■ Australia
Google saves hostage
Iraqi militants who kidnapped an Australian reporter in Baghdad and threatened to kill him "Googled" his name on the Internet to investigate his work before releasing him unharmed, the journalist's executive producer said yesterday. John Martinkus, the first Australian confirmed as having been held hostage in Iraq, was seized early on Saturday and held for nearly 24 hours before being freed. His executive producer at Australia's SBS network, Mike Carey, said the Internet likely saved Martinkus. Martinkus said his kidnappers, who he described as Sunni Muslims, initially threatened to kill him, before checking on his background.
■ China
Schools tout Bible, kung fu
Middle schools in China's financial hub of Shanghai will recommend students spend their spare time reading kung fu novels and the Bible, a policy which has some parents worried, the Shanghai Daily said yesterday. The Shanghai Education Commission's academic research office would recommend the Old Testament and Jin Yong, China's most popular writer of kung fu novels. Previous recommendations included Chinese classics like A Dream of Red Mansions and some Western literature. "Finally they changed the recommended list," local student Wang Wengjia said. "We are no longer only asked to only read those monotonous classics."
■ Japan
Girl cuts self to avoid karate
A schoolgirl admitted yesterday that she slashed herself in the face and lied to police about an attacker because she wanted to avoid her karate class, police and press reports said. "She admitted that she lied," said a police spokesman in the western prefecture of Osaka without elaborating. Jiji Press said the 14-year-old girl cut herself because she did not want to go to her karate class. "I thought if I did this, I would not have to go," the agency quoted her as telling police. Police earlier said they were investigating whether an attacker had entered the school. The girl suffered a 12cm cut from just under her eye to her chin.
■ Hong Kong
Runaway lives on pittance
A runaway 10-year-old boy survived for nine days on just over US$1 a day in Hong Kong, one of the world's most expensive cities, a news report said yesterday. Pang Kap-lun ran away from his home with just HK$100 (US$12.8) in his pocket after a falling out with his parents, the South China Morning Post reported. He spent HK$10 on a shirt to keep him warm while he slept in a park and lived off HK$10 boxes of rice and free water from McDonald's. When his father found him early on Monday, the prudent schoolboy was in good health and still had HK$10 left in his pocket, the newspaper said.
■ Japan
Arms proliferation talks held
Officials from 22 countries and regional groups gathered in Tokyo yesterday for a seminar to discuss how to better monitor Asian exports to prevent weapons proliferation. Weapons proliferation is a big concern in Asia, which is believed to be a major transit route for key parts because of the hefty loads of cargo passing through various regional points. Economic development in Asian countries has led to the production of items that can be diverted for use in the production of weapons of mass destruction and missiles, Japan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
■ Germany
Phone-toss record broken
A German has smashed the national record for the rarely contested sport of cellphone throwing by hurling his phone 67.50m, the organizers of the event announced on Monday. In the competition in Wehnde, Thuringia, on Sunday, Nico Morawa beat the former record of 65.8m, set four years ago. Morawa, who is also spokesman for the association of German cellphone throwers, beat 70 competitors to win the event. According to the association's Web site, the "sport" began when manufacturers were offering cheap phones during the industry's boom years of 2000 and 2001. When the phones broke, the Kamenz association came up with a new use for them.
■ Spain
Alleged terror ring broken
Police arrested seven people in nationwide raids targeting a suspected Islamic terror ring that was reportedly preparing for an attack. Police described the detainees as suspected members of an active Islamic militant group, the Interior Ministry said in a statement Monday. The private news agency Europa Press, citing police in charge of the case, reported that the arrests were made after police detected conversations in which the suspects referred to preparations for an attack with explosives.
■ Saudi Arabia
Militant nabbed
Saudi security forces arrested a suspected militant disguised as a woman and armed with a machine gun, hand grenades and pistols, an official said yesterday. He said the man was seized after fleeing a police checkpoint and stealing a car south of the capital Riyadh on Monday night. The suspect fired at pursuers with a machine gun before being arrested. "He was wearing an abaya [long black cloak], dressed like a woman," Interior Ministry security spokesman Brigadier-General Mansour Turki said. The man stole another car at a petrol station before police caught up with him and arrested him after a brief exchange of fire, Turki said.
■ United Kingdom
`Chav' is word of the year
The word "chav," a newly-popularized term of abuse applied to loutish types fond of tracksuits and cheap gold jewelry, is Britain's defining word or phrase of the year, a new book announced Monday. "Chav" is to this year what "axis of evil" was to 2002, "gangsta" to 1988 and "beatnik" to 1958, according to author Susie Dent, whose The Language Report gives what she defines as the key terms for every year dating back to 1904. "Chav" -- a long-established but little used insult thought to have come from a mid-19th century Romany word "Chavi", meaning child -- has caught on recently as a label for Britain's underclass of violence-prone, culture-devoid youth.
■ South Africa
Haitian criticism rebuffed
Johannesburg rounded on Haiti's interim leader on Monday, dismissing accusations it was allowing ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to coordinate a violent uprising from exile in South Africa. "The South African government takes strong exception to reported comments attributed to the interim Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue accusing President Thabo Mbeki of failing to respect international law by allegedly `allowing a person in his territory to organise violence in another country,'" Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said.
■ Iran
Tehran offers observers
Iran's hardline Basij militia has written to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to ask if the Islamic republic can send observers to the US presidential election in November, a government newspaper said on Monday. "By this symbolic request, we want to ridicule the so-called democratic slogans of the American leaders," a Basij official, Said Toutunshian, told the Iran newspaper. "We want to say to the whole world that the presence of observers from the Islamic republic of Iran ... is necessary to guarantee the smooth running of the American elections."
■ Serbia
Government defies UN
Defying international pressure, Serbia and Montenegro's justice minister said in remarks published yesterday that his government will not arrest four top war crimes suspects sought by the UN war crimes tribunal. Zoran Stojkovic told the Blic daily that the arrest of the four Serb generals, indicted by the tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands, for war crimes allegedly committed by their troops in Kosovo in 1999, "would be dangerous for the country's stability."
■ United States
``Hate crime'' perp caught
It looked at first like a disturbingly busy weekend of hate crimes at first, the swastikas in white spray paint appearing on synagogues and Jewish centers in Brooklyn and parts of Queens. But later Monday, police learned that the vandalism appeared to have been fueled by a different kind of hatred: that of an ex-wife over her former husband's new spouse. Late Monday, the Hate Crimes Task Force arrested Olga Abramovich, 49, and said she had become enraged when her former husband married a 35-year-old. Abramovich and his wife are Jewish, and the suspect is Russian Orthodox, the police said.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the