■ 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.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia