■ Australia
Harriet going strong at 175
One of the world's oldest living animals, Harriet the tortoise, celebrated her 175th birthday yesterday with a pink hibiscus flower cake at her retirement home at the Australia Zoo, north of Brisbane. The zoo, where Harriet has spent the past 17 years, says the Giant Galapagos Land Tortoise was collected by British scientist Charles Darwin in 1835, although some historians have disputed this. There is no doubt however over the age of Harriet -- who for more than a century was thought to be a male and named Harry -- and she is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living chelonian, or reptile with a shell of bony plates.
■ Australia
Labor laws draw protests
More than 200,000 people blocked the streets in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane to protest planned new labor laws yesterday, defying warnings of hefty fines in a show of anger over the centerpiece of the government's fourth term. The protests were loudest in Melbourne, where police said more than 150,000 people walked off the job to support union-organized rallies to oppose the labor reforms currently before parliament. In Sydney, up to 30,000 people marched behind a fire truck and Korean drummers, blocking traffic and bringing parts of the city center to a standstill.
■ Kazakhstan
Ali G isn't funny in Astana
The Foreign Ministry threatened legal action on Monday against British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who wins laughs by portraying the central Asian state as a country populated by drunks who enjoy cow-punching as a sport. Cohen portrays a spoof Kazakh TV presenter, Borat, in his Da Ali G Show. Cohen appears to have drawn official ire after he hosted the annual MTV Europe Music Awards show in Lisbon earlier this month as Borat. "We do not rule out that Mr. Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind."
■ Hong Kong
Giant truffle helps charity
A group of gourmets has paid 95,000 euro (US$111,000) for a 1.2kg Italian white truffle at an auction, and the winning bidders donated the delicacy to a charity. The group of Hong Kongers outbid other competitors to win the prized delicacy in a satellite-linked auction, held simultaneously on Sunday in the territory, London and Italy. The group bought the truffle to donate it to Mother's Choice, a charity that cares for pregnant girls. Mother's Choice resold the truffle to a Taiwanese man, who bought it for about HK$725,000 (US$93,600).
■ India
Ants devour woman's eye
A woman receiving treatment for diabetes at a state-run hospital in Kolkata lost one of her eyes after ants nibbled away at it, officials said yesterday. The woman, recovering from a post-surgery infection, shrieked for help as the ants attacked her on Sunday night, but nurses told her it was normal to feel pain from the infection. Her family discovered the eye was missing on Monday.
■ Russia
Putin softens on Kuril isles
Russian President Vladimir Putin will next week call for the joint economic development of the disputed Kuril islands with Japan despite a political impasse on the issue, the Mainichi Shimbun reported yesterday. Putin, who was due to meet Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Japan on Monday, plans to propose cooperation in developing marine resources and in other areas, the daily said, quoting unidentified Russian diplomatic sources. It said Moscow wanted to show it was ready to focus on economic ties with Tokyo despite a hardline stance on the Kuril islands. A Japanese foreign ministry official said that Tokyo would not change its stance on the islands, but indicated that Japan was ready to look at economic cooperation that does not involve the Russian claim.
■ Russia
Grenade-thrower hurts five
A Russian man angered at his repeated arrests threw a grenade late Monday at a police patrol station, injuring five officers. Some of the injured sustained life-threatening wounds, a police spokesman told the Interfax news agency. The suspect holed up in an apartment near the site of the attack in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and said his motive was revenge, explaining that the police had jailed him numerous times and had ruined his life.
■ Netherlands
Sparrow shot over dominoes
A sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands, nearly ruining a world-record attempt before an exterminator shot it dead on Monday, the state news agency reported. The unfortunate bird flew through an open window at an exposition center in Leeuwarden where employees of a television company have worked for weeks setting up more than 4 million dominoes in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for falling dominoes on Friday night. Only a system of 750 built-in gaps in the chain had prevented the bird from knocking most or all of the dominoes over ahead of schedule, "Domino Day" organizers said.
