Asia

Hong Kong police probe deadly bus accident

HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Hong Kong police said Sunday they were investigating a deadly bus accident that left 19 people dead and scores more injured, with the bus driver arrested for dangerous driving. The double-decker bus overturned Saturday evening near the town of Tai Po in the northern New Territories, flipping onto its side and appearing to smash into a lamppost. Nineteen people were killed and 65 people were injured, some critically, according to local police. […]

Kim Jong Un invites South’s Moon to Pyongyang: Seoul

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has invited the South’s President Moon Jae-in for a summit in Pyongyang, Seoul said Saturday. The invitation, delivered by Kim’s visiting sister Kim Yo Jong, said Kim was willing to meet the South’s leader “at the earliest date possible”, said a spokesman for the presidential Blue House. An inter-Korean summit would be the third of its kind, after Kim’s father and predecessor Kim Jong Il met […]

Publisher detained in China ‘confesses’, blames Sweden

SHANGHAI, China (AFP) – Detained book publisher Gui Minhai has surfaced nearly three weeks after disappearing into police custody in China, confessing wrongdoing and accusing his adopted country Sweden of manipulating him like a “chess piece”. It was unclear whether the Chinese-born Gui’s statement was genuine or made under duress, but a video of his confession shows him flanked by two police officers in a scene likely to prompt accusations of official coercion. The Chinese-born Gui, 53, was […]

Scores of flights canceled as storm pummels US Midwest

  CHICAGO, United States (AFP) — A winter storm brought heavy snowfall to parts of the US Midwest on Friday, causing 1,500 flight cancelations, snarling roads and closing schools. “Snow will make weather headlines from the greater Chicago metro area to Detroit on Friday, with winter storm warnings in effect,” the National Weather Service said. Schools were closed in both cities and multiple car crashes were reported on icy roads. Flight cancelations built up quickly […]

Taiwan quake death toll reaches 12 as rescuers pull more bodies from quake rubble

  HUALIEN, Taiwan (AFP) — After hours of painstaking search efforts, Taiwanese rescue workers pulled two more bodies from the flattened remains of a hotel Friday, bringing the death toll from a deadly 6.4-magnitude quake to 12. Scores of emergency responders combed the rubble of the lower floors of the 12-storey Yun Tsui apartment block, which housed the Beauty Stay Hotel and had pancaked during the quake, leaving the building leaning at a 50-degree angle […]

North and South Korea heads of state meet, shake hands

  SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the North’s ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam met and shook hands Friday ahead of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Kim Yong Nam, who is officially leading Pyongyang’s diplomatic delegation to the Games, met Moon at a leaders’ reception ahead of the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang. Moon and his wife received their guests one by one and the two men smiled as […]

Kim Yo Jong: N. Korea’s political princess

by Jung Ha-won Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s increasingly influential sister has become one of his closest confidantes in a country where power has always been a family affair. Kim Yo Jong made history Friday as the first member of the North’s ruling dynasty to set foot in the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war since […]

Rescuers brave aftershocks to pull bodies from tilting Taiwan tower

by Michelle Yun Agence France Presse HUALIEN, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwanese rescuers Thursday braved aftershocks coursing through a dangerously leaning apartment block that was partially toppled by a deadly earthquake, as their search for survivors uncovered three more bodies. At least 10 people have now been confirmed killed by the 6.4-magnitude quake that struck the popular eastern tourist city of Hualien on Tuesday — five locals, four Chinese mainland nationals and a woman from the […]

Hero labrador sniffs out survivor in Taiwan quake wreckage

HUALIEN, Taiwan (AFP) — A rookie golden labrador on his first ever mission has won praise for helping Taiwanese search and rescue workers find two people trapped in a severely damaged building following a deadly earthquake. Four-year-old Tie Hsiung, whose name translates to “Iron Hero,” braved dangerous aftershocks on his first field test to search for survivors after a 6.4-magnitude quake struck the popular eastern tourist city of Hualien on Tuesday, killing 10 people. Thanks […]

North Korea at the Olympics: What we know

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AFP) — More than 500 North Koreans are converging on Pyeongchang in South Korea for the 2018 Olympics, in a historic cross-border exchange between two countries still technically at war. AFP looks at what we know so far about the visitors from the isolated, nuclear-armed state. Kim’s sister The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit South Korea for Friday’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics opening ceremony and meet with South […]

North Korea holds military parade on eve of Games

by Jung Ha-won Agence France-Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea staged a military parade in Pyongyang Thursday to mark the 70th anniversary of its armed forces, putting its intercontinental ballistic missiles on a show just a day before the Winter Olympics open in the South. The nuclear-armed North is on an Olympics-linked charm offensive — sending a troupe of performers, hundreds of female cheerleaders, and the sister of leader Kim Jong Un to […]

Fear and anger as aftershocks rattle Taiwan quake survivors’ nerves

  by Michelle Yun Agence France Presse HUALIEN, Taiwan (AFP) — At an elementary school turned shelter in Taiwan’s Hualien city some survivors of a tower block left teetering by Tuesday’s quake were baffled and angry that such a seemingly solid structure had folded with deadly results. Emergency workers on Thursday were still pulling bodies from the 12-storey Yun Tsui apartment block, which was left tottering at a fifty-degree angle when its lower floors pancaked […]