■ Cambodia
Monk commits suicide
A Cambodian Buddhist monk committed suicide this week because no one would lend him money to pay for his studies, local media reported yesterday. The Khmer-language Koh Santipheap newspaper said Yun Kim, 19, hanged himself early Wednesday morning with his safron robes in his bedroom at Pon Ray pagoda in southeastern Kampong Cham province. Commune police chief Kun Lay told the newspaper that the monk killed himself because of outstanding debts of US$13 and disappointment that villagers in the area would not lend him more money to further his studies.
■ China
Mao's great-grandson born
Nearly three decades after his death, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) has a new title: Great-grandfather. The first great-grandson of China's communist founder was born this week on the 110th anniversary of Mao's birth, a newspaper reported yesterday. The son of Mao Xinyu, Mao's grandson, was born on Friday at a Beijing hospital, the Beijing Times said. It said the family hadn't chosen a name yet. Mao Zedong, born on Dec. 26, 1893, led China from its 1949 revolution until his death in 1976. Mao Xinyu, who is in his early 30s, is the son of Mao Anqing, Mao's second son. Mao's first son, Mao Anying, died fighting in the 1950 to 1953 Korean War.
■ Australia
Hunt for killer croc starts
The hunt for a crocodile and the body of a man it attacked and killed in the remote Northern Territory province began yesterday after floodwaters hampering the search receded, police said. The 4m reptile attacked 22-year-old Brett Mann last Sunday while he was bathing in the rain-swollen Finniss River, which cuts through a flooded tropical wilderness about 80km southwest of the territory's capital, Darwin. After killing Mann, the crocodile came back for two friends bathing with him, sending them scrambling up a tree in the river. It menaced them all night, and a police search party found them still in the tree 22 hours later.
■ Japan
Women might ascend throne
Japan is preparing to revise its succession law to allow women to ascend the 2,600-year-old Chrysanthemum Throne for the first time in more than two centuries. The change could see Princess Aiko, the two-year-old daughter of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Naruhito, become only the ninth female to head the world's oldest monarchy. The debate over how to avert a possible succession crisis gathered pace after Princess Aiko's birth in December 2001. Under the 1889 imperial household law, only males can inherit the throne. In the absence of the patter of tiny male feet inside the imperial palace in Tokyo, many Japanese believe a change in the law is inevitable.
■ Thailand
Troublemakers sent to camp
Thai authorities are planning to send troublesome students to military "boot camps" following a series of deadly street fights between youths from rival vocational schools, news reports said yesterday. Administrators of about 80 state and private vocational schools in Bangkok were ordered on Friday to compile lists of student trouble-makers within 10 days and submit them to Education Minister Adisai Bodharamik. Students on the list would be sent to military camps to undergo behavior training for between two and six months, depending on how violent they have been.
■ Iraq
Shiites target France
Iraqi Shiite clerics called Friday for a boycott of French products in protest at France's move to ban Islamic headscarves and other religious insignia from schools. "I suggest that a fatwa be issued by [Shiite religious scholars in] Najaf, [the Iranian Shiite religious center of] Qom and al-Azhar [the Sunni Muslims' highest religious authority] ordering a boycott of French products," firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said. "If we cannot reach such a decision, we should at least threaten to do it," he told worshippers during his weekly sermon in Kufa near Najaf.
■ Bolivia
Bridge collapse kills 69
Nearly 70 people were feared dead after a bridge collapsed in Bolivia during heavy storms and flooding, officials said Friday. So far, 29 bodies have been recovered but another 40 people were still missing, authorities said. The Espiritu Santo River in Cochabamba province rose over its banks and on Tuesday swept away part of the bridge along with several vehicles, including a passenger bus.
