■ Cambodia
Student killed for studying
Police said an 11-year-old student was in serious condition in hospital on Tuesday after his teenage cousin attacked him with an axe for refusing to leave his homework to go out and buy noodles. Police said that Kung Vannak, 11, was engrossed in his studies on Monday when his cousin Horn Khun Ly, 19, demanded he leave the house to buy him noodle soup. When Kung Vannak refused, his cousin became enraged and chopped him three times in the head with an axe, Meanchey district deputy police chief Em Lim Hel said. Local media reported that Khun Ly had recently been forced to leave his own studies to find work to support his family.
■ Pakistan
Cinema bomb kills two
A bomb exploded in a cinema during a screening early yesterday in northwestern Pakistan, killing two people and injuring 29 others, including a man who was suspected in the blast and arrested, police said. The explosion happened after midnight at the cinema in Mingora, the main town in the hill resort district of Swat, about 120km northeast of Peshawar. It was not known how many people were inside the cinema when the bomb exploded under a seat. At least three of the 29 injured were in serious condition while many others were treated for minor injuries at a hospital in Mingora, police said.
■ Japan
Octogenarian love hurts
An 82-year-old Japanese woman who suspected her 80-year-old husband of cheating on her tried to kill him with an axe yesterday while he was asleep in bed, officials said. Mitsu Horie brought out the wood-chopping axe at around 1am but, luckily for husband Kodo Horie, she only used the 85cm-long handle. "The suspect believed the victim was involved with another woman. She said she wanted to kill him," said a police spokesman in Ibaraki province, 150km north of Tokyo. Kodo was already unconscious when paramedics arrived to take him to hospital, where he was being treated for serious wounds to the skull from several blows to the head.
■ Singapore
Crackdown on undesirables
Singapore immigration officers will be allowed to carry firearms under toughened laws aimed at keeping undocumented immigrants out of the city-state. Amendments to a law passed in Parliament Tuesday strengthen the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority's (ICA's) enforcement powers against "undesirable foreigners," said Senior Minister of State for Law Ho Peng Kee. Officers carrying firearms will receive training, Ho said, and only officers who need them, such as those who go on undocumented immigrant raids, will be armed. Harsher punishments will also be imposed on those caught using forged travel documents.
■ New Zealand
New dolphin species spotted
The Fraser's dolphin species has been seen in New Zealand waters for the first time, bringing the number of marine mammal species found off the coast to 51, more than any other country, the Department of Conser-vation said yesterday. It said four pods of the dolphins were sighted on Nov. 9 about 240km north of Cape Reinga, at the top of the North Island, by a Royal New Zealand Air Force maritime surveillance aircraft. New Zealand marine mammal expert Alan Baker said photographs taken by the plane were confirmed as Fraser's dolphins
■ Mexico
Farmers strip in protest
Some 400 farmers marched in their underwear in the streets of downtown Mexico City on Tuesday, then ended their protest at the main square by stripping off all their clothes. The farmers want Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to return a parcel of land they claim City Hall took from them. About 50 women and children participated in the protest, which ended in front of the mayor's office.
■ Russia
Nuclear weapons planned
President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Russia would in the coming years acquire new nuclear weapon systems which other nuclear powers do not yet have and are unlikely to develop in the near future. "We have not only conducted tests of the latest nuclear rocket systems," Putin said in televised remarks to a meeting of generals from the various branches of Russia's armed forces. "Moreover, these will be things which do not exist and are unlikely to exist in other nuclear powers," he added. Russia has been seeking to upgrade its nuclear arsenal after the US announced plans in 2001 to develop a missile defense shield in abrogation of its 1972 ABM Treaty with Moscow.
■ United States
Site offers online hunting
Hunters soon may be able to sit at their computers and blast away at animals on a Texas ranch via the Internet, a prospect that has state wildlife officials up in arms. A controversial Web site, www.live-shot.com, already offers target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let hunters shoot at deer, antelope and wild pigs, site creator John Underwood said on Tuesday. Texas officials are not quite sure what to make of Underwood's Web site, but may tweak existing laws to make sure Internet hunting does not get out of hand. Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has invested US$10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can be remotely aimed on his 133-hectare southwest Texas ranch.
■ United States
Ducky sex toy causes trouble
Town officials have restored a woman's business license weeks after accusing her of trying to sell a sex toy -- a vibrating yellow-ducky sponge -- at a flea market. The Nashville suburb agreed Monday to allow Katherine Williams to keep the license for her Passions & Pleasures intimate gifts business if she does not display her wares in public. Williams typically sells her lotions and adult novelties at home parties. Town officials had threatened to cite Williams for violating the sexually oriented business ordinance after she set up a table at the flea market last month, but they could find no witnesses who would testify to seeing her display.
■ United States
Guns not allowed at office
Employees at a Little Rock, Arkansas office building have been asked to leave their deer hunting rifles at home because the president and three former presidents are coming to town to open Bill Clinton's presidential library. Acxiom Corporation distributed a memo to the 420 employees in its 12-story building near the Clinton library, reminding them of its policy forbidding weapons on company property. "This would not be a time to violate that policy," said Dale Ingram, spokesman for Acxiom. The Acxiom building overlooks the library, where US President George W. Bush and former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Clinton are to speak. Deer hunting season in Arkansas began last weekend, and overlaps with the dedication, today, of Clinton's library.
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