Taiwan

Truck crashes into office

A truck slammed into the office building of Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou early on Saturday, an act suspected to be intentional, according to local police. The 41-year-old driver was hospitalized after passing out. He was profiled by the police as having a criminal background and unstable mental condition. According to Fang Yang-ning, a police chief in Zhongzheng district of Taipei, the driver is suspected of endangering public safety, and the case has been reported to prosecutors.

Hunan

Forest fire under control

A forest fire in Xiangyin, Hunan province, that broke out on Thursday afternoon was finally brought under control by firefighters early on Saturday morning, according to Chinanews.com. The fire broke out at about 4:30 pm in Gaojiafang township in Miluo city and extended quickly into the neighboring Xiangyin area, due to strong winds. The blaze reached the provincial Exing Mountain Forest Garden by 5:45 pm on Thursday. It took more than 20 hours for firefighters to put out the fire. More than 800 residents have been evacuated. No casualties were reported.

Egypt

Embassy staffers taken

Four Egyptian embassy staff members were kidnapped in Libya's capital Tripoli on Saturday, a day after another Egyptian diplomat was seized there by gunmen. No group claimed responsibility for any of the abductions, but they came soon after a powerful Libyan militia reported its leader had been arrested in Cairo and threatened to retaliate. One militia group, the Operations Room of Libya's Revolutionaries, said on Friday its leader Shaban Hadia had been arrested in Egypt, where he had been travelling with his family for medical treatment. Another of the group's leaders, Adel al-Gharyani, denied it had kidnapped the first Egyptian diplomat. But he called on Egyptian authorities to release their commander or there would be a "strong response" from the group.

Germany

Himmler's letters found

A German newspaper has claimed that missing private letters written by Heinrich Himmler, a top Nazi who ran the SS security service, have been rediscovered in Israel. The hundreds of letters had been kept there for years in a private household and were now held by a private archive, Die Welt reported on its website. Germany's Federal Archives, which employs experts on Nazi documents, had pronounced the letters genuine, Die Welt said. The letters were written to Himmler's wife, Marga, from 1927 until a date just five weeks before Himmler committed suicide in Berlin in 1945. The cache includes many previously unknown photos, documents belonging to Himmler's foster son and other papers.

Iraq

6 die in bomb attack

At least six people were killed on Saturday when three mortar bombs hit a Shiite Muslim village near the Iraqi city of Baquba, 65 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, police said. A woman and a child were among the victims, five of whom belonged to the same family, police said, adding that the assailants might have been aiming at a nearby police station. Sunni Muslim insurgents often target the security forces, as well as Shiite civilians and Sunni tribal militiamen paid by the Shiite-led government to combat al-Qaida-linked groups. Violence in Iraq climbed back to its highest level in five years in 2013, when nearly 9,000 people were killed, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations.

United States

Shooting victim dies

A student who was shot outside a dormitory at South Carolina State University died on Saturday as authorities searched for four suspects believed to be involved in the shooting. Police said the male student was shot around 1:30 pm on Friday on the campus of the historically black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Officials have not identified the victim or the suspects. Authorities are still investigating a motive for the shooting, University Police Chief Mernard Clarkson said. The university said a lockdown imposed after the shooting was lifted, but warned students to remain cautious and report any suspicious activity to police.

Former aide found dead

A former top US Senate aide awaiting trial on child pornography charges was found dead after what may have been a suicide, a Maryland sheriff's department said on Saturday. The body of Jesse Loskarn, 35, a former chief of staff to Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, was discovered in the basement of his family's home in Sykesville, Maryland, on Thursday, the Carroll County sheriff's office said in a statement. A preliminary investigation indicates he may have taken his own life, the statement said. Loskarn was arrested last month by US postal agents on suspicion of possessing and attempting to distribute child pornography.

Reuters

(China Daily 01/26/2014 page2)