■ Philippines
Arroyo wiretap a big hit
The allegedly wiretapped voice of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo discussing vote-rigging has become a hugely popular ring tone, but justice officials are not amused. "They are liable under the law," Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales said of those who download the 17-second ring tone from the Internet, or buy it on CDs being sold by street vendors and opposition activists, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper reported yesterday. The government says the recording was obtained illegally and was doctored. Authorities have barred the media from broadcasting any part of it amid opposition calls for Arroyo to step down.
■ Indonesia
Election official indicted
An election commission official was indicted yesterday, the first in a series of graft trials of members of the body that is seen as signalling President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's commitment to tackling rampant corruption. Mulyana Kusumah, a prominent academic, is accused of attempting to give an auditor 300 million rupiah (US$31,280) to overlook irregularities in the election commission's finances in last year's polls.
■ Japan
Trafficking penalties raised
The government yesterday toughened penalties for human trafficking and agreed to protect victims from deportation after international criticism that it has done too little to stop the sex trade. The lower house of parliament voted to make human trafficking a specific offense that carries up to 10 years in prison for selling another person for sex, to take their organs or other commercial purposes. A buyer will face up to five years in prison.
■ Hong Kong
Woman survives suicide pact
A woman woke up next to her dead lover three days after the pair poisoned themselves in a suicide pact. The 47-year-old woman and her 55-year-old lover took sleeping pills and burned charcoal in their sealed flat after deciding to commit suicide because of financial difficulties. However, the woman regained consciousness Wednesday morning and found her lover dead beside her. She phoned police and ambulancemen who certified her lover dead at the scene and took her to the hospital where she was in a stable condition and recovering from her ordeal. The pair had not closed all the windows in the flat.
■ Japan
Prison warden investigated
One month after Japan vowed to improve treatment of inmates, prison wardens are being investigated for allegedly giving cigarettes, alcohol and mobile telephones to jailed gangsters. The probe was launched at Miyagi Prison after media reports said wardens at the prison had fulfilled the requests of detained gangsters who fancied tobacco, telephones and select brands of alcohol. The conditions of Japanese prisons have come under fire, with record overcrowding amid a push to tougher sentences. On May 18, the parliament updated prison law for the first time in nearly a century to safeguard the rights of inmates after criticism from international groups including Amnesty International.
■ China
Man kills long-time girlfriend
A man killed his girlfriend, dismembered the body then transported the remains by bus more than 1,000km to his home town. Song Jianhua smashed his girlfriend's head with a rubber mallet before chopping her up on Jan. 6 in Beijing. Song, 49, was hired by his girlfriend to work in her clothes shop but she sacked him, sparking the grisly killing. Song said he had helped his girlfriend whenever she was in financial hardship during their 10-year relationship and resented the way he was treated. He transported her body parts in cardboard boxes to his home city Harbin because he was not familiar with Beijing and did not know what to do with the remains. His girlfriend's family reported her disappearance to police.
■ Singapore
Body parts found in boxes
Two boxes containing body parts believed to be from a woman were found by a cleaner in the Kallang River yesterday. The first cardboard box opened contained the lower abdomen of a female wrapped in a translucent plastic bag. Another box was found a few meters from the first. It contained the upper torso without the head and legs. The boxes were found in the morning during low tide, police said. The Police Coast Guard is conducting a search to locate the remaining parts.
■ Indonesia
New polio cases found
Seven new polio cases have brought the number of children infected in the country's first outbreak of the virus in a decade to 46. The WHO said that seven new cases had been confirmed on Java island in the same region as an initial diagnosis in late April that prompted the campaign to vaccinate 6.4 million children. The number of infected children was continuing to rise despite a government immunization drive to halt the virus ast month. A health official said that the victims had contracted the disease before the immunization drive but were not detected by health authorities. The government will start the next phase of immunization on June 28.
■ Russia
Animals return fom space
Russia's Foton M-2 mini-laboratory landed on earth yesterday with a "crew" of lizards, scorpions, snails and other fauna after a 16-day trip in orbit to help develop medicines against a range of diseases. The satellite, which was launched on a Russian rocket on May 31, touched down by parachute in Kazakhstan in Central Asia, although it was not immediately clear how its live contents fared on the journey. The subjects underwent numerous Russian and European experiments in orbit in the search of cures for immuno-deficient conditions, viral diseases and cancer.
■ United Kingdom
Rare `Mein Kampf' sold
An anonymous buyer paid ?28,000 (US$51,000) Wednesday at a London auction for a rare signed first edition of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. The book is thought to have been found in one of the Nazi leader's offices after the end of World War II. Published in 1923 it is a blend of autobiography and political tract. At the time of writing it Hitler was in jail for mounting an unsuccessful coup. About 500 copies of the first edition were printed. In the book Hitler elaborates his views on Aryan racial purity, hatred of Jews and rejection of communism.
