■ Australia
Muslim prayer hall defaced
The site of a controversial Muslim prayer hall in Sydney was vandalized yesterday with pigs' heads skewered on stakes and pork offal smeared throughout the building. Developer Abbas Aly said builders renovating the hall in the northwestern suburb of Annangrove discovered the vandalism when they arrived at work yesterday morning. "Everyone's mostly upset, it's a very un-Australian thing to happen," he said. "But this won't put us off." The prayer hall attracted fierce opposition when it was first proposed in 2002, with the local Baulkham Hills Council receiving an unprecedented 5,000 letters from residents who did not want the building.
■ Thailand
Visitors get big condoms
Tourists traveling to Thailand will be greeted with an "international" size condom along with the traditional smile next month to mark a global AIDS forum in Bangkok, a Thai senator said yesterday. Senator Mechai Viravaidya said larger condoms would be handed out at the airport while a choice of sizes would be on offer in some taxis, the main train station and at freeway toll booths throughout the July 11-16 International AIDS Conference. "There will be two sizes. A larger international condom and a smaller local one," Mechai said, adding "but if a local feels they need an inter-national condom then they will certainly be given one."
■ India
Bachelor married at 93
After years of waiting for the right woman, a 93-year-old bachelor in remote north-eastern India pronounced himself a happy man this week after wedding his 63-year-old landlady. Darshannanda Vyakarntirtha, a retired government employee, had been a tenant in the house of Jyotsna Bala Das for three decades until her husband died a year ago. Their relationship has since blossomed into romance. "I am very happy. I had to wait for a long time to get a true companion," Vyakarntirtha told reporters after the ceremony on Wednesday in the remote north-eastern state of Tripura.
■ Singapore
Mobile phone stops rape
The ringing of a mobile phone gave a 12-year-old girl the opportunity to escape rape by her uncle, news reports said yesterday. The 36-year-old man was jailed for five and a half years and ordered to be given four strokes of the cane after admitting he tried to rape his niece on Jan. 11 last year, The Straits Times said. The court heard they sat on a bench on a promenade at night, where he suddenly started to undress her and forcefully pulled down her trousers. Just then his mobile phone rang and he stopped to answer the call. She quickly pulled up her trousers and demanded he take her home. He did, but said he would take her out again. The man had been released from jail in 2002 after serving time for a drug offense.
■ Australia
Tourist survives 70m fall
A US tourist in Australia was in a critical condition in hospital yesterday after falling 70m into a canyon, officials said. The 21-year-old man from Texas fell on Wednesday afternoon from a lookout in Morton National Park, south of Sydney. He had climbed over the lookout's safety barrier to retrieve a shoe when he fell, ambulance officials said, adding that something may have broken his fall. Rescuers reached him yesterday morning and winched him aboard a helicopter before rushing him to hospital, where he was treated for serious head and spinal injuries.
■ Canada
Dominatrix fights for pot
Following a two-year
stint delivering papers
to Canadian senators, Marijuana Party candidate and Ottawa career dominatrix Carol Taylor said she is standing for election
to help ease people's pain. Taylor, who says she smokes marijuana to cope with a painful neurological disorder, is fighting to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal and personal use. "This is the only political platform with which I have ever been in total agreement," Taylor says on her Marijuana Party Web site. "I can't believe Elections Canada allows this kind of stuff," one Senate employee said. "I'm shocked, and a little aroused."
■ Science
Breast milk kills warts
A compound in breast milk has been found to destroy many skin warts, raising hopes it might also prove effective against cervical cancer and other lethal diseases caused by the same virus. Skin warts are caused by the human papilloma virus, which is extremely widespread. Swedish researchers found that when the breast-milk compound -- since named HAMLET -- is applied to the skin, it kills virally infected cells in warts resistant to conventional treatments. The researchers hope to start small-scale testing of the compound soon on women with cervical cancer.
