■ Singapore
`Sex and the City' ban ends
Samantha, the provocative single who often puts the "sex" in the US sitcom Sex and the City, has been tamed by Singapore's strait-laced censors. Scenes of Samantha exposing her breasts or using sexually charged expletives to describe her cheating lover were among those deleted in the first legally screened episode to air in Singapore when a five-year ban on the award-winning series ended yesterday.
■ Japan
Subway station evacuated
Passengers were evacuated from a Tokyo subway station yesterday after a liquid-filled bottle was discovered on a platform, but it turned out to be a lighter. Magome Station was evacuated after a passenger found the bottle on a bench at 8:20am and reported it as a suspicious object, Kyodo news agency said. Service on the subway line was halted for around 25 minutes while the bottle was disposed of. Security on Tokyo's subway system was tightened in March after a letter purportedly from al-Qaeda mentioned Japan as a possible target and after bombs on trains in Madrid. In 1995, a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill.
■ New Zealand
Jewish cemetery desecrated
Swastikas and Nazi slogans were gouged around Jewish graves, a day after New Zealand imposed diplomatic sanctions on Israel over two suspected Israeli spies who tried to obtain a passport by fraud. Sixteen graves were attacked overnight in the Jewish part of a cemetery in Wellington, a city council spokesman said. "Someone's used some sort of stick or tool to gouge swastikas into the grass around the graves. Words like `Sieg Heil' have been scratched into the footpath," he said."I think there is a direct connection between the very strong expressions against Israel and people here feeling they can take it out on Jews," said David Zwartz, head of the New Zealand Jewish Council.
■ Japan
Test tube orphan gets father
Japan's Takamatsu High Court yesterday recognized a woman's demand that authorities acknowledge her dead husband as the father of her son, who was born via a test-tube fertilization using his frozen sperm after his death. Japan's Civil Code allows for legal recognition of children conceived through in vitro fertilization while the father is alive. But it has no laws or state guidelines addressing the handling of frozen sperm after the donor's death. Increasing debates on the subject are expected in Japan as medical treatment on reproduction aid improves, experts said.
■ Australia
Youths set girl on fire
Police on Friday hunted two youths who torched a 9-year-old girl in an unprovoked attack in a Sydney playground on Thursday afternoon. The girl was recovering in hospital with burns to 40 percent of her body. Sarah Allan was playing with her siblings, aged 7 and 5, in a park in Minto, southwestern Sydney, when the attack happened. Two youths wearing masks fled the area shortly after the attack. Detective Chief Inspector Matthew Appleton said police do not even know if the attackers were male or female.
■ Dr Congo
Farmers jeopardize gorillas
Farmers have overrun large areas of forest in Congo's oldest national park, the latest threat to more than half the world's 700 remaining mountain gorillas, conservationists and park workers say. Stacking lava rocks, 200 workers are building a wall at the Rwandan border of Virunga national park, a UN World Heritage Site, in a desperate effort to stop farmers, fighters and refugees from sweeping across the gorillas' volcano-peak refuges. The latest threat to Virunga's gorillas came in May and June, when between 5,000 to 6,000 Rwandan and Congolese farmers overran unarmed guards and leveled 15km2 of the 425km2 park for cattle ranching.
■ Germany
When acupuncturists forget
A German acupuncture patient was left pierced with needles in a clinic after a therapist forgot about her, locked up his practice and went home, police in Hanover said on Thursday. The 41-year-old woman had booked an afternoon session. The doctor left her in the treatment room for what she assumed would be a short while, especially since she still had needles embedded in her body. After 90 minutes the woman began to shout for attention. Getting no response, she realized she was alone and trapped in the building. She alerted police by phone and was later set free when the doctor returned.
■ Russia
Man learns he's dead
A Russian taxi driver received a rude shock when he discovered that his blind ex-wife, who thought he had died in an explosion, had him buried in a Moscow cemetery, a newspaper reported on Thursday. Oleg Lunkov learned of his apparent death when he applied for a passport and was told he died in a bomb blast on Moscow's metro on Feb. 6. His ex-wife thought he was on the train, but being blind, she got her mother to identify the remains. "I thought, `I hope they didn't bury me on my birthday,'" Lunkov told the Moscow Times after visiting his grave in southeastern Moscow. "But it turns out they did."
■ Romania
Man sues for love
Sandu Gurguiatu first sued for money. Then for love. The love-struck Romanian first took his company to court four years ago for what he said was unfair dismissal. But after setting eyes on Judge Elena Lala, he sued his employers and others dozens of times -- only to be able to see her. "I fell madly in love with her and when I found out she was married, I didn't know how I would manage to see her," he told the daily Libertatea on Thursday. "The only way was to see her in the courtroom, so I looked in the law book and came up with all kinds of excuses." Eventually, the infatuation subsided and Gurguiatu decided to go public with his story.
■ Iraq
Shiite militia evicted
Iraqi authorities have forcibly removed members of a hardline Shiite militia from a building they were illegally occupying, the US military said yesterday. Members of the militia linked to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were given a deadline by the governor of Diwaniyah province to vacate the building in Najaf, about 160km from Baghdad. When they did not comply, the governor ordered the Iraqi National Guard and police forces to evict them, said Major Neal O'Brien of the 1st Infantry Division. Troops from the Task Force 1st Battalion 14th Infantry provided security for the area from the outside.
■ United States
Too much meat, fat in diet
Despite warnings from the government, health groups and doctors, more than 70 percent of Americans still eat too much meat and fat and too few vegetables, cancer researchers said on Thursday. They published a survey showing 72 percent of Americans still centered their meals around animal fats, leaving little room for the vegetables that prevent not only cancer but heart disease and perhaps a range of other diseases, too. The research surveyed 1,000 adults. They were asked what they had eaten the night before and how much.
■ United States
Gray wolf not under threat
The Interior Department is proposing to lift endangered species protection for the gray wolf across much of the country, although the animals will remain "threatened" and shielded by federal law in the west, officials said. Interior Secretary Gale Norton planned to make the announcement yesterday in Minnesota, which has the largest US wolf population outside Alaska. She will later visit a wildlife sanctuary in Wisconsin, where the wolves have been on the rebound as well. The proposal calls for taking the gray wolf, which was nearly extinct in the lower 48 states in the 1950s, out from under federal protection in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan and New England.
■ Colombia
Ex-senator pays ransom
A former Colombian senator defended his decision to pay a ransom to kidnappers holding his sons for three years, saying he could not bear to see them "slowly die in the jungle." Jaime Lozada said on Thursday that he felt humiliated for giving in to the Marxist rebels who abducted his two sons and their mother from their luxury apartment three years ago. He also denounced the government for failing to ensure his family's safety. Lozada's sons, Juan Sebastian, 19, and Jaime Felipe, 20, were freed on Tuesday at an undisclosed location in southern Colombia. His wife, Gloria Polanco, remains in captivity.
■ France
Launch delayed again
The launch of an Ariane-5 rocket carrying the world's largest telecommunications satellite, pushed back due to a technical problem, was postponed for a second time on Thursday by 24 hours, Arianespace said. An anomaly that appeared in the rocket during final checks prior to take-off on Monday had already forced the European Space Agency to postpone the launch of the Ariane-5, which will carry the nearly 6-tonne Anik-2F satellite. Weather conditions over the launch site at Kourou, French Guiana, were to blame for Thursday's cancelation, Arianespace said at its headquarters at Evry near Paris.
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