PAKISTAN
Bomb targets restaurant
At least 12 people were wounded when a bomb hidden under a cot exploded near a restaurant where people had gathered to celebrate Independence Day in Baluchistan late on Monday, police said. The explosive device, fitted with a timer, was placed outside the restaurant in Quetta, local police chief Mir Zubair Mehmood said. It was timed to explode late in the night when people had gathered on the eve of the nation’s 66th Independence Day, observed yesterday, he said. Mehmood blamed militants, saying “they wanted to create panic to disturb the national day celebrations.”
CHINA
Police kill notorious robber
Police yesterday killed a fugitive armed robber and suspected serial killer dubbed the nation’s most dangerous man, ending a huge manhunt, state media said. Ministry of Public Security says police in Chongqing yesterday found and killed 42-year-old Zhou Kehua, who is suspected of killing nine people, and had spent eight years on the run. The 42-year-old’s death ends a huge search that began when he reportedly shot and killed a woman outside a bank in Chongqing on Friday morning, wounding another two people, before killing a police officer later that day. State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of Zhou’s bloodied corpse and said he had been killed in a shoot-out with police at a shoe factory on the mountainous outskirts of Chongqing. “We have not seen this kind of cold-blooded killer in years,” one police official told Xinhua news agency.
RUSSIA
No injuries from quake
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake that hit waters off the Pacific island of Sakhalin yesterday inflicted no casualties or damage, officials said. The Emergency Situations Ministry’s branch on Sakhalin said the quake was centered in the Sea of Okhotsk about 160km east of Poronaysk, at a depth of more than 600km. The US Geological Survey said the quake, which struck at 1pm yesterday, was magnitude 7.7, while the ministry put it at 6.3. The ministry said the quake was felt as magnitude 2 to 3 shocks in towns and villages on Sakhalin. The ministry said that there was no danger of tsunami and that aftershocks were unlikely.
PHILIPPINES
Meteorologists stage protest
Hundreds of workers at the weather agency have staged a protest over unpaid cash benefits, but promised not to walk out as the country grapples with recent massive flooding and a passing storm. Protest leader Ramos Agustin says meteorologists, including forecasters, wore black arm bands and hoisted streamers yesterday at the weather agency’s headquarters pleading for help from President Benigno Aquino III. While the meteorologists do not plan any work stoppages, Agustin says some employees have failed to report for work because of lack of money.
CHINA
Wanted banker returns
Authorities say a bank branch manager who fled to Canada to evade financial fraud charges almost eight years ago has returned home to turn himself in. The Ministry of Public Security said late on Monday that Gao Shan (高山), head of a Bank of China branch in Heilongjiang Province, swindled large sums of money from several clients between 2000 and 2004 before fleeing overseas. State media say the fraud involved nearly 1 billion yuan (US$151 million). Gao’s legal counsel has told The Canadian Press that Gao returned to China voluntarily and that he did so because he was living “with a cloud over his head.”
HONDURAS
US death squad probe aided
Foreign Minister Arturo Corrales said on Monday that the country was cooperating with the US investigation into allegations that the new national police chief once ran a death squad and that no US funds are being handled by the police chief. It was not clear what police units would be affected by what the government called a temporary hold on funds while a US group looks into the alleged human rights violations by National Police Chief Juan Carlos Bonilla, nicknamed “The Tiger.”
UNITED STATES
Shootout kills three
A deadly shootout erupted on Monday near the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas, when a man being brought an eviction notice opened fire on a Texas law enforcement officer, leaving three people dead, including the officer and the gunman. Police say Thomas Alton Caffall, 35, opened fire on Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann just after noon as the lawman served an eviction notice. Both men were later pronounced dead at a hospital. Police identified Chris Northcliff, 43, as the third person killed in the shootings at an off-campus home not far from the university’s football stadium. Three other law enforcement officers and a 55-year-old woman were wounded, College Station Assistant Police Chief Scott McCollum said.
UNITED STATES
Giant python caught
The biggest Burmese python ever caught in Florida — 5.18m long and weighing 74.4kg — was found in Everglades National Park, the University of Florida announced on Monday. The snake was pregnant with 87 eggs, also said to be a record. “It means these snakes are surviving a long time in the wild,” said Kenneth Krysko, a snake expert at the Florida Museum of Natural History, where the euthanized snake was brought. “There’s nothing stopping them and the native wildlife are in trouble.” Tens of thousands of Burmese pythons are believed to be living in the Everglades, where they thrive in the warm, humid climate. While many were apparently released by their owners, others may have escaped from pet shops during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and have been reproducing ever since.
UNITED STATES
Hearse driver dies en route
Beverly Hills police say a hearse driver who was found dead with a body in the vehicle died while taking the casket to a funeral. Police Lieutenant Lincoln Hoshino said authorities were alerted that a body was slumped over in the driver’s seat of a hearse parked near the Beverly Hills Hotel at about 3pm on Monday. Hoshino said the investigation was in its early stages, but the woman appears to have died of natural causes, with no weapons or evidence of violence discovered.
UNITED STATES
‘Stars and Stripes’ blasted
Nine Nobel Peace Prize winners are speaking out against a new NBC competition series they say treats military maneuvers like athletic events. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the other Nobel laureates protested in an open letter that the show, Stars and Stripes, glorifies war and armed violence. The series, premiering on NBC on Monday night, pairs celebrities with US military personnel for simulated military challenges. Celebrity participants include boxing champion Laila Ali, Superman actor Dean Cain, Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd Palin. The program is hosted by retired US Army General Wesley Clark.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
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
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
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