■ Indonesia
Escapees turn selves in
Many convicted criminals who fled a prison destroyed during an earthquake last week have returned and reported to the warden, police said on Monday. A total of 178 inmates escaped from the main prison on Nias, where thousands of buildings were damaged or destroyed in the 8.7-magnitude earthquake on March 28, said a police official. He said about 50 inmates have returned and police are urging the rest also to give themselves up. He did not say where the 50-odd prisoners were being housed at the moment since the prison was destroyed.
■ Indonesia
Poisoning suspects named
Police yesterday named two Garuda Indonesia crew members as suspects in the last year's poisoning death of a prominent human rights activist during a flight to Amsterdam. Munir Said Thalib, the leader of the human rights group Impartial, died on a flight on Sept. 7. A Dutch police report said the 38-year-old rights campaigner had been poisoned with nearly 500mg of arsenic, four times the lethal dose. Colonel Anton Charlian identified the new suspects as Oedi Irianto, who was working in the flight's pantry and stewardess Yeti Susmiarti. They are the second and third suspects in the case. Last month, police named Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, a Garuda pilot assigned as an aviation security officer on the flight, as the first suspect.
■ Japan
Six die in death pact
Six people died overnight when two brothers in their 40s made a pact to strangle their family and then stab each other with knives, police said yesterday. One of the brothers, Mikio Murata, 46, was the sole survivor found early yesterday in the home in Aichi Prefecture and was hospitalized. Murata admitted that he helped strangle his parents, Minoru and Kinue, both 74, his wife, Ayako, 44, his daughter, Naho, 11, and his son, Kenya, 9, police said. Murata allegedly enlisted the assistance of his younger brother Toyoharu with an understanding they would later kill each other. Toyoharu, 44, died of the knife wounds to the abdomen but Mikio survived.
■ Sri Lanka
Tigers fire on ship
Tamil Tiger rebels opened fire yesterday on a Sri Lankan navy ship that had European ceasefire monitors on board, but there were no reports of casualties, a military spokesman said. The firing took place just south of the main harbor of Trincomalee in eastern Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said. The government and the Tigers signed a ceasefire in 2002 that has largely held up, but both sides frequently accuse each other of violating the accord. Peace talks between the two sides have been stalled since April 2003.
■ Thailand
Miniature orchid developed
A researcher has developed a miniature orchid that grows only 5cm and flowers within two weeks after planting, media reports said yesterday. The new orchid, named Dendrobium scabrilingue Lindl, was developed by Prasartporn Samitamarn, director of the Plant Biotechnology Research Center at Chiang Mai University, The Nation newspaper reported. Prasartporn said the new orchid species must be grown in germ-free jars with synthetic fertilizers which allows it to flower throughout the year. The center is filing for a patent on the new orchid.
■ United Kingdom
Cutlery allowed on flights
Passengers flying from British airports will be able to dine with metal cutlery again when anti-terrorism rules banning sharp objects on board are relaxed later this month. The British government banned all such objects on airplanes after Islamic radicals used box-cutters to hijack planes in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Now improved in-flight and airport security means the rules can be relaxed, transport chiefs say. Security at Britain's three busiest airports confiscated 15,000 sharp objects from passengers in the first 12 months of the ban, said BAA, the UK's main airport operator. But from April 25, passengers flying from British airports will be able to carry on board knitting needles and scissors, with blades shorter than 3cm. Other items like penknives remain banned.
■ Guatemala
Nobel winner wins case
Five Guatemalan politicians were found guilty of racial discrimination yesterday against Nobel prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, the first such case in the Central American country. Menchu, an activist for Maya Indian rights, was the recipient of racial slurs in 2002 by members of the opposition Guatemalan Republican Front, the party of retired General Efrain Rios Montt. A panel of three judges sentenced each of the five party members to three years and two months in prison for discrimination and disturbing the peace and a fine of US$400. Each can avoid imprisonment by paying additional fines of about US$10 for each day of jail time.
