was also banned at Mustansiriyah University. The government maintains the school was falling under the sway of religious Shiite groups. Studies at the university were suspended for one week, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.
■SWITZERLAND
No regrets for shoe thrower
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former US president George W. Bush said on Wednesday he had no regrets and would carry out his protest again, even if it cost him his life. Muntadhar al-Zeidi told a Swiss television station that, after being mistreated in Iraqi custody for two days following his outburst last Dec. 14, a judge asked him whether he regretted the gesture. “I told the judge only one thing: if the hands of the clock could go back I would do the same act even if it cost my life,” al-Zeidi said, speaking through a translator. “I knew I was doing something that would put my life in danger, and I was sure of that, but I wasn’t afraid,” he said.
■UNITED STATES
Church to burn Bibles
A North Carolina pastor says his church plans to burn Bibles and books by Christian authors on Halloween to light a fire under true believers. Pastor Marc Grizzard told Asheville TV station WLOS that the King James version of the Bible is the only one his small western North Carolina church follows. He says all other versions, such as the Living Bible, are “satanic” and “perversions” of God’s word. On Halloween night, Grizzard and the 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church will also burn music and books by Christian authors, such as Billy Graham and Rick Warren.
■MEXICO
Adults swearing a lot
Caramba! A new survey says adults curse an average of 20 times a day, serving up about 1.3 billion swear words daily. The survey of 1,000 adults by the Consulta Mitofsky polling firm says one in 10 Mexicans say they don’t curse at all. Upper class citizens report swearing more than the poor, while people in the heavily Indian southern part of the country curse less than northerners. The poll published on Wednesday has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Poll respondents used their own judgment as to what constituted swear words, but almost all were harsher than “caramba,” roughly the equivalent of “gosh!” Mexico has 65 million adults above the age of 18 out of a population of 107 million.
■CANADA
Terror measure overturned
A court on Wednesday overturned a special counter-terrorism procedure against a Montreal man of Moroccan origin who the government said was an al-Qaeda sympathizer. Arrested in May 2003, Adil Charkaoui spent close to two years in prison under the terms of a “security certificate,” a controversial procedure adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that allows detention without trial and the deportation of foreigners considered security risks. Ottawa decided to impose the measure on Charkaoui on the basis of information from the intelligence services.
■PARAGUAY
Abuse ledgers accessed
Human rights activists gained access on Wednesday to a dictatorship-era military archive that appears to contain long-held secrets about the country’s persecution of opponents during Alfredo Stroessner’s 1954-1989 rule. The basement archive in the Ministry of Defense appears to hold some records about Operation Condor, a coordinated campaign by South American military governments against leftists during the 1970s and 1980s, rights activist Martin Almada said. The discovery was announced hours after Almada gained access to the rows of boxes and yellowed ledgers on Wednesday morning.
■UNITED STATES
‘Godfather’ singer dies
Singer Al Martino, who played the Frank Sinatra-type role of Johnny Fontane in The Godfather and recorded hits including Spanish Eyes and the Italian ballad Volare in a 50-year musical career, died on Tuesday. He was 82. Martino died at his childhood home in the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield, in Delaware County, said publicist Sandy Friedman, of the Rogers and Cowan public relations firm. Friedman did not cite a cause of death. Starting in 1952, Martino was known for hit songs including Here in My Heart and Can’t Help Falling in Love.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
‘LIMITING MYSELF’: New Zealand’s foreign minister said that the omments by Phil Goff were ‘disappointing’ and made the diplomat’s position in the UK ‘untenable’ New Zealand’s most senior envoy to the UK has lost his job over remarks he made about US President Donald Trump at an event in London this week, New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said yesterday. Phil Goff, who is New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the UK, made the comments at an event held by international affairs think tank Chatham House in London on Tuesday. Goff asked a question from the audience of the guest speaker, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen, in which he said he had been re-reading a famous speech by former British prime minister Winston
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