A burglar remained at large Monday after fleeing from a Taipei apartment after jumping from the sixth-floor balcony and landing on a parked car. “We are still searching for this burglar,” a police officer from the Jui-An police station said by phone.

According to the Liberty Times, the burglary took place about 6 p.m. Sunday in a sixth-floor flat in an apartment building on Fuhsing South Road.

As the burglar was searching for valuables in the apartment, the house owner, Mr Tang, returned home. The burglar ran to the balcony and leapt off, landing on top of a parked car, the daily said.

One witness said he saw the burglar jump off and land on the car. “He landed on his hands, so his hands were injured and bleeding. As he was not seriously injured, he jumped down from smashed car top and ran off. The whole thing was like a scene from a movie,” the Liberty Times quoted the witness as saying.

Police are checking street security cameras, hospitals and blood left at the scene of the landing to try to trace and identify the burglar, according to the daily, which printed a photo of the smashed car.

Simply put, Margaret Moth made an impression.

Given her jet-black hair, thick black eyeliner, black clothes and combat boots (which she often slept in while on assignment), people didn’t always know what to think upon meeting her. She was quirky, the sort who excused herself from a social gathering by saying she had to wash her socks. And she was fearless, the kind of woman who not only kept the camera rolling while under fire, but zoomed in on a soldier who was shooting at her.

Colleagues learned quickly to appreciate all that this CNN camerawoman was. Beyond her rich personality, which included deep optimism and kindness, she brought to her profession top-notch technical abilities, unmatched dedication and an approach to work that inspired others to push themselves.

Moth sought out, even demanded, assignments in conflict zones. She barely survived being shot in the face in Sarajevo in 1992, only to go back as soon as she was physically able. The multiple reconstructive surgeries that followed, as well as the hepatitis C she contracted from a consequent blood transfusion, were mere obstacles she moved around.

But more than three years after being diagnosed with colon cancer, her tremendous life journey has come to an end.

Moth, known for her gutsiness, striking appearance, distinctive humor and sense of fun, died early Sunday in Rochester, Minnesota.

“Dying of cancer, I would have liked to think I’d have gone out with a bit more flair,” she said with a laugh last spring during an interview with a CNN documentary crew that had traveled to Texas, where she was visiting friends.

“The important thing is to know that you’ve lived your life to the fullest,” she said then, before tubing down a river in Austin, Texas; taking jaunts to Cape Cod and the Canadian Rockies; and piloting a houseboat up the Mississippi River — replete with beer and Cuban cigars. “I don’t know anyone who’s enjoyed life more.”

Born Margaret Wilson in Gisborne, New Zealand, to a homemaker and a man who made swimming pools, she got her first camera at age 8. She later changed her name to Margaret Gipsy Moth, a nod to the airplane, which was appropriate for a woman who had a penchant for jumping out of planes, barefoot.

She said she never aspired to be a photojournalist. Rather her path, she explained, was mostly driven by a love of history and her desire to see it unfold firsthand.

Whether she was amid rioters after Indira Gandhi’s assassination or covering a long menu of wars spanning continents, Moth felt she and her colleagues were the lucky ones.

“You could be a billionaire, and you couldn’t pay to do the things we’ve done,” said Moth, who had most recently called Istanbul, Turkey, home.

Reported to be New Zealand’s first camerawoman, she came to the U.S. and worked for KHOU in Houston, Texas, for about seven years before moving to CNN in 1990.

When other photojournalists dived behind cars as militiamen opened fire on protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia, she stood her ground and kept her camera running. As a band of medical professionals defied Israeli tanks and armored vehicles, marching into then-Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s compound in the West Bank, she got in the middle of the group, joined them and helped nab an exclusive interview. When many around her slept in Sarajevo, she set to work in a destroyed hotel room, filming with a night scope through holes blown out by artillery fire, hiding herself and camera from the eyes of snipers.

The Serbian sniper bullet that did hit Moth while she was traveling along “sniper alley” in Sarajevo shattered her jaw, blew out her teeth and destroyed a portion of her tongue — which left her forever sounding like she was drunk, she said.

Others got angry, as the van she traveled in was clearly marked as a press vehicle, but she refused to go there.

” ‘We came into their war. Fair’s fair,’ ” former CNN correspondent Stefano Kotsonis, who was with her when she was shot, remembered her saying. ” ‘I don’t blame anyone for firing at me. They’re in a war, and I stepped into it.’ ”

Her attitude made other colleagues, many of whom were interviewed for the documentary “Fearless: The Margaret Moth Story,” strive to be better at what they did. Sound techs and correspondents would often follow her lead, whether they felt ready or not. She was known to outrun her own security. Photojournalists viewed her as a bar-setter.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent, who’d been away from Sarajevo when her friend was shot, was sitting at Moth’s hospital bedside when an assignment editor from the international desk called. He wanted to know if Amanpour was ready to return to the conflict zone, she recalled for the documentary about Moth.

