MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — One person was killed and nine hurt in a shooting a few blocks away from where thousands were in the streets for a New Year’s Eve party in downtown Mobile, Alabama, police said.TV news footage showed police officers running and on horseback rushing to the area where the shooting took place about 45 minutes before midnight Saturday.The shooting happened a few blocks away from the main stage for the Moon Pie Over Mobile festival. The event continued on with fireworks and a moon pie dropping from a downtown building at midnight to mark the start of 2023,The shooter and the person killed appeared to know each other, Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine told reporters near the scene.

 

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke on with incoming Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, appointed last week to the post following his role as ambassador to the United States.On Twitter, Blinken said he discussed the U.S.-China relationship and efforts to maintain open lines of communication in a telephone call with Qin.On Friday China appointed Qin, its ambassador to the United States and a trusted aide of President Xi Jinping, to be its new foreign minister, as Beijing and Washington seek to stabilise rocky relations.China’s foreign ministry acknowledged that the two spoke by phone.In a statement on its official website on Monday, the ministry said Qin bid farewell to Blinken during the call, while added that he looked forward to maintaining close working ties with Blinken and promoting Sino-U.S. relations.Qin, 56, replaces Wang Yi, who had been foreign minister for the past decade. Wang, 69, was promoted to the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party in October and is expected to play a bigger role in foreign policy.

 

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HANOI (Reuters) -- Rescuers in Vietnam were desperately trying to free a 10-year boy on Monday two days after he fell into the narrow open shaft of a concrete pile at a construction site on New Year’s Eve.Ly Hao Nam was heard crying for help shortly after he fell into the pile on Saturday morning, but rescuers received no response from him on Monday as they lowered a camera down to try to locate his position in the 35-meter long support pillar.The calamity occurred at a bridge construction site in the Mekong delta province where the boy had been searching with friends for scrap iron.“I cannot understand how he fell into the hollow concrete pile, which has a diameter of a (25 cm) span only, and was driven 35 metres in to the ground,” Le Hoang Bao, director of Dong Thap province’s Department of Transport, told Tuoi Tre News, a local newspaper.Efforts to lift the pile with cranes and excavators had so far failed and rescuers were unable to determine the boy’s position, media reported.

 

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CARACAS (AFP) -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in an interview that he is willing to work towards normalizing relations with the United States, despite the continued sanctions crippling his country.Maduro’s remarks come days after the South American country’s opposition voted to dissolve an “interim government” led by Juan Guaido.“Venezuela is ready, totally ready, to take steps towards a process of normalization of diplomatic, consular and political relations with the current administration of the United States and with administrations to come,” Maduro said in an interview broadcast on Venezuelan state television.Maduro broke off relations with Washington in 2019, when the administration of then-president Donald Trump recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s “interim president.”In an attempt to force Maduro out of office, the United States launched a battery of sanctions against Venezuela, including an oil embargo.

 

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CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico (AFP) -- Gunmen attacked a prison in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, leaving 14 people dead and allowing 24 inmates to escape, the Chihuahua state prosecutors’ office said. An unknown number of gunmen aboard armored vehicles took part in the attack, and the dead included 10 prison guards and security agents, it said in a statement. The attack occurred around 7:00 am (1400 GMT) and sparked fighting between inmates within the sprawling state prison, prosecutors said. Moments before the attack, armed men fired on municipal police along a nearby boulevard, setting off a car chase that ended with the seizure of a vehicle and four men, it added. Later, assailants in a Hummer fired on another group of security agents outside the prison, it said. 

 

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SYDNEY (AFP) -- Two helicopters collided mid-air killing four people Monday on Australia’s Gold Coast tourism destination, officials said, with images showing one of the aircraft’s rotors lying on a sand bank. Three other people are in a critical condition, police said. One helicopter lay flipped over on the sand a few feet from the shore. Its rotors lay a short distance away, images from public broadcaster ABC showed. The other chopper appeared to be largely intact at the accident scene, which is near the popular Sea World marine theme park. A bright yellow rescue helicopter had landed on the sand nearby, its rotors spinning, images of the aftermath showed, as scores of rescuers spread around the area. Australia’s transport safety bureau launched an investigation into the incident, which it described as a “mid-air collision”.