■ News Zealand
Clotting agent HIV scare
A clotting agent for hemophiliacs was in short supply after health officials destroyed 3 million New Zealand dollars (US$1.74 million) worth of blood products feared to be contaminated with HIV, a newspaper reported yesterday. The New Zealand Blood Service said it destroyed a two-month supply of the clotting agent after a routine screening test in April detected that a blood donor had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the Christchurch Press said. Remaining supplies have been carefully restricted and a clotting agent made from Australian plasma was on standby for any emergency.
■ Sri Lanka
Tigers won't leave camp
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have for a second time rejected a call by European ceasefire monitors to evacuate a disputed camp, saying it is in their territory, according to the rebels' Web site yesterday. Sri Lanka's military claimed in June that the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam had encroached on their territory and built a camp in violation of a Norway-brokered ceasefire agreement. The truce monitors subsequently inspected the Wan Ela camp in Trincomalee, 230km northeast of the capital Colombo, and ruled it was on government land. The monitors asked the rebels to withdraw, but they refused.
■ Indonesia
Journalist may be set free
A US journalist arrested in June while reporting on a separatist war in Indonesia's Aceh province expects to be freed today after being sentenced on immigration charges, his lawyer said. The Banda Aceh District Court yesterday sentenced William Nessen, 46, to one month and 10 days jail. He had already spent three months in detention. Nessen was arrested after he failed to produce his passport and visa when questioned by authorities. He told the court he lost his passport and other credentials when he fled a firefight between rebels and troops in North Aceh's Nisam district.
■ South Korea
Cloning leader denied entry
South Korea yesterday denied entry to the leader of a religious sect that claimed it had produced the first cloned human, due to fears that he may engage in human-cloning activities during his stay, the Justice Ministry said. Claude Vorilhon, the founder of the Raelian movement, was turned away after arriving at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, for a 17-day visit, the ministry said. South Korea has no law banning human cloning, but has been accelerating efforts to enact its first law against the practice. The Raelian movement, which believes life on Earth was created by clones of extraterrestrials,
criticized the rejection of Vorilhon as discrimination against a religious minority.
■ Thailand
Rogue elephant tracked
Some hundred Thai officials and volunteers stepped up their hunt yesterday for a rogue bull elephant which has killed three people and remains on the loose in northern Thailand's dense jungle, police said. The elephant, which went berserk on Tuesday and trampled to death two government forestry workers and a farmer, has been spotted daily but workers have been unable to get close enough to safely anaesthetise him, they said. Officials also want to target the elephant, aged 30 to 40, in a clear area as they fear he may be seriously injured if he falls into a waterway after being sedated.
■ Lebanon
Blast kills two in capital
A powerful blast ripped through a car in the southern suburbs of Beirut yesterday, killing at least two people, witnesses said. Witnesses said the explosion gouged a gaping hole in the ground and propelled the car about 10m. Security forces cordoned off the area and carried around large bags to collect the body parts of the car's two occupants, which the force of the blast had thrown up to the second and third-floor levels of the surrounding buildings. Security sources said they believed one of the people killed by what they called a car bomb was a Lebanese driver for the Iranian Embassy.
■ United States
White supremacists found
A car crash this week in a town near New Orleans revealed that a building thought to be a home improvement business was actually a white supremacist church, police said. The vehicle smashed into the brick storefront in Chalmette, Louisiana, after colliding with two other cars and came to rest amid stacks of racist books and pamphlets, including Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, they said. A sign proclaimed the building the "Southern Home Improvement Center," said Lieutenant Mike Sanders of the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Department, but investigators found out it was the New Christian Crusade Church and headquarters of the Christian Defense League.
