■ Japan
US praises missile move
Washington on Friday welcomed Japan's decision to deploy two US-made anti-missile systems, but declined to comment on its stated motives. Japan said Friday that the deployment would protect it from a possible ballistic missile attack from North Korea. Adam Ereli, deputy spokesman in the US State Department, said: "We welcome the Japanese government's decision to move forward on plans for missile defense."
■ North Korea
Ireland establishes ties
North Korea has established diplomatic ties with Ireland, Pyongyang said yesterday, as it seeks to improve ties with the EU despite tensions over its nuclear program. Officials of the two countries met in Pyongyang on Dec. 10 and exchanged documents on the opening of diplomatic relations, North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. "It was agreed to establish the diplomatic relations between the two countries on Dec. 10, 2003," KCNA said. Pyongyang has been seeking to improve relations with EU capitals, especially since 2001 when its ties with Washington hit their nadir over the North's nuclear weapons program.
■ Cambodia
Fishermen nets body
A 60-year old fisherman found the body of a woman stuffed into a suitcase and floating in a river near the southeastern coast, police said yesterday. Pon Sok reportedly found the corpse partly exposed from the suitcase on Thursday in a river near the Gulf of Thailand. A senior police official in Sihanoukville said the woman, aged 25 to 30 years old, was thought to be of Korean or Chinese decent but carried no identification. He said the woman likely died from being struck on the neck, then her body was stuffed into the suitcase and tossed from a bridge spanning the river. The police say they have no leads in the case.
■ Singapore
Warden jailed for favors
A prison warden ended up in jail for smuggling food in for seven female inmates and giving special treatment to a Colombian inmate. Sandarozlin Anthony, 32, was sentenced to two months in jail. The court heard on Friday she let the Colombian prisoner, Paula Andrea Rendon Cellabos, use her mobile phone to call her mother and let her read an e-mail message from home, The Straits Times said. She also smuggled in a birthday card for Cellabos to write to her son, a box of chicken curry, prawns and rice, a bottle of guava juice, chocolates and sandwiches, which the Colombian shared with another inmate. The warden also sneaked in six curry puffs and gave them to five other inmates.
■ Singapore
Nude photos spark storm
A member of parliament is under investigation by police after his wife complained about photographs she found in their home of him and their Indonesian maid, both naked. Doreen Chia, 31, alleged her husband Steve Chia, 34, had outraged the maid's modesty, The Straits Times reported yesterday. The wife, pregnant with the couple's first child, reported the matter to the police at the end of last month shortly after their seventh wedding anniversary. The maid, in her early 20s, told police she had not been forced into posing for the pictures, according to the paper. Doreen Chia confirmed she had made the police report, but would not explain why. The Indonesian woman is now reportedly staying at a haven for maids who run into problems with their employers. Steve Chia is secretary general of the National Solidarity Party
■ United States
Pilot detained after drinking
A Virgin Atlantic Airways pilot was detained shortly before his flight on Friday night after security screeners detected alcohol on his breath, according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Virgin Atlantic Flight 22, scheduled to leave Washington Dulles International Airport for London's Heathrow at 7:15pm, was canceled after the pilot was escorted off the plane by airport police. The pilot had gone through security screening and boarded the plane, said Tara Hamilton, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokeswoman. He was being held and questioned at the airport Friday evening.
■ United States
Thief sells stolen toys
A Christmas grinch was caught trying to sell stolen toys that had been intended for poor children, police said. Police arrested Nathaniel Burroughs, 38, early Friday morning. They allege he stole 500 donated toys, about 100 of which had been recovered by Friday. The Reverend Clifford Davis, of Wesleyan Community Church in Belle Glade, Florida, said he was stunned last Sunday morning when he found about US$1,000 worth of dolls, trucks and other toys missing from the warehouse where he had stored them. Burroughs knew about the donated toys because he had helped unload the delivery truck, Belle Glade police Sergeant Jim Benedict said.
