■ Japan
Pastor busted for abuse
A 61-year-old Japanese Christian pastor was arrested yesterday on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl at a church, news reports said. Tamotsu Nagata, who heads the Central Church of Holy God in the ancient capital of Kyoto, allegedly threatened the girl to keep her silent, telling her she could go to hell, Jiji Press said. Fuji TV said the Protestant pastor repeatedly assaulted the girl, a member of his congregation, until late last year. The Yomiuri Shimbun daily said Nagata was suspected of sexually assaulting several young girls.
■ Malaysia
Rude drivers in focus
The government has launched a courtesy campaign targeted at bus and taxi drivers, including courses on politeness and cleanliness in a bid to improve the image of public transportation, news reports said yesterday. The Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry will start the courses next month, the Star newspaper said, quoting the minister, Rais Yatim. Pamphlets on courtesy were already being distributed to bus and taxi operators. The campaign will run until the end of the year and was initiated following regular complaints by people about rude taxi drivers who refuse to take fares or overcharge when asked to go to out-of-the way destinations.
■ India
`Godman' stays in jail
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a life sentence for self-proclaimed godman Swamy Premananda, who was convicted of raping 13 women and murdering an aide in 1994 in southern Tamil Nadu state. A two-judge Supreme Court bench upheld the earlier sentences passed by the Madras High Court and a lower trial court in Tamil Nadu. "We do not find any infirmity in the order passed by the High Court and it does not call for any interference," the bench said. Charismatic religious leaders, who call themselves "godmen" and claim to have supernatural powers, have long flourished in India. They usually attract hordes of disciples and own vast amounts of wealth, land and fleets of luxury cars.
■ China
Hong Kong gift horse dies
A thoroughbred horse given to Beijing by the Hong Kong Jockey Club for possible competition in the 2008 Olympics was struck and killed by a car after escaping from a quarantine center, a news report said yesterday. The 5-year-old mare, Brilliant Palace, was one of 51 retired racehorses given by the Hong Kong club to the Chinese equestrian team, the Xinhua News Agency said. Witnesses said the horse escaped on Sunday from the quarantine center on the outskirts of Beijing after being startled by a dog, the report said. The horse ran several kilometers before it was struck by a car and killed, Xinhua said. The horses donated by the Hong Kong Jockey Club are retired but are suitable for show jumping or competition in the modern pentathlon.
■ Singapore
Infected elderly die
Four elderly people carrying a drug-resistant strain of bacteria died of other illnesses at Singapore's leading hospital, the facility said yesterday. They were among 41 patients at Singapore General Hospital who have tested positive as carriers of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), a microbe that primarily affects patients who are already gravely ill. The 42nd, a diabetic, is infected. Patients most at risk of VRE are those whose immune systems have already been compromised or have AIDS, cancer, kidney failure and a variety of other illnesses, doctors said.
■ Guatemala
Juvenile gang kills couple
Members of a violent Guatemalan juvenile gang, or mara, shot dead a young married couple on Tuesday as their two children aged five and three looked on, emergency workers said. Mirja Vargas, 28, and her husband Miguel Angel Culajay, 24, were killed in the early hours inside their home at Monte Carmel in San Juan Sacatepequez, some 30km west of the capital, a voluntary fire fighters' spokesman said. The children fled from their home after the parents were gunned down, and ran to neighbors where they raised the alarm.
■ United States
Gonzo goes with a bang
Hunter S. Thompson's ashes will be blasted from a cannon mounted inside a 16m sculpture of the journalist's "gonzo fist" emblem, his wife said on Tuesday. The cannon shot, planned sometime in August at his Aspen-area home, will fulfill the writer's long-cherished wish. "It's expensive, but worth every penny," Anita Thompson said. "I'd like to have several explosions. He loved explosions." Thompson, 67, shot himself in the head on Feb. 20 after a long and flamboyant career that produced such new journalism classics as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and cast his image as a hard-charging, drug-crazed daredevil. The cannon shot will be part of a larger public celebration of Thompson's life, Anita Thompson said.
■ United States
But is is art?
An Idaho strip club that attempted to get around a ban on full nudity by giving patrons sketch pads for special "art nights" was cited for violating the city's nudity rules, officials said on Tuesday. The citation was issued on Monday night to the Erotic City Gentleman's Club in Boise, Idaho. Boise allows full nudity for "serious artistic" expression only, so the club handed out pencils and sketch pads to patrons so they could sketch the naked women. A spokeswoman said officials concluded, however, that patrons were not focused on art, so officers cited three dancers for violations of the city nudity ordinance. Erotic City owner Chris Teague called the citations a violation of the civil rights of the dancers, as well as an "insult to the patrons."
■ United States
Delivery man trapped in lift
A Chinese food delivery man was found trapped in a broken elevator on Tuesday, more than three days after he was reported missing, police said. Ming Kung Chen, 35, who worked for the Happy Dragon restaurant in the Bronx, was reported missing late on Friday when he did not return an hour after setting out on a delivery. Police said he was found at about 6am on Tuesday and was hospitalized with dehyd-ration. Police were unable to question him immediately because he did not speak English. Newspapers had reported the Chinese community feared that Chen might have been a victim of robbery or foul play by immigrant smugglers.
■ United Kingdom
Judge grounds flying thief
A high-flying thief who traveled the world pilfering cash and jewelry from luxury hotel rooms has been grounded by a British judge. Colombian national Gonzalo Zapater Vives was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison on Monday at London's South-wark Crown Court. Prosec-utors said Zapater modeled himself partly on Frank Abagnale, Jr, the suave con man played by Leonardo Di Caprio in the film Catch Me if You Can.
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