■ India
Railway track blown up
Leftist extremists have blown up a railway track and a telephone exchange in separate incidents in eastern India, television networks said yesterday. Suspected members of the Maoist Communist Centre and the People's War Group -- both banned organizations active in pockets of eastern and southern India -- blasted a portion of a railway track near Gaya in Bihar state, the reports said. In another incident, a group of extremists blew up a telephone exchange at Hariharganj in neighboring Jharkhand state's Palamau district, paralyzing phone links in the area, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
■ Japan
Bird-flu case reported
Initial tests for bird flu at a poultry farm in the western Japan city of Kyoto produced positive results, following the death of 10,000 chickens there, central and local government officials said yesterday. "This is a suspected case of bird flu," a farm ministry official said, adding that further tests would be done to confirm the results. A Kyoto local government official said three dead chickens and two live ones had tested positive for the virus. The local official said Kyoto prefecture first received reports on Thursday night that more than 1,000 chickens had been dying each day since around Feb. 20.
■ Vietnam
Death for stealing US$2
A 19-year-old unemployed man will face the firing squad in Vietnam after being convicted of murdering a pensioner to steal less than US$2 in local currency, court officials said yesterday. Nguyen Dang Chung was handed the death sentence on Wednesday by a court in Bac Ninh for the murder of his 80-year-old neighbor in August last year. Chung's accomplice, Dao Van Cuong, 19, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Knowing that the old man lived alone, the pair entered his house and stabbed and beat him to death before fleeing with US$1.50. At least 16 people have been given the death penalty this year, while 11 others have been executed.
■ New Zealand
Man punches shark
A 15-year-old New Zealand surfer on Friday described how he punched a shark in the eye to fend it off as it bit his thigh about 100m off a beach in the South Island city of Dunedin. Chris Blair said he thought a seal was attacking him as he sat straddled across his board until he saw a dorsal fin and the shark's head wrapped around his upper leg. "I punched it in the eye and it let go straight away," he said. "I got back on my board and put my legs up. ... It came back after me and went under my board," he told the Otago Daily Times. The teenager said he yelled to fellow surfers who helped him to shore as the shark swam off. "At the time, I was just sort of in a bit of shock -- just a bit freaked out," he said.
■ Thailand
Wife chopped up
Israeli tourist Eli Cohen denied yesterday that he had killed his wife in a hotel room in the Thai capital, chopped up her body and dumped the parts in a canal. "I love my wife and I have two children. I am innocent. I never do anything like this," the disheveled, bespectacled Cohen told reporters. The 36-year-old faces death by lethal injection if found guilty. Police said they had arrested Cohen on charges of torturing and murdering his wife Carol, 26. Cohen was arrested after the discovery of a torso in a suitcase dumped in a Bangkok canal.
■ Germany
Debtor loses his teeth
A German man who failed to settle a gambling debt called police after his dentures were seized as collateral, police said on Thursday.
"He called us saying he was afraid he might have to live off liquid food for the next few days," said a police spokesman in the western city of Dortmund. Police persuaded a 51-year-old
local man to hand over the dentures after the owner promised to settle a 150 euro (US$187) debt. "He gave us
a great big smile at getting them back," police said.
■ United States
Ornate gate worth the wait
An ornate wrought-iron
gate that guarded the New England cemetery plot of 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson has been found at an antique shop after being missing for two decades, a descendant said on Wednesday. Robert Magovern, president of
the Dickinson Family Association, said he wanted to bring the gate, which disappeared in the mid-1980s, back to Amherst, Massachusetts, as soon as possible. He said he would even pay the US$300 an antiques dealer was asking for the piece when it was recognized on the front porch of the dealer's store
in Newfane, Vermont.
■ Brazil
Condom samba man fired
A Rio de Janeiro samba school on Wednesday sacked its Carnival artistic director whose pro-condom parade had upset the Catholic church and whose Kama Sutra float had been censored as too steamy. Academicos do Grande Rio school fired Joaosinho Trinta just before the winner of this year's world-famous Carnival was named. The judges,
who evaluate the schools' sambas, costumes, creativity and all-round enthusiasm, gave Grande Rio a lowly 10th place. Trinta, 70, brought
the theme Let's Put On a Condom, My Love to the Sambadrome parade avenue.
■ Child Porn
Internet ring busted
Police smashed Internet pedophile networks in 10 countries around the world on Thursday, arresting 40 people in one of the biggest operations conducted
by Europol against child pornography networks. "Today's operation has exposed a complex and organized hierarchical structure that Internet networks of pedophiles
and child molesters are
using to protect themselves by hiding their identities and their atrocious activities," Europol deputy director Mariano Simancas said. Police in Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Spain and Sweden were involved in the combined swoop.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the