■ New Zealand
Teen caught in drug delivery
A teenager caught sneaking into a prison has been sentenced to a week in one of its cells. Johnathan William Reedy appeared in court for attempting to break into Hawke's Bay Regional Prison on July 24. He pleaded guilty to charges of unlawfully being in an enclosed yard and supplying marijuana. Police said Reedy, 17, climbed a perimeter fence into the prison grounds and was seen making a mobile phone call before throwing two items into the prison and running off -- later found to be an apple and a bag containing one ounce (28g) of marijuana.
■ China
Teacher sentenced to death
A teacher who raped 23 fourth- and fifth-grade girls in his office has been sentenced to death. Parents and students in Xinji village said that the teacher, Li Guang, had sent girls to buy him cigarettes and when they returned, raped them in his office while the rest of the students held a study hall in the classroom. Li was ordered to pay US$170 to two victims for medical costs, while his school was ordered to pay those girls US$42.51. But the court ruled that none of the girls was eligible for broader compensation from the country school district.
■ Australia
Helicopters to boost defense
The country will boost its defenses against terror threats to its biggest cities by deploying a helicopter squadron near Sydney, Defense Minister Robert Hill said yesterday. Twelve Black Hawk helicopters and about 200 staff would be moved from the northern city of Townsville at the end of next year to a barracks just outside Sydney to train and work with special forces and commandos.
■ Japan
`Gates of Peace' inaugurated
Hiroshima yesterday dedicated a "Gates of Peace" monument one week before the city marks the 60th anniversary of the world's first nuclear bombing. The gates, designed by French artist Clara Halter and architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, features 10 translucent 9m arches spread over a stone walkway with the word "peace" inscribed in 49 languages. The gates stretch some 100m along a boulevard facing the Peace Memorial Park. The privately funded monument was dedicated by Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, who came up with the idea of 10 gates symbolizing Dante's nine circles of Hell plus one more: Hiroshima.
■ Japan
Pacifists rally in Tokyo
Almost 10,000 people gathered in Tokyo yesterday to voice their opposition to the government's bid to change the pacifist clause of the Constitution. Japan abandoned the right to wage war or maintain a military under Article 9 of the Constitution. The wording has been interpreted to allow for self defense forces, but the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is pushing for change. Saturday's meeting was organized by the Article 9 Association, founded by nine supporters of the pacifist clause, including Nobel prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe and Mutsuko Miki, wife of former prime minister, Takeo Miki.
■ Hong Kong
US official meets Tsang
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said yesterday that he'll discuss foreign policy and economics with senior Chinese officials when he travels to Beijing this weekend. Zoellick made the remarks after meeting with Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) for 30 minutes. He is the highest-ranking US official to meet with Tsang since the veteran civil servant took over the territory's top job last month. "It was a chance to get a better sense of what's happening in Hong Kong and also to get [Tsang's] views on China," Zoellick said. As for his meetings in Beijing today, he said:"I hope we'll enable the US and China to get a better sense of where there are points of mutuality, [which] I believe to be many, to work co-operatively, and also where we have differences how best to manage them."
■ Singapore
Python skins confiscated
A half-tonne consignment of python skins hidden among audio speaker parts was seized by immigration officers on the border with Malaysia, authorities said. The skins were found after the truck was put through a scanning system on Wednesday, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority said in a statement. The 36-year-old Malaysian driver was arrested and faces a fine and up to one year in jail. The Straits Times said the skins were worth about S$45,000 (US$27,110).
■ Russia
Moscow keeping Kurils
Russia will not cede the disputed south Kuril islands to Japan, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated yesterday as he toured Russia's Far East. "We do not intend to make any territorial concessions, we do not intend to leave," Ivanov told reporters after returning from one of the disputed islands, where an artillery division headquarters and a border guards corps are located.
■ N Ireland
Watchposts taken down
Britain began dismantling Northern Ireland army watchposts on Friday after a pledge by Irish republican guerrillas to lay down arms revived peace efforts in the province. The move made good on commitments by Britain and Ireland to carry out promises delayed by the Irish Republican Army's past failure to disarm and came as work resumed to secure a political deal that would restore a suspended regional government. Pulling down eight hill-top watchtowers along the Irish border is one of the actions long demanded by Irish nationalists to normalize life in a province slowly emerging from a 30-year conflict in which 3,600 people were killed.
