■ Pakistan
Torrent of water kills 35
At least 35 people returning from a pilgrimage in Pakistan were killed when the tractor-trolley they were in was swept away by a torrent of water gushing down a hill, police said yesterday. Up to 10 others were missing after the vehicle was swept away late on Friday in central Dera Ghazi Khan, some 80km west of Multan, senior police officer Salman Chaudhary said. "We have found bodies of 35 people, mostly women and children, who met the accident late Friday," he said.
■ Australia
Teenagers convicted
Two teenagers were found guilty yesterday of murdering two Thai-born prostitutes who were bound and thrown alive into a crocodile-infested river in northern Australia. A jury unanimously convicted Ben William McLean and Phu Ngoc Trinh, both 19, on two counts of murder each over the deaths of the women, who were based in the Northern Territory capital of Darwin. They were both given mandatory life sentences, with a non-parole period to be set in May. The trial heard that sex workers Phuangsri Kroksamrang, 58, and Somjai Insamnan, 27, were bound with cable ties and thrown alive into the Adelaide River in March last year.
■ China
Pandas to be microchipped
The government will implant microchips in its captive panda population in a bid to improve protection and prevent inbreeding among the endangered species, state media said yesterday. Data such as age and pedigree will be stored and used together with the implanted chips in a nationwide operation later this year, Xinhua news agency quoted a State Forestry Administration official as saying. The information stored on the chips will improve the managed reproduction program and help trace the bears once they are returned to the wild, the unnamed official said. At the end of last year, China had 163 pandas in captivity and an estimated 1,590 in the wild.
■ Afghanistan
Hungry wolves attack
At least four Afghans have been devoured by wolves driven down from the hills in search of food during the worst winter in a decade, family members said yesterday. Villagers in Naka, a remote settlement in southeastern Paktia province, found little more than remains and bloodied, shredded clothes when they went looking for 27-year-old Sher Gull and Gull Nawaz, 32. "They had planned to go to another village to participate in a funeral ceremony. We are sure they were killed by wolves," Sher Gull's grieving father Haje Baz Khan said in his mud-brick house. Two other people from the mountainous Mosa Khel district of neighboring Khost province were also killed by wolves, locals said.
■ Japan
Princess weds commoner
The only daughter of Japan's Emperor Akihito, Princess Sayako, was formally engaged to an urban planner yesterday following a traditional ceremony held at the imperial palace. Dressed in a long, white dress embroidered with cherry blossoms, the 35-year-old princess, accompanied by Akihito and Empress Michiko, accepted a marriage proposal from commoner Yoshiki Kuroda, the royal household said. Sayako is due to marry her 39-year-old fiance, who works at the Tokyo metropolitan government, later this year. After the ceremony, Sayako said: "I would like to express my deep gratitude to both the emperor and the empress for blessing us." The families exchanged gifts of sea bream, three bottles of sake and two sets of silk, the official said.
■ United Kingdom
Ex-spook to challenge Blair
A former British counter-intelligence officer announced Friday that he intends to stand against Tony Blair, in the contest for the parliamentary seat currently held by the prime minister in Sedgefield in the northeast of England, at the UK general election widely expected to be in early May. David Shayler will be representing neither left nor right. He said he would campaign on three issues: Blair's credibility and ability to lead "in the light of his lies over the war;" the prime minister's support of "the illegal invasion of Iraq," which had put the lives of the British people at greater risk from terrorism; and Blair's "attacks on democratic rights." He said "if Blair were an American or French president, the electorate would have a chance to remove him from power."
■ United Kingdom
Suspicious moped blown up
Heidi Brown was told she could park her new scooter outside the vehicle registration office while she waited to get license plates. To her horror, it was blown up by the army after someone reported that it might be a bomb. Police in Ipswich, eastern England, confirmed on Thursday that a moped had been blown up in a controlled explosion after local businesspeople "raised concerns" that it could be a bomb. "We weren't able to identify whose vehicle it was because there were no license plates on it," said a spokeswoman for Suffolk police.
■ United Kingdom
Ozone over Britain thinning
Scientists warned on Friday that levels of protective ozone over Britain are approaching record lows. According to a monitoring center in Germany, the ozone layer above Britain was reduced to half its normal thickness on Friday, and could get worse by yesterday. Markus Rex, head of an ozone monitoring program in Potsdam, said a combination of the coldest Arctic winter on record and the current high pressure weather system over the north Atlantic had created ideal conditions for ozone loss.
■ United Kingdom
No terrine for composer
Queen's composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, is as comfortable with culinary invention as musical creation. So when a swan flew into power lines near his home on the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland and died, he recovered the carcass, informed the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds of the bird's demise, and prepared to make some fresh swan terrine. But the composer's intentions landed him in trouble, as police descended on his house on the Orkney island of Sanday, removed the swan he planned to cook, and cautioned him.
■ Germany
Lottery winner goes to work
The nation's biggest individual lottery winner had no time to celebrate after becoming 20.4 million euros (US$27 million) richer, because he was too worried about being late for work. When the salesman, who was not identified by WestLotto, arrived Thursday to buy his weekly lottery ticket at a shop in the industrial Ruhr area he was told last week's 12-euro ticket that he hadn't bothered to check had won the jackpot. The man's reaction left the lottery operator dumbfounded. "After he was told he had won the jackpot, he said he didn't have time to chat because he would get into trouble with his boss," a lottery spokesman in the western city of Muenster said. Instead, he rushed off to catch a bus to work.
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