■ United States
Doctor diluted cancer drug
A Fort Lauderdale, Florida urologist received prison time for giving dozens of prostate cancer patients lowered dosages of medication, then billing them for the full amount. Dr. Victor Souaid was sentenced on Friday to four years and three months in federal prison. He pleaded guilty in September to 59 counts of health care fraud and unlicensed wholesale distribution of a prescription drug, Lupron. Lupron doesn't cure prostate cancer but is supposed to stop the cancer from worsening by halting production of testosterone. Souaid billed his patients' insurance companies for up to four times the amount of the drug he administered.
■ United States
Christmas bad for trials
Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed is no Grinch, but she does not view the Christmas season as the most wonderful time of the year in her line of work: putting criminals away in Texas. Annually, the Texas criminal prosecutor makes every effort to ensure major cases are not tried during the holiday season, because all of the good spirits are "bad for business," she told a reporter. "Everybody's in the loving, friendly, forgiving, peace and goodwill toward men spirit," Reed said. "Nobody wants to send their fellow man to prison at a time like this." Her favorite time of year to pick juries: income-tax season.
■ Germany
`Old Europe' a hot favorite
"Old Europe" -- a term US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used to disparage Germany and France for resisting war in Iraq -- was named phrase of the year in Germany by a panel of language experts. The Wiesbaden-based Society for the German Language (GfdS) made das alte Europa its choice in the annual poll for the expression of the year after Rumsfeld's phrase became a popular rallying cry used proudly by opponents of the war. Other sayings nominated for best of the year included "Agenda 2010" (Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's economic reform program) "SARS" and "embedded journalists."
■ Qatar
New terror tape aired
A man believed to be Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 man in the terrorist network al-Qaeda, warned in an audio tape broadcast on Al Jazeera TV that Americans would be targets "in their own home." The tape, which has yet to be verified, was broadcast on Friday on the Qatar-based satellite channel. Al-Zawahiri also said US forces will suffer great losses in Iraq. Al Jazeera said the tape is believed to have been made last month during Ramadan. The voice said al-Qaeda's pursuit of Americans knew no borders, but was taking place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and the Arab Peninsula in particular.
■ United States
NASA releases new images
A new space telescope that looks at the cosmos with infrared detectors has lifted the dust veils from newborn stars and a bumptious comet, and revealed detail in the spiral arms of a neighboring galaxy. The first images from the Spitzer Space Telescope were released on Thursday by NASA, showing the nearby galaxy Messier 81, located in the constellation Ursa Major, which includes the Big Dipper. The pictures of the galaxy show its different components in some detail -- including old stars, interstellar dust heated up by star-forming activity and the sites of star formation. Spitzer also captured images of a comet which orbits the sun outside Jupiter, as well as a stellar nursery within the Elephant's Trunk Nebula in the constellation Cepheus.
■ United States
Beauty queen uses gun
A Georgia man allegedly
shot by his beauty-queen girlfriend during an argument over another woman died on Friday from the injuries, police said. Sharron Nicole Redmond, who holds the title of Miss Savannah, was expected to turn herself in yesterday to face a murder charge, Savannah-Chatham County police said. Redmond, 21, was charged with aggravated assault after the Tuesday night shooting of 25-year-old Kevin Shorter. The argument was apparently over Shorter dating another woman at the same time he was seeing Redmond. Police said the two argued outside the home of the father of the second woman, whose name has not been released. Shorter was shot in the lower abdomen, then ran back into the house and collapsed. Redmond probably wouldn't lose her crown as Miss Savannah unless she was convicted, said Tim Strickland, co-chairman of the Miss Savannah pageant.
■ Venezuela
Gunmen use beauty queen
Unidentified gunmen briefly kidnapped Miss Venezuela 1997, Veruzhka Ramirez, stole her pickup and forced her to sign copies of her new nude calendar, her agent said on Friday. Agent Luigi Rattino said Ramirez, 24, was forced to drive the offenders around in her just-paid-off truck in Valencia, before they stole her cellphones, clothes and vehicle. "It was an express kidnapping; they didn't do anything to her," Rattino said. But before the curvaceous brunette was sent on her way, she signed 15 copies of her new calendar. At gunpoint.
■ Iraq
Spanish PM visits troops
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar paid a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday, flying in to inspect Spanish troops deployed in the south of the country, Spanish radio announced. Aznar left Madrid on Friday for Kuwait where he went by helicopter to the Iraqi town of Diwaniyah, the radio correspondent said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia