■ Thailand
Tsunami body exhumed
The body of a Swedish tsunami victim has been exhumed from the graveyard where she was mistakenly buried in Thailand so that her body can finally return home, officials said yesterday. The body of Sonya Katrina Thuresson, 49, had been mistakenly claimed by a Thai Muslim family shortly after the disaster. She was quickly buried in a cemetery in Krabi province following Muslim tradition, said Colonel Khemarin Hassiri, who heads the victim identification unit. The mistake was discovered on April 4 when DNA tests showed that the body was actually Thuresson, he said.
■ Australia
Slashed robber escapes
A burglar was killed and another suffered deep cuts after a man seized a samurai sword during a bungled robbery in Melbourne, police said yesterday. Two burglars bound and assaulted the two residents, a man and a woman, Victoria state police said. "The man was able to get hold of a sword it is believed one of the intruders brought with them," the statement said. One robber was killed and the other suffered cuts to the leg and hands before fleeing, police said. Senior Constable Wayne Wilson said the second burglar was likely to seek medical treatment. "We are asking any medics who might treat a fellow with [sword] injuries to contact us," Wilson said.
■ China
More miners perish
A mine gas leak killed 17 people on Monday in the city of Xinzhou in northern Shanxi province, killing 13 miners. "Management sent a team of six rescuers down the pit, but two of them suffocated," Xinhua news agency said. Two other miners in a neighboring pit were also killed, it added. The Fenhemao Coal Mine's business certificate and production permit had both expired, Xinhua said, quoting mine safety officials. State media said government officials had divested more than US$50 million in coal mines as Beijing steps up efforts to prevent collusion between officials and owners in the world's most dangerous mining industry, which kills about 6,000 people a year.
■ Australia
Missing tourist sought
A search was stepped up yesterday for a 63-year-old German woman who went missing in a remote national park. She was with a group of 22 German women visiting Geikie Gorge National Park, 20km from Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The woman got separated from her companions on Monday morning on a remote walking trail. The temperature at the time was 45oC. A police spokesman said authorities were becoming "very, very concerned for her welfare." Around 30 people are involved in the search, as well as a helicopter, a boat and horses.
■ China
Gamma rays kill resident
An elderly woman has died and at least 114 people suffered radiation poisoning, after a man stored a radioactive rod at his home in Harbin, state media said yesterday. Health officials discovered the poisoning after a girl complained of swollen and ulcerated hands, the official China Daily said. The rod contained iridium-192, a gamma-ray source commonly used in industrial imaging. Bai initially claimed his nine-year-old son had taken the rod, which police estimated would have weighed some 50kg. He later admitted that he had found it in a bag of scrap metal.
■ United States
Maniac slashes four
A knife-wielding man slashed at four people in a park near the White House on Tuesday and two were taken to hospital, police said. "A suspect was arrested by the uniformed division of the Secret Service and handed over to Park Police," US Park Police Lieutenant Phil Beck said. The suspect is now being held at Anacostia police station in Washington. Beck said that shortly before noon, a man slashed at four persons, who called for help from a police officer patrolling in Lafayette Park, just north of the White House.
■ United States
Serial killer to stand trial
A former pizza deliveryman accused of being one of Los Angeles' most prolific serial killers was ordered to stand trial on charges of murdering 10 women, two of whom were pregnant. Superior Court Judge William Pounders ruled during a preliminary hearing on Tuesday that there was sufficient cause to believe Chester Turner committed the slayings that occurred from 1987 to 1998. Turner, 38, is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence in an unrelated rape case. Pounders set a Nov. 15 arraignment date. Turner's DNA was matched to sperm cell evidence from the bodies of all the victims, said Carl Matthies of the police department's scientific investigations division. The likelihood of the genetic profile belonging to someone other than Turner was one in one-quintillion, Matthies said.