■ Ireland
Nursing home lifts `spirits'
A nursing home has hit on a cheering way to keep up the spirits of its elderly patients -- by providing its own pub. St Mary's Hospital in County Monaghan believes ready access to a good pint may help its patients (average age 85) actually live longer. "We would say the whole social aspect of life does extend the years -- it means the patients aren't bored to death," Rose Mooney, assistant director of nursing said. The pub had also led to a rise in the number of visitors, she said. Having its own bar made the hospital, which has about 140 patients, unique in Ireland, she said.
■ Italy
No smoking `Sunday'
A stunned Italian actor had to stub out the cigarette he had lit up on stage after a spectator complained, forcing the theater to change the script of an Arthur Miller play to make it smoke-free."This had never happened to me in more than 300 performances,"said Sebastiano Lo Monaco. Italy has banned lighting up in all enclosed public places since January. Lo Monaco was smoking, in line with the script, while playing the main character Sunday in Miller's A View from the Bridge at a theater in Mestre, when a woman from the audience shouted "Put out that cigarette." The performance resumed with a modified script and a non-smoking protagonist.
■ United States
Minister guilty of extortion
A self-described minister was convicted of trying to blackmail New York Yankees slugger Gary Sheffield and his wife by claiming he had a video showing her having sex with R&B singer R. Kelly. A federal jury on Monday convicted Derrick Mosley, 39, of two counts of extortion and two counts of wire fraud for allegedly plotting to extort money from Sheffield and gospel singer DeLeon Richards-Sheffield. Assistant US Attorney Clarence Butler said Mosley asked Sheffield's business agent for US$20,000 to destroy a tape that Mosley claimed showed Richards-Sheffield having sex with Kelly before she married Sheffield.
■ United States
Teen-marrier charged
A 37-year-old woman was charged with child molestation after being accused of having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy whom she married last week. The woman also is allegedly pregnant with the boy's child, his grandmother and guardian told reporters on Monday. "You hear about stuff like this from the TV, but it's not reality," Judy Ann Hayles said. "But [this] happened. And this won't be over because a baby is on the way." Lisa Lynnette Clark was arrested Wednesday and remained in custody Monday. A preliminary hearing is set for Nov. 30. Hayles filed a police report on Oct. 6 when she learned from a friend that Clark was pregnant.
■ United states
Death driver not indicted
A grand jury declined to indict a bus driver in connection with the deaths of 23 passengers killed in a vehicle fire as they fled Hurricane Rita in September. The bus caught fire on Sept. 23 from a malfunctioning back wheel. After the fire started, oxygen tanks used by the patients on the bus began exploding. The sheriff's department had said Juan Robles Gutierrez, 37, a Mexican immigrant, did not inspect the bus on the 16-hour trip from Houston as Rita approached, and didn't help people when the fire broke out. But Robles' attorney, George Shaffer told Tuesday's editions of the Houston Chronicle that his client "did everything within his power to minimize the damage and loss of life."
■ United states
New NY bag tests begin
Police have introduced a new anti-terrorism tool to thwart potential subway bombers while reducing the intrusiveness of random bag searches: explosives detectors. The portable detection devices, tested at two subway stops on Monday, are designed to chemically analyze swabs taken from the outside of bags for traces of explosives, police said. Commuters in New York have experienced random bag searches since the July terrorist attacks in London.
■ United States
Kyrgyzstan deals probed
During the US-led war in Afghanistan in 2001, Washington made deals for jet fuel supplies to a US air base in Kyrgyzstan with two companies linked to relatives of the then-Kyrgyz president, the New York Times said yesterday. The deals, which may have benefited Askar Akayef and his family by hundreds of millions of dollars, are under investigation by Kyrgyz prosecutors and the FBI, the daily said. The Kyrgyz government insists the US knew the two companies they were dealing with had ties with the Akayev family. An FBI report given to Kyrgyz prosecutors, a copy of which was also handed to the New York Times, said the two companies may have been involved in money laundering through New York accounts.
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