■ Austria
Anthrax fears delay flight
An Austrian Airlines flight from Vienna to New York was delayed by six hours on Friday when passengers became suspicious after finding a white powder on board, a company spokeswoman said. The powder, found under a baby's seat, was sent away for laboratory tests, but spokeswoman Livia Dandrea said it was unlikely the substance would test positive for anthrax, a deadly bacteria in the form of a white powder. Anthrax-laced letters caused the deaths of five people in the US in 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
■ France
Considerate hijackers
A pair of thieves who seized a van loaded with pricey designer goods made a two-hour detour so they could take the driver home for his Christmas Eve dinner, before fleeing with the loot. Posing as police, the two men tricked the van driver into pulling over at a motorway intersection on the edge of Paris by chasing him in a car fitted with a flashing blue light, a siren and a "police" sign, French media reported. The thieves asked their victim where he lived, explaining "we don't want you to have too far to walk", a police source was quoted as saying. They then drove the man around 300km to his home in Saint Soupplets in eastern France, so he could arrive in time for the traditional family meal on Christmas Eve.
■ Greece
Unfortunate find
The crew of a freighter that half-sunk off the Greek island of Santorini on Christmas Eve spent Christmas Day thanking the coastguard for rescuing them, only to be arrested on Boxing Day for smuggling. The North Korean-flagged Elisabeth hit an islet southwest of Santorini during a storm on Wednesday. Coast guard officers evacuated the eight-man Ukrainian crew and took them to hospital for checks, inspecting the ship the next day once weather allowed. "When the coastguard went to check for spills and boarded the ship, they found it did not carry cement as declared, but around 35 tonnes of smuggled cigarettes," a Merchant Marine Ministry spokesman said. All the crew have been arrested on charges of smuggling, the spokesman said.
■ United States
Jackson will still share bed
Michael Jackson, in his first interview since being arrested on child molestation charges, said he still thought it acceptable to share his bed with children, but added he would rather "slit his wrists" than hurt a child. The interview was taped on Thursday in a Los Angeles hotel. Asked if, in his current circumstances, it was still acceptable to sleep with children, Jackson replied: "Sure, why not? If you're going to be a pedophile, if you're going to be Jack the Ripper, if you're going to be a murderer, it's not a good idea. That, I am not." Jackson, 45, was charged with molesting a boy and plying him with alcohol. He vehemently denied all the charges.
■ United Kingdom
Former football star arrested
Former Manchester United and Northern Ireland football star George Best spent 11 hours under arrest Friday in connection with an alleged assault on his estranged wife Alex, a top-selling British newspaper said yesterday. Best, 57, was arrested after a drunken tiff with his wife in the south England town of Reigate where he and Alex once shared a house, The Sun said. He split from 31-year-old Alex in September after failing to give up drinking despite undergoing a liver transplant in July last year. "We just wanted a nice Christmas. It was meant to be amicable," Alex was quoted as saying by The Sun. "He started drinking and then this happened," Alex said, reportedly pointing to a bruise on her lip.
■ United States
Boy killer could walk
Prosecutors said they have offered a plea bargain that could mean almost immediate freedom for the boy whose murder conviction and life sentence in the slaying of a 6-year-old playmate were thrown out earlier this month. The deal is identical to one the boy, Lionel Tate, and his mother rejected in 2001, before he went to trial. Tate, now 16, beat 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick to death when he was 12, claiming he accidentally killed her while imitating pro wrestling moves he had seen on television. The plea bargain would let Tate plead guilty to second-degree murder and receive a sentence of three years in prison, of which he has already served 33 months.
■ United States
Bush offers help to Iran
US President George W. Bush expressed sympathy for Iran on Friday after an earthquake there killed more than 20,000 people and offered support for a country he has deemed part of an "axis of evil." "Laura and I heard this morning of the earthquake centered in the city of Bam, Iran," Bush said in a statement from his ranch in Texas, where he will spend the New Year's holiday with his family. A Bush spokesman said Washington would be offering humanitarian aid to Iran but it was unclear how that offer would be extended since the US has no official ties with Tehran.
■ Haiti
Mass protest against Aristide
Thousands turned out for the latest protest against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government on Friday as the country prepared for its bicentennial celebrations. Organized by university students the day after Christmas -- what is normally a quiet day in the Caribbean country -- the march drew both workers and unemployed. Most of Haiti's 8 million people are jobless. Meanwhile on Friday, government attorney Dameus Clame Ocman said he fled to the US to escape government pressures on him to sign an illegal arrest warrant for three organizers of a Dec. 2 anti-government protest.
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