■ New Zealand
Frustrated bomber held
Police arrested a man yesterday after he threatened to blow himself up in the city of Tauranga. A 57-year-old Slovakian man was arrested and a fake bomb was found after police entered the Devonport Towers hotel. The man entered the hotel late Thursday morning threatening to blow himself up. Staff said he wanted to speak to Prime Minister Helen Clark. A former room mate of the man said he was frustrated because immigration authorities would not renew his visa to stay in New Zealand.
■ Australia
Static man shocks staff
A man who favoured polyester clothes built up enough static electricity in his body to burn holes in the carpet he walked on, news reports said yesterday. Frank Clewer generated an estimated 30,000 volts of static electricity just in a shopping trip in the city of Warrnambool, it was reported. The first Clewer knew of it was when cracks started coming from his jacket. He left behind burn holes the size of coins. The local fire brigade was called and the building was evacuated.
■ China
Fireworks staff killed
An explosion at a fireworks factory killed 13 people and injured four others in Hunan Province, state media said yesterday. The explosion destroyed seven workshops at the Jiangnan fireworks plant in Yiyang city late Thursday afternoon, the Xinhua news agency said. "This is the most serious fireworks production accident so far this year in the province's fireworks industry," provincial safety official Wu Guanbao said. One of the four injured remained in serious condition.
■ India
Mob attacks golf course
One person was killed and 18 others injured Thursday when 150 villagers demanding jobs staged an armed assault on a golf course in the New Delhi suburbs, police said. A security guard was killed when the mob opened fire. Villagers, guards and some club members were hurt in the clashes as the protesters vandalised the Japypee Golf Club. The villagers say the club's management promised to employ people on whose land the nine-hole course was built, but later reneged on its promise.
■ China
Shanghai hikes subway fares
Managers of Shanghai's heavily overcrowded subway system have hiked fares in hopes of persuading more people to take the bus, the city government said yesterday. About 1.3 million people use the subway every day in Shanghai, a city of about 20 million people, well beyond the three lines' intended capacity. Train cars are usually jam-packed, ensuring long rush hour waits to board. Fares calculated on distance ridden rose by 1 yuan (US$0.12) on Thursday, bringing the cost of the cheapest ride to 3 yuan, the city government said in a notice posted on its Web site.
■ Myanmar
Landslide buries school
A landslide triggered by torrential rain engulfed a primary school in southeastern Myanmar and up to 30 people, most of them children, are feared dead, the Red Cross said yesterday. "So far as we heard, a primary school building was buried under a mountain of earth," a Red Cross official in Yangon, capital of the former Burma, told reporters. "Ten bodies have been found and about 20 are still missing while about 30 were injured. Most of them are young pupils," said the official, who did not want to be identified. State-owned media in military-ruled Myanmar have not reported the incident, which occurred on Wednesday in Kyaung Kaw, a village around 630km southeast of Yangon.
■ Japan
Elderly pickpocket busted
Some 81-year-olds might prefer to putter in the garden or play with their grandchildren. But Japanese police have accused an elderly man of a different past-time: picking pockets. A man identifying himself as Hiroshi Abe, 81, was arrested on Thursday in western Japan and accused of lifting a wallet from a man's pocket, police said. "There aren't many 80-year-old criminals. He's the oldest to have been arrested this year in our precinct," said a police official in Osaka, 408km west of Tokyo. The man, who had no fixed address and was carrying no identification papers, told police that he had been arrested and imprisoned before, the official said on customary condition of anonymity.
■ United Kingdom
Rapist filmed in the act
A "sadistic" rapist who used his mobile phone to film an attack on a young woman was jailed for 14 years by a British court on Thursday. Jon Leaver, 23, from Lancashire in northern England, recorded the rape to send the images to his friends. But he was unaware that he was being filmed himself on closed circuit television (CCTV). During the attack he punched his 19-year-old victim so hard that he broke her jaw in two places, as well as breaking two of her fingers. Leaver, who has a large tattoo on his stomach featuring the face of a disfigured woman, was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court of rape and causing grievous bodily harm after the jury watched the attack on CCTV.
■ Russia
Baby delivered on Aeroflot
A Russian woman gave birth on an Aeroflot plane flying to the US, Russia's flag carrier said on Thursday. Lyudmila Yalinus delivered the baby boy with the help of several flight attendants, after two doctors who were on board refused to help for unspecified reasons, said Viktor Sokolov, an Aeroflot spokesman. The delivery went well and Yalinus was able to disembark the plane on her own carrying the baby and was greeted by the infant's father, Sokolov said. "It is amazing that she was able to get off the plane herself. That speaks to the strength of women's bodies," Sokolov said.
■ Germany
`Shields' to thwart attacks
The government has reached a secret agreement with the country's nuclear power plant operators to erect electronic anti-terror "shields" to jam aircraft navigational equipment, according to a report yesterday. The federal Environment Ministry views the measure as a means of preventing a Sept. 11-style attack on nuclear facilities by terrorists using planes as bombs, the report in the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung said. The radio transmitters would jam satellite navigational equipment aboard incoming aircraft, effectively making nuclear facilities "invisible" to pilots who were not within visual distance.
■ United States
Soldier jailed for trafficking
A US soldier who was stationed in Colombia to help fight drug trafficking was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty for his role in smuggling cocaine into the US using military planes. Army Staff Sergeant Kelvin Irizarry-Melendez pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy, wrongful importation of cocaine and a charge related to taking money to Colombia. Irizarry-Melendez apologized to his family, the court and the Army in a brief statement. He said he joined in the drug ring in part to pay for medical treatments to help correct his daughter's debilitating foot problem.
■ Italy
Crime boss nabbed
Police have arrested the suspected leader of a Naples criminal clan involved in a vicious turf war that sparked dozens of murders last year, officials said yesterday. Paolo Di Lauro, considered the head of one of the feuding factions in the Camorra crime syndicate, was arrested overnight in Secondigliano, a suburb of Naples, Carabinieri paramilitary police said. A turf war between the Di Lauro clan and a splinter group that began in November claimed at least 130 lives, according to authorities, triggering a string of police crackdowns.
■ Denmark
Rembrandt portrait found
Police have recovered a self-portrait of 17th-century Dutch master Rembrandt that was stolen in a daring raid on Sweden's National Museum in 2000, a police spokesman said yesterday. Danish news agency Ritzau said the police caught the four men while they were displaying the US$40 million painting to a potential buyer at a Copenhagen hotel on Thursday evening. A police spokesman said two Iraqi men, a Gambian man and a Swede have been arrested. The painting was stolen alongside two masterworks by Renoir in December 2000. One of the Renoirs was recovered in Sweden in 2001.
■ Germany
`No smiles,' ministry says
The Interior Ministry wants people to stop smiling when they have their photograph taken for the new biometric passports. Passport photos should be taken "face on, the head uncovered, and with the most neutral expression possible," the ministry said on Thursday, six weeks before the introduction of the new identity documents on Nov. 1. "However pleasant a big smile might be, it cannot be accepted" if the biometric recognition technology was to work, the ministry said.
■ United States
Ophelia heads out to sea
Ophelia crawled north toward New England and Canada yesterday after pounding the US east coast for two days and drenching parts of North Carolina. It was also downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm. Coastal residents in North Carolina, where the storm's gusty wind ripped apart businesses and damaged homes, were hit hardest. North Carolina Governor Mike Easley said gauging the scope of the damage was difficult because of the storm's slow path. "It's almost like working three different storms," he said.
■ United States
Gonzales vows pledge fight
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the Justice Department will fight to overturn a federal court ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance can't be recited in public schools because it contains a reference to God. Gonzales said on Thursday that the pledge is one of several expressions of national identity and patriotism that mention God but don't violate the Constitution's ban on state-sponsored religion. Meanwhile, the Senate voted late Thursday to condemn Wednesday's ruling by US District Judge Lawrence Karlton in San Francisco.
■ United States
Film director Wise dies
Robert Wise, who won four Oscars as producer and director of the classic 1960s musicals West Side Story and The Sound of Music, has died at age 91. Wise died on Wednesday of heart failure after falling ill and being rushed to a Los Angeles hospital, a family friend said. Wise celebrated his 91st birthday on Saturday. He was nominated for seven Oscars during a career of more than 50 years and directed 39 films in all.
■ Canada
`Prince of pot' faces hearing
One of the world's leading cannabis legalization campaigners faced an extradition hearing yesterday in Vancouver as US drugs agencies seek to put him on trial in the US. Marc Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture, faces charges of trafficking in marijuana seeds and money laundering. His supporters demonstrated outside Canadian embassies in more than 30 countries during the past week to urge Ottowa not to yield to pressure from the US.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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