■ Cambodia
Meteorite sparks fires
A 4.5kg meteorite which landed in a former Khmer Rouge zone of northwest Cambodia started fires across rice fields and prayers from villagers who saw it as a divine omen of peace. "Some farmers are angry with the rock because it caused fires and destroyed several hundred hectares of their paddy fields," said Sok Sareth, police chief of Banteay Meanchey province, around 320km northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh. "But others asked the police to leave it where it landed and put it on shrine to pray for peace," he told reporters. The black lump of celestial rock sent villagers scurrying for cover when it thumped into the ground in the war-scarred southeast Asian nation on Monday morning.
■ China
Beijing nixes pageants
China, host to the Miss World pageant for two years in a row, has called a halt to beauty contests in schools, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, suggesting more tasteful pastimes for children. Once considering make-up and beauty contests to be bourgeois, China has increasingly latched onto pageants, and last month staged its first Miss Artificial Beauty contest for women who have undergone plastic surgery. But the Ministry of Education "explicitly opposes holding beauty contests in primary and high schools," Xinhua quoted a ministry spokesman as saying. "Such contests were sometimes sponsored by a small number of students who had misunderstandings in aesthetic judgment," the spokesman said. "We should positively guide students to improve their taste."
■ China
Four missing at sea
Four people are missing after an oil tanker sank, spewing out its cargo, after hitting another ship in southern Chinese waters yesterday, maritime officials and state media said. The collision happened 20km to the east of Nan'ao Island near Shantou, a coastal city in China's Guangdong province, Xinhua reported. According to the Guangdong Maritime Affairs Bureau, the oil tanker was carrying 1,000 tonnes of light diesel oil when it hit the empty cargo vessel. The tanker sunk within 10 minutes, forcing all its crew to abandon ship. The 1,400-tonne cargo vessel was holed but is not in danger of sinking, the bureau said. Xinhua said nine of the crew members had been rescued and four were missing.
■ Singapore
Drugs found in bra
A woman hiding drugs in her bra was arrested when she tried to enter Singapore from Malaysia, narcotics officers said yesterday. Acting on a tip, the officers stopped the
31-year-old's car at the Woodlands Checkpoint. A body search turned up 1.7g of "ice" and 102.4g of ketamine in the jobless woman's bra padding, they said. The drugs were estimated to be worth about S$5,800 (US$3,515).
■ Indonesia
Diarrhea outbreak kills 15
A diarrhea outbreak in the eastern Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara has killed at least 15 people and affected more than 670 others. The illness has spread through villages at four different sub-districts of East Flores regency on the island of Flores, about 2,000km east of Jakarta, over the past week, the Media Indonesia daily reported. Most victims were children under five and the elderly, the report said, quoting local health official Eduard Kleruk. Kleruk said most of the fatalities occurred because the victims came to hospital after they were already in serious condition.
■ United States
Fire knocks out NYC line
A subway line serving tens of thousands of New Yorkers a day was knocked out of service and another severely limited, possibly for up to a year, because of a fire that authorities said may have been set by a homeless person trying to stay warm. Hundreds of relays, switches and circuits that track train signals and locations were damaged in the blaze, the most serious damage to the subway's infrastructure since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials said. The fire was set Sunday in a shopping cart in or near the Chambers Street station in Manhattan, fire officials said. It ignited cables above the platform and spread to a room full of switching and signal equipment.
■ Mexico
Terror threat was faked
A suspected Mexican human smuggler who was detained and then released said he was responsible for reporting a fake terror threat against Boston, federal officials said Tuesday. The officials said he made the call either as a joke, or as an act of revenge. In Boston, the FBI released a statement also saying that the threat, which had been widely reported in both Mexico and the US in recent days, was false. "There were in fact no terrorist plans or activity under way," it said. "Because the criminal investigation is ongoing, no further details can be provided at this time."
■ United States
Firemen caught in sex probe
Four Sacramento, California firefighters who admitted to having sex while on duty have been suspended pending an investigation, a spokesman for the city's fire department said on Tuesday. The three men, including a captain, admitted to having sex with a fourth firefighter, a woman, while on duty. Superiors put all four on administrative leave on Monday, marking the second recent sex scandal to hit the sleepy state capital's fire department. "The four individuals have admitted to having sex in the firehouse," said Captain Niko King, a spokesman for the department. "They even conspired to keep it secret by putting one person on watch so they wouldn't get caught."
■ United States
People see AIDS conspiracy
Almost half of all black Americans believe that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is man-made, more than a quarter believe it was produced in a government laboratory and one in eight think it was created and spread by the CIA, according to a study released by the Rand Corporation and the University of Oregon. The paper's authors say these views are obstructing efforts to prevent the spread of HIV among African-Americans, the racial group most likely to contract the virus. African-Americans are 13 percent of the US population but account for 50 percent of new HIV infections, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. African-American women constituted 73 percent of new female HIV cases in 2003.
■ United States
Magazine accepts ad
Rolling Stone magazine has reversed itself and agreed to accept an advertisement for a new translation of the Bible, America's largest Bible publisher said Tuesday. Rolling Stone sent Zondervan a contract for a half-page ad in the rock magazine's Feb. 24 issue, said Doug Lockhart, Zondervan executive vice president of marketing. He said Rolling Stone gave no explanation for its change of heart. Zondervan bought space in the magazine as part of an ad campaign for a new Bible translation aimed at young people, called Today's New International Version.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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