■ United States
Church sacks child molester
The Vatican has defrocked the priest who was the first in Massachusetts convicted of sexual abuse more than two decades ago, the Boston Archdiocese said Friday. In 1984, Eugene O'Sullivan was sentenced to probation after he admitted sodomizing a 13-year-old altar boy. A condition of his sentence was that he not be allowed to work with children. But O'Sullivan was later assigned to four New Jersey parishes. He was recalled to Boston in 1992 after church officials learned of another allegation against him dating to his time in Massachusetts. The Vatican's action to defrock O'Sullivan means he may no longer function as a priest in any capacity, except to offer absolution to the dying.
■ United Kingdom
Pedophile returns home
A notorious serial pedophile jailed for more than three decades in Australia arrived back in Britain yesterday after being deported by Australian authorities. British-born Robert Ernest Excell, 66, spent 37 of the past 39 years in prison for child sex convictions dating back to 1965, when he sodomized a 7-year-old boy. Excell was met by British police on his arrival at London's Heathrow airport and was ushered out under a blanket by officers to avoid waiting media. He will be placed on the Sex Offenders Register, which will impose reporting requirements on him. He will not be detained, but will be monitored by a team of police, probation officers and social workers.
■ Ghana
Women, children exploited
The country is a source, transit point and destination for women and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced domestic commercial labor, a US official said in Accra on Friday. Rachel Yousey of the US Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons said a report on the human trafficking situation in Ghana showed that children were trafficked internally for forced labor in fishing villages and cocoa plantations and were sent to urban areas in the South to work under exploitative conditions as domestic servants and street vendors.
■ Ireland
Big winner in euro lottery
Someone in Ireland has scooped one of Europe's biggest lottery prizes -- winning 115 million euros (US$139.2 million) in the multi-nation EuroMillions jackpot. "There was one winning ticket of Friday night's EuroMillion jackpot and the winning ticket was sold in Ireland," the Irish lottery said on its Web site. It did not identify the winner. The prize, for which tickets are sold in Britain, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, France, Luxembourg, and Spain, reached 115 million euros after nine successive roll-overs.
■ United States
Bush likely to appoint Bolton
Administration officials say President George W. Bush is preparing to use constitutional powers rarely employed for major appointments to bypass the Senate and install -- if only temporarily -- John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN. Bush intends to use a recess appointment to put the controversial conservative in the post before leaving Washington on Tuesday to spend August at his Texas ranch, said two officials.
■ United Kingdom
Amateur's sentence reduced
A young man who shot a nightclub doorman received a reduced prison sentence yesterday after a judge noted that he was evidently not an experienced gunman, having managed to accidentally shoot himself in the process. Dwayne Eversley, 21, was jailed for 12 years for shooting and seriously injuring a doormen who had just thrown him out of a nightclub for being aggressive. However, on trying to open fire Eversley managed to first shoot himself in the leg. Along with his youth, such a bungle meant the sentence was not a severe as it might have been, the judge told Eversley.
■ Lebanon
Vote of confidence passed
The new Lebanese government headed by Fuad Siniora, the first of the post-Syrian era, is set to win parliamentary approval today after three days of debate. The main anti-Damascus alliance which nominated Siniora has an eight-seat majority in the 128-member legislature following parliamentary elections in May and June. Siniora on Thursday presented a series of reforms to parliament on Thursday, pledging a program to focus on national reconciliation and democracy. After the confidence vote, Siniora is to make his first official visit abroad today to Damascus to try to improve relations that have deteriorated since the troop pullout.
■ United Kingdom
Protester wins court case
An anti-war protestor who has camped outside the Houses of Parliament for four years won a court battle yesterday over legal moves to evict him. Brian Haw, 56, has been protesting in Parliament Square since 2001, initially against sanctions on Iraq and later against Britain's involvement in the US-led war to remove former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Since the protest began, Haw has slept at his camp, which has gradually acquired a huge collection of anti-war placards. The 24-hour a day protest has irritated many lawmakers, and earlier this year the government passed a new law forcing people to obtain police permission before mounting protests in certain areas, including Parliament Square. But yesterday the High Court ruled that the act only applied to new demonstrations, not to one which had been in progress for some time.
■ Canada
Divers seeking cheese
A team of divers are searching at the bottom of the Baie des Ha! Ha! in northeastern Canada for 800kg of cheddar sunk by an entrepreneur hoping to revolutionize cheese making. "A few years ago, a fisherman came to us and said he'd found a piece of Boivin cheese at the bottom of a lake where he'd been diving. He told us it was one of the best cheeses he'd ever eaten," dairy owner Luc Boivin said. So the family cheese-dairy chucked 10 barrels containing the cheddar into 40m of water at the bottom of the Baie des Ha! Ha! in the Saguenay region. The owner asked divers to collect the cheese, but several searches returned empty-handed.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number