Johannesburg
Pistorius in court: The trial of Oscar Pistorius, who is accused of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp last year, opened this week with riveting testimony from neighbors who said they heard arguing before four gunshots. Pistorius, a double amputee who became one of South Africa’s most famous athletes after winning the right to compete on his blades at the Olympics, has admitted firing the shots that killed Steenkamp through a bathroom door, but he says he thought she was an intruder. Three neighbors, though, testified that the two were yelling at one another for an hour before the killing. “The intensity and fear in her voice escalated, and it was clear that her life was in danger,” said Charl Johnson. “The last scream faded moments after the last shot was fired.” Pistorius has the country’s top defense lawyers for what’s being called “South Africa’s O.J. trial.”
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Kathmandu, Nepal
Leave only footprints: Nepal will no longer tolerate littering on Mount Everest. Starting this season, authorities said, climbers must return with 5 pounds of trash or forfeit a $4,000 deposit. Everest has earned the nickname “the world’s highest garbage dump” because of the tons of trash, rotting tents, and spent oxygen cylinders left there by thousands of climbers over the years. “We are not asking climbers to search and pick up trash left by someone else,” said Maddhusudan Burlakoti of the tourism ministry. “We just want them to bring back what they took up.”
Kunming, China
Uighurs attack: Chinese authorities say a bloodbath at Kunming train station last week was the work of Uighur terrorists from Xinjiang province. The six men and two women hacked 29 people to death with knives and injured scores more commuters and station staff. Police shot dead four of the assailants and arrested the others. Authorities said one of the suspects confessed that the group wanted to wage jihad. A Uighur from their hometown of Hotan, though, told U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia that the attackers weren’t militants but thwarted refugees who tried to flee to Laos last year. Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority whose homeland has seen an influx of millions of Han Chinese in recent years.
Pyongyang, North Korea
Scuds fired: North Korea launched ballistic missiles and rockets into the sea this week, testing weapons with ranges that can cover all of South Korea. The U.S. and South Korea condemned the launches as “provocative actions that aggravate tensions,” while North Korea said the joint U.S.–South Korean military exercises underway were the real provocation. The unannounced North Korean tests came close to hitting a Chinese passenger jet. “It is different from a one-time firing,” said South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin. “Unlike in the past, the North intensively fired various projectiles in a short period of time.”
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