■India
Flood emergency declared
A state of emergency was declared in India's flood-hit northeastern state of Assam yesterday, with authorities describing the flooding as the worst in 50 years. "Please treat this [floods] as an emergency as this is the biggest flood in 50 years," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said in a letter of appeal for funds to the federal government. "There may be further devastation in the coming days because flood-management structures throughout the state have been damaged by the two successive waves of floods this year," the letter warned.
■ New Zealznd
String of fires a mystery
Police were studying security camera footage to see if there was a link between 13 arson incidents in downtown Auckland early yesterday and the self-immolation of a woman who died. Camera footage shows an unidentified woman setting herself alight in Aotea Square in the downtown area, Detective Senior Sergeant Jon Moss said. They are working through other video footage to link her to 13 other mainly small fires throughout the downtown area.
■ China
Snake king poisoned
A man known as southern China's "King of Snakes" has died of a cobra bite, hours after selling the snake that bit him, a news report said yesterday. Liu Chuanxing, 55, who has earned a living capturing wild snakes for more than 40 years, was bitten by the 1.4kg wild cobra in Xinyi, western Guangdong Province, on Monday. He refused to see a doctor, applied his own homemade herbal medicine, and took the captured cobra to a restaurant where he sold it for 350 yuan (US$42). Liu fell ill hours later, however, and died on his way to hospital, according to the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily newspaper.
■ Australia
Airline passenger stabbed
An airline passenger was stabbed in the neck during a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Sydney yesterday, Australian Federal Police said. A 50-year-old Vietnamese-born Sydney man was stabbed in the head and neck with a fork in what is believed to have been an argument over seating arrangements. A 22-year-old man from Sydney was being questioned by police. Last month a Sydney man was arrested for brandishing a knife on board a Virgin Blue flight from Sydney to Cairns. Meanwhile on May 29 a man armed with two sharpened wooden stakes allegedly tried to hijack a Qantas jet between Melbourne and Launceston, attacking a purser as he tried to force his way into the cockpit.
■ Australia
100kg heroin seized
Australian officers have seized 100kg of heroin in Sydney with the help of authorities in Taiwan, federal police and customs officials said yesterday. The stash was uncovered in a shipping container on June 28 as part of an operation against an international smuggling gang. No arrests were made, but police said investigations were continuing. "The seizure has dealt a significant blow to a major drug trafficking syndicate attempting to import illicit drugs into Australia" said Peter Drennan, acting general manager of eastern operations for the Australian Federal Police. Justice Minister Chris Ellison said in a statement that the heroin had an estimated street value of A$55 million (US$36 million) and was the largest seizure made in Australia since March last year.
■France
Storms kill four
Violent storms have killed four people and injured about 60 in camping sites and vacation villages in southwestern France, local officials reported on yesterday. Three other people were still missing after the sudden storms broke a heatwave along the southern part of France's Atlantic coast late on Tuesday evening, they said. Falling pine trees devastated tents and trailers at a campsite in Biscarosse, a beach resort between Bordeaux and Biarritz. Winds and occasional hailstorms knocked out power supplies in the area and interrupted train services.
■ United States
Immunizations get boost
A global campaign to immunize children against diseases said on Tuesday it has received US$1.2 billion in aid pledged for the next five years. More than 30 million children have benefitted from 250 million dollars in new vaccines and funds already disbursed by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). They have been immunized against hepatitis B, and 4.3 million children are now also protected against haemophilus influenzae type b, while 1.6 million have received shots against yellow fever.
■ United States
Clintons must pay: judge
The government is not required to cover all the legal expenses that President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton accumulated during the Whitewater independent counsel investigation, a federal appeals court panel ruled on Tuesday. The Clintons had sought reimbursement for US$3.5 million in legal fees. The three-judge panel, which is part of the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and which handles issues related to independent counsels, ordered the government to pay about US$85,000 to reimburse the Clintons for fees involved in reviewing and responding to the independent counsel's final report.
■ United Kingdom
Runaway phones home
A 12-year-old British girl who ran away with a former US marine she met over the Internet contacted her parents overnight, without saying where she is, a British police spokeswoman said yesterday. The development comes after the marine's brother said the day earlier that Shevaun Pennington was "safe and sound" after disappearing from her home near Manchester in northwest England on Saturday. "Greater Manchester Police can confirm that Shevaun made contact with her mum last night. Shevaun rang her mum at home to say that she was safe, but did not say where she was," the British police spokeswoman said.
■ Poland
Wicker coffins find market
An entrepreneur has turned the traditional craft of basket-weaving into a fast-growing business by selling wicker coffins. Wladyslaw Sobera's idea failed at first because the coffins, costing 300 zlotys (US$75), were too expensive for the local market. But they have found a market in Britain, where cremation is more prevalent. Sobera wants to expand his team of seven weavers to meet demand now running at 100 coffins a month. "My business has had a real boost over the past year. It's a simple idea but it sells really well," Sobera, whose firm Korb Teks is based near the city of Poznan, said.
■Iran
Canadian's burial blocked
Iran said on Tuesday it had blocked the burial of a Canadian photographer pending a probe into her allegedly suspicious death but Canada said Iran's "almost feudal" society meant the inquiry might not provide clear answers. Friends and relatives say 54-year-old Zahra Kazemi was beaten into a coma after her arrest last month and they feared her body would be buried quickly to prevent it being examined by independent experts. Iranian doctors have carried out an autopsy on Kazemi, who Tehran says died of "a brain attack." The announcement is likely to help ease tensions between Tehran and Ottawa over the case.
■ Cuba
Two boats hijacked
Two boats were hijacked in two days in the first such incidents in Cuba since April. In one case, the three suspected hijackers were killed and a child was injured when the attempt failed. In the other, as many as 15 people were reported to have reached Bahamian waters. The separate incidents appeared to be the first significant attempts to hijack a boat or plane in Cuba since the April 11 execution of three men convicted of seizing a ferryboat in Havana Bay -- a case that helped chill Cuba's relations with Europe.
■ United Kingdom
Ireland taxes chewing gum
The Irish government plans to clean up its streets with a tax on chewing gum, polystyrene burger cartons and cash machine receipts. The new levy, which will add 5 to 10 euro cents (US$0.06 to US$0.11) to the price of a packet of gum, could save the public purse up to 8 million euros (US$9.03 million) a year and will help fund gum-buster machines to remove an unsightly mosaic of grey blobs from pavements. There will be similar tariffs on non-biodegradable fast food packaging to encourage burger chains to switch to recyclable wrappers and on ATM receipts.
■ United States
Rapist gets 18 years
A retired handyman who admitted kidnapping five women and girls and keeping them as sex slaves in a homemade bunker at his home in suburban Syracuse, NY, was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 years to life in prison. The man, John Jamelske, 68, pleaded guilty last month to snatching his victims off the streets of Syracuse over a span of 15 years and imprisoning and raping them in his underground lair -- one for as long as three years. Jamelske told prosecutors that he began to seek out the women after his wife became sick with cancer and could no longer have sex.
■ France
Murderous truth is out
One of France's most celebrated murder cases took a new twist on Tuesday as unexpected evidence emerged that may finally clear a Nice veterinary surgeon sentenced to 20 years in jail for murdering his eight-year-old son. A jury in the Riviera capital convicted Jean-Louis Turquin in 1997 of killing Charles-Edouard in 1991, saying he was guilty of "the most despicable of crimes" despite the fact that the boy's body was never found, nor any material evidence produced to link the father to the crime. But now a prisoner in northern France has written to one of Turquin's lawyers claiming a cellmate had told him that he had accidentally knocked down Charles-Edouard while fleeing a robbery and had hidden the body "where it would never be found."
Agencies
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