■ Italy
Police bust killer gang
Police launched a major operation on Wednesday against a suspected southern Italian crime gang accused in numerous killings, arresting 90 people and hunting for several dozen more. The gang, based in the southern region of Puglia, formed
as an offshoot of violent
rural feuding in the 1970s, authorities said. In recent years, it turned to organized crime, with drug trafficking, arms sales and extortion, said Major Domenico Bruscigno, of the Carabinieri police unit in Bari that made the arrests. The victims "were shot with rifles and automatic weapons, in a gangster style," Bruscigno said. "They were brutally killed."
■ United Kingdom
Service stations stink
Britain's motorway service stations are the worst in Europe, according to a study published on Wednesday conducted by motorists' organizations across the continent. Britain also has the sad distinction of being home to the very worst motorway service station
in the survey, at Sandbach South in Cheshire, northwest England, on the M6, which was found to be the least satisfactory of all 62 centers tested by inspectors in 10 countries. The best service station was deemed to be that of Vogtland, in Germany, on the A72 between Pirk and Plauen. The report said UK service stations had barely improved since 2000.
■ Colombia
Alarm foils tunnel heist
A seismic alarm alerted authorities in Colombia to a tunnel being built by thieves who were just meters away from the vaults of a security firm where US$7.5 million was stored, radio reports said on Wednesday. General Mario Gutierrez, police chief in the city of
Cali, where the incident occurred, said the plotters had been digging the tunnel for the past six months. "The tunnel passed under an entire block and was 120m long," Gutierrez told Radio Caracol. He said the thieves used water pumps, turning soil into mud and then taking it out. He said 20 workers, engineers and topography experts began work on the tunnel in January.
■ Cyprus
Police go wild over orgy
An urgent inquiry was launched in Cyprus Wednesday night after an undercover police operation exposed a group of up to 100 tourists conducting a mass orgy aboard a cruise ship off the island. The scenes, shown on local TV and described as "debauched," were broadcast after being caught on camera in the police sting. Arrests are expected in the coming days. "These scenes are not just graphic, they go beyond every conceivable limit," the island's deputy chief of police, Sotiris Haralambous, said. Because the scenes took place in international waters, beyond Cypriot jurisdiction, authorities will have to request arrest warrants from Interpol. But the Greek Cypriot government said yesterday it would not be deterred, particularly as drugs appear to have been consumed on the boat.
■ Germany
Kohl suffers court defeat
The former German chancellor Helmut Kohl suffered a setback Wednesday night when a court ruled that thousands of secret documents on him compiled by the Stasi, East Germany's notorious secret police, should be released. The federal court said files relating to Kohl's private life -- many of them based on information from illegal phone taps -- should remain classified. But the court said the archives dealing with his political activities could now be released. The files are believed to shed fresh light on a corruption scandal which has haunted him since shortly after his defeat by Chancellor Gerhard Schroder.
■ France
Penalties for sexual remarks
The French cabinet yesterday gave its backing on Wednesday to a bill authorizing penalties of up to a year in jail for anyone found guilty of making an anti-gay or sexist remark. "This law puts the fight against homophobia and sexism on the same footing, legally speaking, as the fight against racism and anti-Semitism," said the justice minister, Dominique Perben. The bill will allow French courts to hand down a fine of 45,000 euros (US$54,500) and up to 12 months in prison for "defamation or incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence on the grounds a person's sex or sexual orientation."
■ United States
Medals awarded
US President George W. Bush honored 13 people -- including the pope, a golf legend and an actress whom the president called the US' "sweetheart" -- with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the East Room at the White House, Bush and first lady Laura Bush on Wednesday awarded the recipients the highest civilian honor for their accomplishments in culture, politics, science, sports and business. Arnold Palmer, winner of 92 golf championships, including four Masters, two British Opens and the US Open, seemed to be offering Bush a few golfing tips as he received his medal.
■ United States
Saturn moon like a comet
The Cassini spacecraft bearing down on Saturn has confirmed that its farthest moon, Phoebe, is an icy remnant of the solar system's birth more than 4 billion years ago, scientists said Wednesday. Phoebe appears to be more akin to comets than to asteroids and typical rocky moons, the researchers said. The cratered, oval-shaped body, measuring about 220km wide, was apparently captured by Saturn's powerful gravitational field when it wandered close eons ago.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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