“I said I’d go back, and I know to this day that if I hadn’t said yes then, I probably never would have gone back, and I never would have done this career. But I said yes because I couldn’t say no,” Amanpour remembered, fighting back tears. “We did the work for her. We did it because she was our champion, and we wanted to be her champion.”

Sure enough, as soon as Moth could carry a camera again, six months later, she went straight back to Sarajevo to join her CNN colleagues. She joked that she was there to find her teeth.

Moth maintained her humor amid madness and helped others smile and unwind when the surroundings could make levity seem impossible.

She enlisted a producer to go rollerblading with her on the marble floors of a Baghdad, Iraq, hotel lobby. She forced colleagues to tell her who they’d rather sleep with, while giving them horrifying choices. She liked to kick back with fine cigars and could drink others under the table.

Despite her tough exterior, there was insecurity, a vanity to her. No matter where she was, Moth rose early to do her eye makeup and hair. Forever worried about her weight, she picked at a block of cheese in Bosnia for about six weeks and got by on mango juice during a stretch in the West Bank.

She admitted that after being shot, she was more afraid of what she’d look like than she was of dying. Enveloped in bandages, she slipped her dear friend Joe Duran a note asking him if she looked like a monster.

But she often worried about others more than herself.

Moth enjoyed working with seasoned correspondents but also looked out for those who were new. In Pakistan, she taught Patty Sabga to sleep behind couches and talked her through everything she was shooting to help Sabga build her stories. And in Afghanistan, she carefully led the former CNN correspondent through rubble that probably hid land mines.

“She took such incredible care of me and taught me so much,” Sabga said. “I can honestly say that the work I did with Margaret Moth is still the very best work of my career.”

Moth repeatedly visited the doctor who saved her life. And she boosted the spirits and changed the attitude of another CNN photojournalist, David Allbritton, when he was seriously injured by a bomb in Sarajevo in 1995.

“She made me realize that I was going to get through this,” he said. “She set an example by overcoming everything that’s happened to her. … I took that example, and I’m shooting today. I’m not sure that I would be doing what I’m doing today if it had not been for Margaret Moth.”

Her chosen lifestyle didn’t leave room for children of her own, but she bonded with them across the globe. And her love of animals was so deep that she refused to ride in a horse-pulled wagon, preferring to run with heavy equipment in the desert heat while on assignment in Petra, Jordan.

In fact, when it became clear that the advanced cancer would end her life, the concern that drove her to tears was her cats — the more than 25 strays she looked after in Istanbul.

“She was more upset about them than she was about dying,” said Duran, who rushed to her side after she’d been medevaced out of Sarajevo. But when Duran, also a CNN cameraman, moved into her home in Turkey with the promise that he’d care for the cats, he said Moth told him, ” ‘Now I can die happy.’ ”

There were a few things Moth wished she had done. She would have liked to have seen the Krak des Chevaliers, a medieval fortress in Syria, and the Burundi drummers. But regrets? She had none.

She “led the complete life,” Amanpour said. “I don’t think Margaret could ever look back and say, ‘What if?’ She did it to the max, and she did it brilliantly. And she did it on her terms.”

The former Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has died in Kathmandu, his aides and state TV say.

Mr Koirala, 86, served four terms as PM with the Nepali Congress Party and led protests that brought down King Gyanendra’s authoritarian rule.

Thousands of supporters had gathered outside his daughter’s house where he was taken after being in hospital for several days.

Mr Koirala’s political career spanned seven decades.

He first came to prominence as a union leader in the late 1940s, and he was imprisoned, exiled or detained on numerous occasions for championing the cause of democracy against various autocratic regimes.

Leadership stints

In 1960, he was jailed for eight years for his pro-democracy views.

G P Koirala, as he was popularly known, first became prime minister in the country’s first democratic elections in 1991.

His government lasted three years, and collapsed after a no-confidence vote.

He played a key role in public demonstrations in the early 1990s to end the absolute powers of the king.

In 2000 he returned as prime minister, heading the ninth government in 10 years.

It was during that term that in 2001, King Birendra was murdered by his son - along with nine members of his family.

By July 2001 Maoist rebels had stepped up a campaign of violence, prompting Prime Minister Koirala to quit over the violence.

Peace agreement

Five years later he was appointed prime minister by King Gyanendra who reinstated parliament following weeks of violent strikes and protests against direct royal rule.

He was too sick to attend rallies celebrating the resumption of parliament, having suffered from respiratory problems for years.

In May 2006 Parliament voted unanimously to curtail the king’s political powers.

The same month, the government and Maoist rebels began peace talks, the first in nearly three years, resulting in a peace accord by November 2006.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) declared a formal end to a 10-year rebel insurgency.

Mr Koirala was also acting head of state in 2008 before the election of Nepal’s first president.

Mr Koirala’s body will lie in state at the national stadium on Sunday, with his funeral later in the day at the Pashupatinath Hindu temple in Kathmandu, his aide Gokarna Poudel said, according to AFP news agency.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed condolences.

“Koirala spent his entire political life championing the cause of the people…” Mr Singh said.

“Koirala was a mass leader and a statesman, whose knowledge and wisdom guided the polity of Nepal in the right direction at critical junctures in the country’s history.”

Protesters in Thailand announced a full weekend of anti-government activities starting with a massive procession through Bangkok followed by “blood painting,” their latest shock tactic aimed at forcing new elections.

Thousands of Red Shirt protesters remained camped on Friday in the historic heart of the capital, which will be the starting point of Saturday’s march that will loop the capital and wind through Bangkok’s central business district.

“It will be a massive caravan,” said Jatuporn Prompan, a leader from the movement formally known as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship. “Protesters will travel around Bangkok on thousands of vehicles.”

The protesters want Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections — a demand he has repeatedly rejected. Abhisit has been sleeping and working from an army base for the past week to avoid demonstrators.

Protest leaders have increasingly portrayed the demonstrations that started on last Sunday as a struggle between Thailand’s impoverished, mainly rural masses and Bangkok-based elite impervious to their plight. The group largely consists of supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a 2006 military coup for alleged corruption, and pro-democracy activists who opposed the army takeover.

In an attempt to dramatize their demands, thousands of Red Shirts lined up on Tuesday to donate blood to their cause. Leaders claimed they collected 80 gallons (300,000 cubic centimeters) of blood that were transferred into dozens of large plastic jugs.

Most of the blood was splattered at Abhisit’s office, at the headquarters of his ruling party and at his private residence.

Protest leaders say they have 15 jugs of blood leftover and plan to use it to create a massive work of art.

“Artists and Red Shirts will be invited to partake in a blood painting,” Jatuporn said. They plan to unfurl a giant white cloth on which supporters will be invited to paint pictures, scrawl poems and express political statements.

“The theme of this artwork will be the history of the people’s fight for democracy,” Jatuporn said.

Thaksin is popular among the rural poor for his populist policies. They believe Abhisit came to power illegitimately with the connivance of the military and other parts of the traditional ruling class and that only new elections can restore integrity to Thai democracy.

Abhisit said on Thursday that the blood-spilling antics tested the limits of the law — and were testing his patience. He reiterated the government’s stance that the protests will be allowed to continue as long as they remain peaceful.

“Actions like drawing blood, pouring it and throwing — strictly speaking are not all legal,” Abhisit said, adding that protesters were also not allowed to block city streets and prevent government employees from entering their offices.

The size of the protest peaked on Sunday at some 100,000 demonstrators, but has decreased by about half since then.

City rallies to the cause as Red River rises to ‘major’ flood level

FARGO, N.D. - Some children lugged sandbags that weighed more than they did. Determined teens showed up just after dawn with groups of friends, ready and willing to shovel.

New groups of kids arrived by the busloads, all ready to join the race to protect their city from the rising Red River.

Thousands of volunteers are lending a hand this week to fill and stack sandbags to place along the river and near endangered homes as Fargo faces the threat of a severe flood after the river’s expected crest Sunday.

On Wednesday, the Red River rose to just above the “major” flood level of 30 feet, NBC News reported, citing meteorologist Nick Wiltgen.

But the heart of that volunteer corps are the city’s youngest citizens. It’s a job that elsewhere might be reserved for emergency workers or at least, their parents.

However here, students can be excused from class with their parents’ permission and join the hundreds of adults who are taking on the task of filling 1 million sandbags to hold back the impending floodwaters.

“They pretty much have saved our community,” said David Stark, 62, who worked beside hundreds of student volunteers Monday. He had to take a break after hurting his hand and was in awe of the students’ dedication.

The National Weather Service has issued a report stating that the region is at “high risk” for spring flooding due to a heavy snowpack and milder temperatures.

‘Helping the city and my friends’
Many of the volunteers know that what they’re doing may help save a neighbor or friend. Michael Russell, 14, didn’t mind missing a day of school to get dirty filling sandbags. He guessed many would end up near his own home or his friends’ homes.

“I think I’m helping the city and my friends,” he said. Emilee Stevens normally can’t wait more than a few minutes without itching to send a text message to a friend. This week, she didn’t think about touching her cell phone as she shoveled, stacked and filled sandbags to help save her town.

“Texting would be hard to do sandbagging but it doesn’t matter because all my friends are here anyway,” said the 14-year-old Stevens.