■ Brazil
Vampire bats massacre 11
Eleven people have died from rabies after being bitten by vampire bats in northern Brazil in the last two weeks, health authorities reported Wednesday. The latest victim was an 11-year-old girl in Augusto Correa town in Para state. Four others died in the city in the last five days, where more than 700 people have been treated for bites from vampire bats. Health officials have started a vaccination program and set up treatment posts around the remote Amazonian town. The thumb-sized bats normally only attack large birds and sleeping cattle. They pass on rabies to cattle and domestic animals, leading to death.
■ Saudi Arabia
Suspected killers arrested
Saudi security authorities have arrested five African al-Qaeda militants suspected of killing a French engineer in the kingdom last year, the Arab News daily reported yesterday. The gang members, all from Chad, confessed to killing Laurent Barbot, a French engineer who worked for a defense electronics company, the newspapers quoted the authorities as saying. Barbot was followed by three of the suspects, who shot him with a machine gun when he stopped his car in September 2004 after leaving a supermarket in the eastern port city of Jeddah, the report said.
■ Ukraine
`Witch' arrested, charged
A Ukrainian woman was arrested for using the blood of teenagers in occult rituals, Fakty newspaper reported Wednesday. The 29-year old suspect, identified in news reports as "Diana," was a resident of the Black Sea port city Odessa. She is believed to have obtained the blood from homeless children aged from 13 to 17. A police raid of the woman's home uncovered a room used for black magic ceremonies, and other rooms housing seven homeless children. The woman told police the children gave blood voluntarily in exchange for food, a place to sleep, and alcohol or glue for narcotic use. The woman will face narcotics possession and corruption of minors charges, but none for practicing black magic as its rituals do not break Ukrainian law, police said.
■ United States
Deep Throat sells life story
Former FBI agent Mark Felt, 91, who last month revealed he was Deep Throat, has sold the film and book rights to his life story for around US$1 million. Publisher Public Affairs said the book would combine Felt's recollections about his life and his relationship with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward with material written by John O'Connor, the lawyer who wrote the Vanity Fair article that revealed Felt's identity. Universal Pictures bought an option to produce a film based on Felt's memoir of his life in the FBI, sources said.
■ Russia
Chechen linked to killing
Russian prosecutors have determined that a Chechen man who was the subject of a book by Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov ordered his murder, a spokesman said yesterday. A spokesman for prosecutor general's office identified the man as Khozh-Zkhmed Nukhayev. He said a total of four people are suspected of involvement in the killing. Two are still at large, while two others are in custody. Klebnikov, a 41-year-old American, was editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition. He was gunned down last July outside Forbes' Moscow offices.
■ United Kingdom
Sandhurst's walls breached
Defense Secretary John Reid has requested an immediate investigation into a "serious security breach" after a tabloid reporter managed to enter Sandhurst military academy where Prince Harry is undergoing training. The Sun said yesterday that its reporter gained entry to the elite academy by applying to visit the library as a history student. He had walked around the grounds, built a fake bomb device and even shot video footage of the 20-year-old prince. The Sun said the reporter spent eight hours wandering the college.
■ United States
Ex-Bush aide gets new job
A former White House official accused of doctoring government reports on climate change to play down the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming has taken a job with Exxon Mobil. Philip Cooney, who resigned as chief of staff of the White House Council on Environment Quality last weekend, will begin work at Exxon in the fall. Politicians and environmental groups in Washington condemned the move on Wednesday. "At a minimum it creates a terrible appearance," Representative Henry Waxman said. "This is one of the fastest revolving doors I have seen."
■ Mexico
Trotsky ice-pick surfaces
One of the most notorious murder weapons in modern history, the ice-pick that killed Leon Trotsky, appears to have been found, 65 years after it was apparently stolen from the Mexican police. The daughter of a former secret service agent claims she has the steel mountaineering instrument, which is stained with the blood of the Russian revolutionary. Ana Alicia Salas says her father stole the pick because he wanted to preserve it for posterity.
■ Zimbabwe
Sandals foil smuggler
Police have arrested a Nigerian man for trying to smuggle a large amount of foreign currency out of the country hidden inside his sandals, the Herald daily reported yesterday. Anthony Chinedu Kelech Olua was arrested on Monday at Harare International Airport as he tried to board a flight to Dubai with more than US$26,000, ?220 and 720 euros, the paper said. A police spokesman said Olua was spotted because the sandals he was wearing had "bulges."
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion