Print

Mail

wiki links

World News Quick Take

■ China
Rats ravage crops
Rising waters in central Dongting Lake, one of the nation's largest freshwater bodies, are forcing millions of rats into surrounding farmlands where the rodents are ravaging crops. The plague of rats has gotten so bad that officials are paying 0.2 yuan (US$0.02) per rat tail collected, with one farmer bringing in more than 1,000 tails in a two-day period. According to one township, between 400 to 700 rats were found in each hectare of farmland, while in some places the number exceeded 1,200.

■ Thailand
Phuket to sponsor gayfest
Phuket has agreed to host the Nation Party, Asia's largest annual gay festival, in November after organizers were refused a license to stage the event in Singapore. "They have the right to hold it here as long as they don't break any laws or engage in immoral practices," Phuket Governor Udomsak Uswarangkura said. As a way to get the island resort back in business in the wake of the Dec. 26 tsunami, they are welcoming the gay festival, set for Nov. 4 to 6. Last year's Nation Party generated US$6 million in revenues.

■ South Korea
More defectors from North
A North Korean civilian couple crossed into South Korea and tried to defect. The couple, identified by the husband's surname "Choi," was spotted sailing in a boat near the border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea on Friday. Choi was determined to leave the communist state since his mother and younger brother were executed in 2004 for experiments on human bodies. A 20-year-old North Korean soldier was also found hiding in a truck parked in a public park near the Demilitarized Zone on Friday.

■ China
Obesity a growing problem
At least 200 million people will suffer from obesity within 10 years if current trends spurred by unhealthy lifestyles continue, state press said yesterday. Currently there are 90 million obese citizens whose weight is more than 20 percent in excess of their accepted level, said the Information Times, citing medical experts. Ten percent of children were obese with the number increasing by 8 percent annually, Chen Chaogang, a leading doctor at the hospital attached in Zhongshan University, Guangdong Province, told the paper. High fat fast-food diets and round-the-clock snacking were to blame, it said, adding Chinese had happily adopted more sedentary lifestyles centred around the TV, computer and automobile. Genetic factors were responsible for 16 percent of the obese, the paper said.

■ China
Attack suspects detained
Police have detained 22 suspects in an attack on a shantytown in the village of Shengyou, Hebei Province, that killed six people and wounded scores in a dispute over land, the government said yesterday. Villagers who were occupying the site of a planned power plant in a dispute over compensation for their land were attacked by as many as 300 men armed with guns, clubs and knives last weekend. Police believe the attack was plotted by the project's contractor and her husband, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Yesterday's announcement didn't identify those detained or say whether the contractor and her husband were among them.

■ India
Forgetful groom murdered
A man who forgot to invite some of his relatives to his wedding was bludgeoned to death by them in Mumbai, police said on Friday. Sakharam Bapu, 28, was sleeping in his house when he was thrashed with iron rods by the seven relatives who had gagged his wife, police told the Press Trust of India news agency. Police said the men had apparently barged into Babu's wedding feast about two months ago and had threatened to take "revenge" for not being invited. A search has been launched for the assailants.

■ The Philippines
Martial law threat denied
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo won't declare martial law, her spokesman said yesterday, denying rumors that she will impose emergency measures to clamp down on opponents who claim she rigged last year's election. A text message sent to cellular telephones in Manila and elsewhere on Friday claimed that Arroyo will declare martial law "on or before June 21," the day the House of Representatives starts hearings on an alleged wiretapped recording of the president and an election official talking about rigging the vote. Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye called the rumors a feeble attempt by Arroyo's opponents to discredit her.

■ Sri Lanka
UNICEF to help child soldiers
UNICEF agreed yesterday to work with Tamil Tiger rebels to tackle the issue of child soldiers, the executive director of the UN childrens' agency said after talks with a rebel leader. Ann Veneman, said she had discussed the question of underage combatants in rebel-held areas with the Tiger's political wing leader. UNICEF has repeatedly asked the Tigers to give up the practice of recruiting boys and girls below the age of 18 years.

■ United States
Kangaroo baffles residents
A kangaroo has been on the loose for the last several months outside Charleston, West Virginia, perplexing authorities who have had problems catching it. The 1m kangaroo, believed to be a male, comes out mostly at night or in the early morning, officials said. He makes appearances in backyards and on the county's rural roads. "People will call in and say, `I swear I'm not drunk or on drugs, but I just saw a kangaroo,'" state conservation officer Clyde Armstead said Thursday. The first person to report seeing the kangaroo called police one week after Christmas, saying the animal was in their yard. "The dispatcher thought someone was celebrating New Year's early,'' Armstead said.

■ United Kingdom
Jewel thief escapes custody
A jewel thief who lived a life of luxury by plundering the rooms of wealthy guests at top hotels all over the world has absconded from prison after being allowed out to attend a hospital appointment. Juan Carlos Guzman-Betancourt, 29, who modelled himself on fictional conmen such as the gentleman thief Raffles, was serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence in Standford Hill jail, on the Isle of Sheppey, southern England, after Scotland Yard seized him last year. The son of a Colombian diplomat, who speaks several languages and has 10 aliases, was allowed out of the low security prison for a medical appointment on June 6.

■ Serbia
Paramilitary gets 20 years
A court on Friday sentenced paramilitary Sasa Cvjetan to 20 years imprisonment for his part in the murder of 14 Kosovo Albanian civilians in 1999 during the NATO air war against Yugoslavia. Cvjetan had been found guilty and given an identical sentence in March last year, but the Supreme Court overturned the verdict because of technical omissions and ordered a retrial. The burly, short-haired Cvjetan, 30, was a member of the Scorpions, a paramilitary group which operated within Serb special police units in Kosovo and was active on Croatian and Bosnian territory during the 1990s Yugoslav wars.

■ N Ireland
Catholics, Protestants clash
Skirmishes broke out Friday night in north Belfast as a Protestant march passed by a hostile Catholic area, a journalist said. A thousand young Catholic and republican demonstrators attacked members of the marching Orange Order with bottles, stones and golf balls while several hundred riot police officers tried to separate the two groups. According to the police, several people were injured among both those marching and the police. The security forces lined up a barricade of around 100 armored vehicles the length of the intersection of the Catholic Ardoyne area and the Protestant stronghold of Twaddell Avenue, where a thousand loyalists gathered.

■ Germany
Roy begins rehabilitation
Illusionist Roy Horn has checked into a rehabilitation facility, 18 months after a near-fatal tiger mauling during a performance left him partially paralyzed. No details of the 60-year-old Horn's condition or treatment were released. The rehabilitation facility is in Bad Hellibrun. Horn, of the famed duo "Siegfried & Roy," was attacked by a 172kg tiger named Montecore during a live show Oct. 3, 2003, at The Mirage resort in Las Vegas. The 7-year-old tiger bit into the performer's neck and dragged him off the stage.

■ Venezuela
Head of intelligence replaced
The government replaced the chief of intelligence agency Friday after a scandal in which a Colombian drug suspect allegedly bribed his way out of the agency's headquarters. Army Colonel Henry de Jesus Rangel will succeed Miguel Rodriguez as chief of the Disip intelligence agency, Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said. "We want to deepen the transformation process in the Disip," said Chacon, adding that Rodriguez was not a suspect in the Colombian's escape.

■ Guatemala
Explosions rock military base
Huge explosions rocked a military base just north of Guatemala City early yesterday in a blast apparently fueled by munitions stored there. Authorities evacuated residents who live near the Mariscal Zavala brigade base on the city's outskirts, after the accident was releasing white phosphorous gas, a toxic ingredient in some munitions. "We are evacuating everybody who lives around the base," volunteer fire brigade official Mynor Cholotio said. "The smoke contains white phosphorous, which is highly toxic and causes respiratory problems." The explosions could be heard for miles. Soldiers barred firefighters and news media from entering the base, and there was no immediate information on injuries, deaths or damages.

■ Holy See
Priest's sainthood postponed
Pope Benedict XVI has suspended the planned beatification of a French priest while the Vatican investigates allegations of anti-Semitism in his writings. The case of the Reverend Leon Dehon, who founded the priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus religious order in 1877, would have been beatified had Pope John Paul II lived a few weeks longer. The ceremony to beatify Dehon, the last step before possible sainthood, was scheduled for April 24. John Paul died on April 2 and Benedict was installed as pope April 24, forcing the beatification ceremony to be put off. Rather than rescheduling the ceremony, Benedict decided to form a commission to study his case, after French bishops complained.

■ Chile
Rodin sculpture recovered
A boy found a sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin that had been stolen from the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts and delivered it to a police station. He found the US$515,000 sculpture in a park near the museum where The Trunk of Adele, a 26cm-by-45cm, 20kg bronze piece, was stolen Thursday. "When he saw the news on television and realized how important it was, he took it to police," said Clara Budnik, head of the National Archive and Libraries Department. "There is no doubt, it's the stolen sculpture," she said. "It has the stamp `AZ Rodin 6137' that identifies it."

■ United States
Ex-envoy caught in tax scam
A former envoy for Afghanistan's Taliban leadership pleaded guilty to cheating on his taxes and lying on a bank loan application. Noorullah Zadran, 53, once a top spokesman for the Taliban in the US, entered the plea to federal charges in Manhattan. He faces between two and eight months in prison at his sentencing in September. Zadran admitted that he failed to report US$1,541 in income on his 2000 federal tax return. He also said he wrote on a loan application that his wife was working when she was unemployed to get a lower interest rate. "This is a nothing case," said Zadran's attorney, Jared Scharf, outside court.

This story has been viewed 1658 times.