■ United States
Man: Jackson fondled me
The son of Michael Jackson's former maid wept Monday as he described during explosive testimony how the star allegedly molested him three times between the ages of seven and 10. The 24-year-old man choked back tears as he told jurors in Jackson's child sex trial that the "King of Pop" first fondled his genitals more than 15 years ago and again on two later occasions. "This is so much harder than I thought," he said, dabbing his eyes with a tissue as he recalled the alleged abuse in testimony that legal analysts said amounted to a courtroom bombshell. "It's embarrassing. It was embarrassing then, and it's embarrassing now," he said.
■ United States
29 Chinese detained
Federal authorities detained 29 Chinese men who appeared to have been smuggled into the Port of Los Angeles inside two cargo containers. Port police alerted federal agents late Sunday after the men were spotted wandering in a cargo area. Two men escaped, and seven of those caught injured themselves attempting to scale fences around the area and were taken to hospitals for treatment. Three were briefly hospitalized, including one with a broken ankle, authorities said Monday.
■ France
Mona Lisa gets more room
The world's most enigmatic smile was getting a change of scene on Monday, as the Louvre shifted Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" to a larger, renovated section of the museum. The 500-year-old painting's new home is the Salle des Etats, which has undergone a four-year, 4.8 million euro (US$6.1 million) makeover designed by Peruvian architect Lorenzo Piqueras. "It's completely new, completely different," said Louvre spokeswoman Veronique Petitjean.
■ Angola
Virus kills 150 people
An outbreak of an Ebola-like virus in Angola has killed 150 people -- 20 in the past three days -- and health officials across southern Africa are scrambling to contain the disease. The Angolan outbreak has set the record for the most fatalities from the rare Marburg virus. Eighty percent of the dead have been children under 15, while one the victims was an Italian doctor. Marburg is a haemorrhagic fever in which victims die from massive bleeding, either internally or from every orifice including eyes and pores. There is no known cure or vaccine against the virus.
■ United Kingdom
Estate bans swearing
A housing estate in Brighton has taken the exceptional step of banning swearing in public. All new tenants on the Hollingdean estate in the town will be required to sign a contract agreeing, among other things, not to use foul language in public. Any who repeatedly flout the agreement could lose their homes. The move is an initiative by police, residents and the local council to crack down on antisocial behavior. The tenancy agreement for anyone moving into council and housing association homes on the estate also covers such things as fly tipping and driving inconsiderately.
■ United States
TV show nets killer
A convicted killer together with an assistant warden's wife who both disappeared almost 11 years ago were found alive by investigators acting on a tip from a viewer of the TV show America's Most Wanted, the FBI said. The escaped inmate, Randolph Dial, was found in a mobile home about 6:30pm Monday in Shelby County, Texas, an FBI news release said. The assistant warden's wife, Bobbi Parker, was found a short time later working at a chicken ranch elsewhere in the county, agents said. Investigators initially thought Parker had been kidnapped and held against her will by Dial, who escaped Aug. 30, 1994, from the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite in southwestern Oklahoma.
■ Canada
PM denies election rumors
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin on Monday dismissed feverish rumors that he may be forced to call a second general election within a year, with his Liberal party beset by a festering scandal. Ottawa has been abuzz since a US-based Web site published purported testimony from an inquiry into a multi-million dollar advertising scandal embroiling Martin's Liberal government. The testimony was subject to a publishing ban in Canada. Martin dismissed the notion that he could be forced to call a snap election should the extent of the testimony become known. The affair, which dates to the late 1990s, involves allegations that the Liberal government funneled C$100 million (US$82 million) to advertising firms in Quebec, which allegedly repaid much of that money to the Liberal Party coffers.
■ United States
WTC bomber sought
The US State Department said Monday it was offering a reward of up to US$5 million for information leading to the capture and conviction of the last remaining fugitive from the group believed to have carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In a statement released in Baghdad, the State Department said it was looking for Iraqi-American Abdul Rahman Yasin, 45, believed to have helped build the bomb used in the Feb. 26, 1993, attack that killed six people.
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