■ United States
Burglar burns pizza
A California pizza parlor burglar paused to make a pizza before fleeing with US$3,000. A security camera showed the intruder playing pizza chef after breaking into Sonny's Pizza and Pasta through a bathroom window early on Monday, the Orange County Register reported, citing Lieutenant Ted Boyne of the local sheriff's department. The burglar put on an employee's shirt after entering the pizza parlor a couple of hours after midnight, then he made a pizza, spreading sauce, cheese and pepperoni over the dough and placing it in the oven, the lieutenant said. Employees arriving about 3am apparently scared him off before the pizza was ready, Boyne said.
■ Germany
Cannibal to be retried
A self-confessed cannibal will be retried in Germany in January after a federal court overruled as too lenient his sentence for killing and eating a willing victim he met on the Internet, authorities said on Tuesday. A spokesman for the regional court in the western city of Frankfurt said that Armin Meiwes' new trial would begin on Jan. 12. Meiwes was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in jail in January last year after being found guilty of manslaughter in a case that fascinated and appalled Germans.
■ Zimbabwe
Minister admits failure
A senior minister in Robert Mugabe's government admitted for the first time on Tuesday that Zimbabwe's bungled farm seizures are to blame for repeated crop failures. "The problem is we gave land to people lacking the passion for farming, and this is why every year production has been declining," said the deputy agriculture minister, Sylvester Nguni. Formerly white-owned farms were given to "people without the faintest idea of farming," he said. He conceded that this was the main cause of the massive crop failure, which has left more than 30 percent of Zimbabwe's people dependent on food aid.
■ United States
Bond denied for flu shot faker
A federal judge denied bond for a man accused of providing fake flu shots for hundreds of Exxon Mobil employees and senior citizens, declaring him a flight risk. Iyad Abu El Hawa, 35, is charged with defrauding the government health insurance program by giving senior citizens shots filled with water instead of flu vaccine and billing the government. El Hawa's attorney, Alphonsus Ezeoke, suggested his client may have been set up by a man who owes him money. "I don't see how he is a flight risk, especially when we are willing to surrender both of his passports and his green card," Ezeoke said on Tuesday.
■ United Nations
Holocaust resolution passed
The General Assembly adopted a resolution on Tuesday to establish an annual day to commemorate victims of the Holocaust, reject denials that the genocide occurred, and urge countries to educate their citizens about the World War II killings. The date chosen was Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. The resolution also commends countries that preserve Holocaust sites and asks the secretary general to establish a program of remembrance and education. "Resolutions come and go, but this one you could call eternal because it means that every year from now on there will be a commemoration," said Dan Gillerman, the UN ambassador from Israel.
■ Iran
Small blast targets UK firms
A small explosive device went off outside the offices of British Airways and oil company British Petroleum in the capital Tehran yesterday, without causing casualties, witnesses said. "It was a weak charge placed on the stairs. It exploded on the 10th floor of Sayeh building," a witness said. "A door leading to the stairwell was damaged, but the offices of the two companies were not. Nobody was hurt." A similar explosion took place outside the two offices on Aug. 2.
■ Germany
Party to select chair
Germany's Social Democrats were to meet yesterday to install a new party chairman as conservative Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel vowed that the turmoil among her left-wing partners wouldn't unravel her proposed coalition government. A group of top Social Democratic officials nominated Matthias Platzeck to take over the party chairmanship from Franz Muentefering. The party leadership was to formalize the nomination yesterday. On Tuesday, top conservative, Edmund Stoiber, pulled out as Merkel's economy minister, saying the departure of Muentefering meant the situation had changed.
■ United Kingdom
Police avert attacks
British forces have thwarted attempts to carry out more terror attacks since the July 7 London bombings and a botched repeat bids July 21, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said in the Sun newspaper yesterday. "The sky is dark. Intelligence exists to suggest that other groups will attempt to attack Britain in the coming months," he said. Sir Ian said it could take weeks or months to understand material that was found. "One case involved an encrypted computer, which was the equivalent of 60,000 feet [20,000m] of paper. Was there a vital clue in there somewhere? Yes, but we were fortunate that it was near the beginning, otherwise we would never have found it within time."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not