■ 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.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema