■ Japan
Nude motorist kills cyclist
A naked male motorist smashed into five people on bicycles Thursday morning, dragging one of them to his death in a usually quiet residential area in western Japan, press reports said. The naked man drove through narrow alleys for seven minutes in the suburbs of Osaka, knocking down the bicyclists one by one including a 61-year-old man who later died, the Asahi Shimbun website said. The hit-and-run spree finally ended when the naked man crashed into a house and was knocked unconscious. Police detained the man but did not know his motive or even his name, or why he wasn't wearing any clothes.
■ Thailand
UN probe request rejected
The government has told the UN it cannot yet investigate the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters last month as an independent inquiry was underway, a foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday. Most of the protesters died of suffocation in army custody after a protest in the southern Narathiwat province. "We are considering their request, but I don't think we are ready now," said foreign ministry spokesman Itti Ditbanjong. "Our independent comm-ission, which has been accepted by all sides, is doing its work and we should wait for them to finish first," he said of a request by a UN expert on human rights.
■ India
Failure to die sparks anger
A Hindu seer in eastern Orissa state was berated by angry crowds when he failed to die after declaring his soul would leave his body at an appointed time, a report said yesterday. The chief cleric of Sriguru Ashram at Kharagaon area of Konark district said he would die a natural death on Wednesday between 6:00am and noon, the Asian Age newspaper said, without naming him. Elaborate police arrangements were made as a crowd of 15,000 turned up to see the "death by will" miracle. On Wednesday morning, the seer prayed at the break of dawn and then sat down to meditate as the crowd watched him in awe. However when onlookers discovered that he was still alive at noon, they turned angry that hurled abuse at him and temple officials.
■ Australia
Poisonous toads invade park
Hundreds of thousands of poisonous baby cane toads invaded a national park yesterday, hopping around in such numbers that the ground seemed to move, an ecologist said. The ugly amphibians moved into the Arakwal National Park near one of the country's famous surfing meccas, Byron Bay, following an explosion in toad numbers after recent rains. "You should see the ground down there, it is just black and it is just moving, it is a seething mass of young cane toads, it looks like the ground is moving," local ecologist Steve Phillips told Australian radio.
■ South Africa
Child sex ring busted
South African authorities arrested 59 Nigerians on suspicion of operating a child-sex ring and freed more than a dozen young girls in Johannesburg and Durban, SABC radio news reported Thursday. Authorities later said the 13 freed girls represented only the tip of the iceberg of a nationwide problem involving youths between the ages of 10-15 held in captivity and forced into prostitution. Some girls were sold to the sex syndicate by poverty-stricken parents and some were kidnapped, authorities said. They were shifted between the cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Durban. The girls were given heroin to create addicts who could be more easily controlled.
■ Italy
Ex-neo-fascist appointed
Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, named Gianfranco Fini, the leader of Italy's former neo-fascists, as his new foreign minister on Thursday in a move that offered the heirs of Benito Mussolini's Blackshirts the prospect of new international political respectability. The appointment was the result of complicated manoeuvring within the prime minister's conservative coalition. It was also the reward for years of effort by Fini, 52, to drag his party, the National Alliance, into the mainstream.
■ Israel
TV show to select diplomat
A new TV series called "The Ambassador" features 14 Israelis trying to outdo each other battling Israel's global image problem in the face of a 4-year-old Palestinian uprising. Devised by an American-Jewish benefactor, the series begins airing next week with contestants in business suits plying their propaganda skills at various foreign locales, a Channel Two advertisement said on Thursday. In a format recalling the US reality show "The Apprentice," an Israeli panel including an ex-security chief and a former army spokesman will weed out the winner. The prize: an all-expenses-paid year working as an Israeli public relations liaison in New York.
■ Norway
54-year-old letter delivered
A Norwegian woman got a real surprise this week when she received a letter mailed 54 years ago, delivered by a mailman who brought along flowers for the occasion, a Norwegian paper reported on Thursday. "It was really funny. It's fantastic to get a letter after so many years," Brita Loevaas told the Halden Arbeiderblad daily after opening the letter dated Sept. 22, 1950. The letter brought no "news" of course: Brita Loevaas' parents-in-law inquired about the health of their grandson, who at the time was just two years old and is now nearing retirement. "It puts the time that has passed into perspective," Loevaas reflected.
■ Switerland
Man plans difficult trip
A 71-year-old Japanese resident of Switzerland plans to sail a small homemade boat from Europe to his Asian homeland. Seiko Nakajima will take to the water at Barcelona, Spain, at the end of November, the Lausanne daily Le Matin reported Thursday. He plans to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on his way to Nagoya, Japan. Nakajima, who lives in the Swiss mountain resort of Grindelwald, tested his 6m motor- and sail-driven craft on nearby Lake Thun. He designed and built the whale-shaped boat, which has an enclosed cabin, and named it Why Not?
■ Israel
Egyptians' death probed
The chief of Israel's army said yesterday that an inves-tigation had been opened into the accidental killing of three Egyptian police offi-cers, and conclusions would be issued next week. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had apologized on Thursday in a call to Egyptian Presi-dent Hosni Mubarak for the shooting of the officers as they patrolled along the border. The Israeli army chief said that the shooting early Thursday came after the commander in the field identified a group of Pales-tinian militants but soldiers operating a tank shot in a different direction, killing the Egyptians.
■ United Kingdom
MP wants Blair impeached
A parliamentary motion to impeach Prime Minister Tony Blair for "gross mis-conduct" over the war against Iraq will be published next Wednesday. It will be the first to be tabled in 198 years. Senior parliamentary officials approved the wording of the text on Wednesday night, allowing the motion to be tabled on the first day of the new parliamentary session. Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru member of parliament (MP) who launched the campaign for the motion, said: "This is
the only way left to MPs to call the prime minister to account over his conduct in the war against Iraq."
■ United States
SEAL faces abuse charges
A Navy SEAL lieutenant faces a hearing in California on Monday on allegations he assaulted an Iraqi detainee who died at the Abu Ghraib prison, the Navy said. An Article 32 hearing will be held at Naval Base San Diego for the unnamed officer. The lieutenant allegedly punched Manadel al-Jamadi in the torso, and allowed personnel under his command to abuse him, according to a charging document released by the Navy on Thursday. Al-Jamadi, a suspect in the bombing of a Red Cross facility, was captured by SEALs last November during a joint special forces-CIA mission, and died a short time later at Abu Ghraib prison. He died from blunt force trauma to the upper torso complicated by ham-pered breathing, according to a military pathologist.
■ Czech Republic
Court orders dog exhumed
The world's smallest dog is to be exhumed four years after its death for an autopsy to determine whether a vet was guilty of maltreatment, the Czech media reported on Thursday. Owner Miloslava Vasickova claims the tiny chihuahua died after being given a treatment for cats by vet Leos Vyhanek. She is seeking damages of 1 million koruna (US$41,560), daily newspaper Lidove Noviny wrote. Measuring just 15cm long and weighing less than 1kg, Ondra had been entered in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest dog. The court, which has been hearing the case for the last three years, has now ordered Ondra's body to be exhumed.
■ United States
Body found in freezer
A deathbed murder confes-sion from a woman led to the discovery of her husband's remains on Thursday inside a freezer at a Massachusetts storage facility, where his body has been for at least six years, officials said. Just before she died, the woman told one of her children that she killed her husband in California several years ago, officials said. The children informed police, who went to the Planet Self Storage facility in Somerville on Thursday and found the remains inside a freezer. The woman apparently put the body in a freezer and shipped it from California.
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