CHINA
Quake losses hit US$75m
The strong earthquake that hit northwest China last week, killing at least 148 people, caused economic losses estimated to be worth tens of millions in the agricultural and fisheries industries, state media said on Saturday. Officials in Gansu Province conducted preliminary assessments that showed the province’s agricultural and fisheries industries have lost 532 million yuan (US$75 million), state broadcaster China Central Television reported. Authorities were considering the best use of the relief fund, set up days before, for the agricultural sector to resume production as soon as possible, the report said. The magnitude 6.2 quake struck in a mountainous region on Monday last week between Gansu and Qinghai provinces. More than 14,000 homes were destroyed. During a visit on Saturday to several villages in Gansu and a county in Qinghai, Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) urged authorities to improve living conditions for the survivors of the quake by every available method, the Xinhua News Agency reported. China Global Television Network, the Chinese state broadcaster’s international arm, on Friday night said that the first batch of 500 temporary housing units had been built for residents in Meipo, a village in Gansu. Many had spent nights in shelters set up in the area as temperatures plunged below freezing.
UNITED STATES
Double uterus twins born
An Alabama woman with a rare congenital anomaly that results in her having two uteri gave birth to healthy twin girls earlier this week. Kelsey Hatcher and husband Caleb welcomed Roxi Layla on Tuesday night and her sister Rebel Laken on Wednesday morning at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, the mother of five wrote on Instagram. “Our miracle babies were born! They decided they were rare enough statistically that they should just go ahead and have their own birthdays too,” Hatcher wrote. She has a double uterus and was pregnant with a baby on each side, a rare pregnancy known as a dicavitary pregnancy that has a one in a million chance of occurring. “Two babies in two uteri were a true medical surprise,” Hatcher’s obstetrician, Shweta Patel, said in a hospital news release. Hatcher’s pregnancy was considered high risk and she was induced at 39 weeks. After a combined 20 hours of labor, the two girls were born. Although a typical twin pregnancy is defined by two babies in one uterus, Richard Davis, the physician who comanaged the pregnancy, said it is “safe to call the girls fraternal twins.”
UNITED STATES
Dixie Chicks founder dies
Laura Lynch, a founding member of the country band Dixie Chicks, died in a head-on car crash on a Texas highway, law enforcement said on Saturday. “We are shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of Laura Lynch,” the band, which renamed themselves The Chicks in 2020, wrote on social media. “Laura was a bright light … her infectious energy and humor gave a spark to the early days of our band,” the band said. Lynch cofounded the group in 1989 along with musicians Robin Lynn Macy and sisters Martie and Emily Erwin. The Chicks said Lynch was “instrumental” to the band’s early success. Lynch was the Dixie Chicks’ bassist and at one point the main vocalist. She left the group in 1995. Originally founded as a bluegrass band, the Dixie Chicks released their major label debut Wide Open Spaces in 1998, selling “more CDs than all other country music groups combined,” and earning their first Grammy Award, according to the awards’ Web site.
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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