■ Australia
Man fined for topless pics
A Sydney man was fined A$500 (US$388) yesterday for photographing topless women at the beach with his cellphone camera. Peter Mackenzie, 25, pleaded guilty in suburban Waverley Local Court to offensive behavior in taking the pictures at Sydney's Coogee Beach on Nov. 6. Mackenzie was caught by the partner of one woman he'd photographed, who confronted him and called police. Magistrate Lee Gilmore told Mackenzie that "women are not objects of decoration for men's gratification." The camera phone Mackenzie used was ordered to be destroyed.
■ Afghanistan
Six die in air crash
The US-led coalition forces yesterday said that all six people on board of a fixed-wing aircraft that was reported missing in central Afghanistan four days ago, have been killed in the accident. Major Mark McCann, a spokesman for the coalition forces, said that the cause of the crash was not yet clear, but a team has been investigating the cause of the accident. On Saturday, the aircraft departed Bagram airfield, 50km north of Kabul and disappeared in the central province of Bamiyan. Three civilian crew members and three US military passengers were on board the CASA 212 civilian aircraft.
■ South Korea
Umbilical cords gold-plated
Forget desktop photographs of your children. Doting South Korean parents can preserve their child's umbilical cord in acrylic resin to make a personal seal or even have it gold plated. In this Confucian society where family values are highly prized, suppliers also offer services for parents to have traditional Korean calligraphy brushes made from their child's hair. Shim Jae-cheol of U&I Impression said the firm had gold-plated about 80 to 100 umbilical cords a month since starting business in August, with prices ranging from US$76 to US$96.
■ Australia
E.T.-looking cereal sold
First it was a purported likeness of the Virgin Mary in a cheese sandwich. Now, a single grain of breakfast cereal with an uncanny resemblance to cuddly movie alien E.T. has reportedly fetched A$1,035 (US$804) in an eBay auction. Chris Doyle of Sydney said he was about to pour milk over his cereal one morning when he noticed an E.T. lookalike peering from his bowl. Inspired by the US$28,000 online sale in November of a sandwich which some claimed appeared to have the Virgin Mary's face on it, the 27-year-old graphic designer decided to cash in on his alien-looking piece of cereal. Doyle told The Daily Telegraph newspaper, "I was just trying to find someone who feels the same way about E.T. as they do about the Virgin Mary."
■ Hong Kong
Acid attack kills woman
A restaurant worker died in hospital after an acid attack by two of her colleagues following a row over a bill. Siu Han-lin, 46, suffered burns over 50 percent of her body in the attack, committed as she walked out of a lift after finishing work on Oct. 6 last year. Earlier that day, Siu had argued with two off-duty managers at the Tsim Sha Tsui restaurant where they all worked. According to the South China Morning Post, the two men had refused to settle a bill after entertaining friends at the restaurant, saying they would pay later. One of the men, Wong Chong-hoi, 44, appeared in court charged with the murder of Siu. The other alleged attacker, Chan Wing-sing, committed suicide.
■ Mozambique
Historic elections start
Mozambicans began voting yesterday in two-day elections that mark the end of the 18-year rule of President Joaquim Chissano, who shepherded the southern African country to peace after a bloody civil war. Polling stations opened around the scheduled time of 7am and were due to close 11 hours later. An estimated 8 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots in some 13,000 polling stations to elect a new president as well as deputies to the 250-seat parliament.
■ Sweden
Norwegian rats invade
Kiruna, a mining town in north Sweden, has been invaded by thousands of rats thought to have crossed the border from Norway with garbage shipments for the local recycling center, officials said on Tuesday. "It is most likely that they have come from Norway. They have the brown rat there," said Kiruna environmental chief Mats Lahti. Kiruna's harsh Arctic climate normally keeps rats away, but they apparently love the warm piles of garbage at its recycling plant, which handles 25,000 tonnes of Norwegian waste a year.
■ Germany
Guards stop blood-flinger
Guards in a Berlin museum stopped a 55-year-old Canadian who tried to throw blood on a sculpture owned by controversial tycoon and art collector Friedrich Christian Flick. Police said that they removed the man, who described himself as an artist. Guards intervened in time, and the blood soiled a wall but not the sculpture, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, by Paul MacCarthy.
The special exhibition of 2,500 modern artworks has been at the center of controversy in the German capital. Critics say that Flick's fortune is tainted because part of it was amassed by his grandfather during the Nazi period.
■ Zimbabwe
Politician hands out lingerie
An unnamed Zimbabwean politician has been trying to win women's votes by handing out free lingerie, state television reported on Tuesday. Handing out gifts is not uncommon in election campaigns in Zimbabwe, but this time the publicity incurred the wrath of his ruling ZANU-PF party. "Supporters have been angered by the antics of an aspiring parlia-mentary candidate [who] has been accused of using unorthodox means to garner support -- including the buying of under-garments for women," Zimbabwe Television said. The main opposition party has threatened to boycott the elections, demanding that sweeping electoral reforms be implemented first.
■ Switzerland
Train conductor takes taxi
Even employees of the famously punctual Swiss railroads can miss a train. Last week, a train left the station at Aigle, in the French-speaking west of Switzerland, without its conductor and with its doors wide open, the Swiss railroad company con-firmed on Tuesday. The conductor, an unidentified woman, hailed a cab and was finally able to rejoin the train at Bex -- some 9km further down the track -- where it had stopped to wait for her, the Swiss daily Le Matin reported. "This pretty young lady with curly blonde hair was still carrying her machine for selling tickets. In 10 years of taxi driving, I've never seen anything like that!" the taxi driver told Le Matin.
■ United States
Sheryl Crow fan acquitted
A love-struck fan who ardently pursued singer Sheryl Crow for 15 months was acquitted Tuesday of stalking her. A jury deliberated for about three hours before finding Ambrose Kappos, 38, not guilty of burglary and stalking charges. He faced up to seven years in prison if convicted. Outside court, Kappos said he believes he was "delusional" when he thought he was communicating telepathically with Crow. "Clearly there was no telepathy," Kappos said, adding two unhappy marriages, an infatuation with Crow and other difficulties created the psychological "perfect storm," and caused his behavior.
■ United States
Baby dies amid crack binge
A month-old baby died while his parents were on a three-day crack cocaine binge that began after Thanksgiving dinner, police said Tuesday. The cause of death was not immediately clear. Sonia Thomas, 39, and Neal Anthony Bryan, 46, have been charged with child neglect. More charges could be filed, police said. Bryan told police he awoke to find that his son was on the bed next to him and not breathing, according to a police report. Thomas told investigators the baby was blue and she ran to the kitchen and sprinkled water on him in an attempt to "get him back." Thomas said she could not remember when she had last fed the baby because "she was messed up on crack," the report said.
■ United States
Cocaine, heroin prices drop
Cocaine and heroin are cheaper today on US streets, despite a multi-billion-dollar, 25-year drug war, according to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), citing data from a US drug czar. "The demand for cocaine, crack and heroin is at least stable, if not rising," said John Walsh, an expert on the matter at WOLA. The price of two grams of cocaine dropped nearly 31 percent, from US$161 in 2000, when Washington launched Plan Colombia against drug traffickers and rebels, to US$106 dollars between January and June last year. The same data show that the cost of a gram of heroin dropped 14 percent, from US$414 to US$362.
■ United States
Plaque can be fatal
Germs found in dental plaque can make their way into the lungs and cause potentially fatal pneumonia in elderly nursing home patients, US researchers reported on Tuesday. The researchers said they found clear evidence in eight patients who developed pneumonia while in the hospital that had originated from their own dental plaque. Writing in the journal Chest, Dr. Ali El-Solh, who led the study, said they tested 49 nursing home residents admitted to hospital with a high risk of pneumonia. They made molecular fingerprints of the bacteria found in each patient's mouth before he or she developed pneumonia.
■ Canada
Flu shots win out over cigars
Flu shots trumped Cuban cigars as the most sought-after items for a handful of reporters covering US President George W. Bush's first official visit to Canada on Tuesday. Three White House correspondents made the 10-minute walk from their workspace in downtown Ottawa to the Appletree Medical Center, which charged just US$17. "While Cuban cigars are a valuable commodity, we could make a far greater profit if we could smuggle some flu vaccine back into the US," quipped one of the journalists. The US is experiencing a flu vaccine shortage.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.