■ Lebanon
Priest charged with spying
A Canadian priest detained by Lebanese authorities and charged with collaborating with Israel spied on Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas and its army on behalf of the Jewish state, judicial sources said on Friday. The 52-year-old priest was arrested at Beirut airport in July after the charge against him and an arrest warrant were filed in absentia earlier this year. Another Canadian who is not in custody was also charged then, the sources said. It is extremely uncommon for a foreigner to be arrested or charged over allegations of espionage on behalf of Israel.
■ Iraq
Saddam's sons handed over
The US military handed over the bodies of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, which is taking the corpses for burial in their hometown of Tikrit, the US Army said yesterday. "The Red Crescent will take them to Tikrit and from there somebody will hopefully claim the bodies," said Corporal Todd Pruden. The bodies of the two men were being held in refrigeration at the US base at Baghdad International Airport where they were prepared for burial according to western -- not Muslim -- custom by military morticians. The brothers were killed by American forces in a huge and lengthy gun battle July 22 in Mosul, the northernmost Iraqi big city.
■ Iraq
Soldier sleeps in fridge
A British soldier serving in Iraq tried to escape from the sweltering heat by sleeping in a walk-in fridge but ended up being treated for hypothermia. The lance corporal, an army medic in his 20s, had sought shelter from the blazing summer sun but was found asleep in a dangerous condition by a colleague and was taken to hospital, a British newspaper reported yesterday. The soldier told officers he had become trapped while getting supplies but they didn't believe him, the paper said.
■ Canada
Study reflects women's views
Wall-to-wall mirrors in gyms and dance studios might stop women getting the exercise they need because women who work out in front of a mirror get discouraged and feel tired, Canadian researchers said. The study, published in the journal Health Psychology, focused on young women who exercised less than 15 minutes a week. It found that, regardless of how they viewed their bodies, women who worked out in front of a mirror felt worse, or no better, and less at peace after 20 minutes of activity. "The mirrors make women more self-aware, they think of their shortcomings. Things like: `I look fat, I should be more active,'" said Kathleen Martin Ginis, lead author of the study, and a professor at McMaster University.
■ Canada
Thousands flee forest fires
Wildfires have driven nearly 7,500 people from their homes and burned dozens of houses in the British Colombia town of Barriere, emergency officials said. At least 60 homes and a sawmill were destroyed Friday in the town, about 50km north of Kamloops. The British Columbia government declared a state of emergency in the affected area. Residents were shepherded to Kamloops, along with people from neighboring McLure and its surrounding area, where the estimated 40km2 fire broke out Wednesday. The fire apparently was started by a discarded cigarette. Fanned by high winds, it exploded Thursday night.
■ Germany
Police grab potato gunman
German police have arrested a man for firing potatoes at passers-by with a home-made bazooka, authorities in the western city of Essen said. "It was like a bazooka that fired potatoes," a police spokesman said. "Jolly dangerous from close range." Police said the weapon consisted of about 1.5m of drainpipe attached to an aerosol can which the man ignited to propel the root vegetables towards their targets. "He was plastered and probably thought it was fun," the spokesman said. The 33-year-old man is now under investigation for attempting to cause bodily harm and violating gun laws.
■ Mexico
Three killed in gun battle
A wild pre-dawn battle Friday in the streets of this border city left at least three dead and six wounded after police and troops returned fire against cars believed to be carrying drug traffickers, the state attorney general said. At least three people were killed when a fleeing sport utility vehicle exploded in the rolling shootout Authorities initially said a grenade launching device appeared to have been used by soldiers to stop the vehicle but later said the gas tank exploded when struck by a projectile.
■ United states
Plane crashes ball games
A small airplane with four people aboard crash-landed in Anchorage Alaska Thursday night, right between two fields where a baseball game and soccer match were in progress. There were no serious injuries. The pilot and two passengers aboard the single-engine Cessna 207 Skywagon were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The fourth person in the plane walked away. One passenger said the engine died and the plane was steered onto the running track between the baseball game in one stadium and a coed soccer game in another. The plane then hit a fence at the north end of the track, flipping once and coming to rest on its belly.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of