■ New Zealand
From tongue to lung stud
Sales of an imitation tongue stud have been banned after a 9-year-old girl inhaled one and had to undergo surgery to remove it from her lung, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs announced yesterday. The stud, which suctions onto the tongue without piercing, has been popular with teenagers and preteens. But it poses a choking hazard and can be inhaled into the lungs or airways of the wearer causing a potentially serious injury, said Consumer Affairs Minister Judith Tizard, who signed a formal unsafe goods notice.
■ Cambodia
Seige killers on trial
Eight men went on trial yesterday in connection with the armed siege of an international school near the famed Angkor temples in which a 2-year-old Canadian boy was killed. Four of them involved in the June attack have been charged with premeditated murder, the kidnapping and illegal detainment of persons for ransom and illegal use of a weapon. The charges carry penalties ranging from 15 years to life in prison. Four masked men stormed Siem Reap International School on June 16 and held about 30 students and some teachers hostage for more than six hours.
■ Indonesia
Muslims robbed in hotel
A visiting delegation from the World Muslim League has had a suitcase containing US$300,000 in cash stolen as they rested in a hotel lobby in the Jakarta, a report said yesterday. The delegation, led by secretary-general Abdullah bin Abdul Muhsin at-Turki, arrived on Thursday and was due to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono later that day. The theft on Thursday was captured on security cameras at the hotel but the face of the suspected thief was obscured, the Detikcom news agency said. Central Jakarta police chief Sukrawardi Dahlan said language barriers were hampering the investigation.
■ Hong Kong
Schoolkids jump to death
A pregnant 17-year-old schoolgirl and her 16- year-old boyfriend leapt hand in hand to their deaths wearing their school uniforms, police said yesterday. Yu See-ka and, Yik Chun-wing, leapt from the 22nd floor of a housing estate in Tai Po district. Shocked residents spotted the girl dead on the first-floor canopy, with her boyfriend lying lifeless on top of her. The couple had reportedly told friends of their turmoil over the pregnancy before jumping. Police officers investigating the deaths say that the couple sought help from parents and teachers but were unable to find a way out of their dilemma. Suicide rates have climbed sharply in recent years and people are now killing themselves at a rate of more than three a day.
■ Croatia
Robbery-free day recorded
Croatia registered its first robbery-free day in recent years, media in Zagreb reported on Thursday citing local police sources. "Between midnight and 7pm there was no such crime, which is an anomaly in recent years," police spokesman Zlatko Mehun was quoted as saying. The lull followed police action in central Zagreb on Tuesday in which two men were killed in an attempt to rob a post office. The tough police response was a mark of the new, energetic stance to a tidal wave of violent crime, which prompted a parliamentary initiative to arm police with rifles.
■ Italy
Porn tax mooted
Porn stars were up in arms on Thursday over plans by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government to introduce a tax on their work. The proceeds from the proposed new "porn tax" would go towards paying for working mothers to afford baby-sitters. The measure -- the brainchild of the National Alliance -- is due to be voted on in parliament next week. It is contained in the latest draft of next year's budget, which emerged from committee late on Wednesday. The porn tax would take the form of a 20 percent levy on the selling price or rental cost of pornographic videos and DVDs.
■ United States
Judge sanctions circus
A Fairfax, Virginia, judge issued sanctions against the owner of Ringling Bros circus for filing late and incomplete documents in a lawsuit that claims that the owner had established a spy operation against animal-rights groups. On Thursday the judge also ordered Kenneth Feld, chief executive and president of privately held Feld Entertainment, to disclose his net worth and his most recent tax returns to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The group sued Feld Entertainment more than four years ago, claiming that Feld ran an extensive corporate espionage campaign against it and other animal-rights groups.
■ United Kingdom
Cardboard cops fight crime
Cardboard cut-outs of a British policeman are helping fight crime -- even if one of them was stolen, a newspaper reported yesterday. Britain's Daily Express said the 10 life-size replicas of Derbyshire Police officer Bob Molloy were such a hit that the central English force might print off some more. Inspector Tracy Harrison said: "They have been extremely effective. One was stolen but we searched a house with a warrant and found it with other stolen goods." The cardboard cop is pictured in his trademark British policeman's hat, a reflective yellow jacket with his arms folded.
■ Canada
Polygamists face probe
US and Canadian justice officials joined forces on Thursday to investigate and possibly prosecute members of a breakaway Mormon church sect that practices polygamy, a crime in both North American nations. British Columbia Attorney General Wally Oppal said the chief concern with the sect members who live on an isolated compound on the Canadian side of the Idaho border is that it may be responsible for sexual abuse or the exploitation of children. He met on Thursday with visiting Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to discuss possible action against the sect.
■ United States
Storms disrupt school, traffic
Storms across the US' midsection delivered freezing cold and as much as 25cm of snow, bedeviling drivers on slippery roads and closing schools from Texas to Indiana. At least 10 people were killed in road wrecks in Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky over two days. The eastbound storm system was expected to leave 15cm of snow in central Illinois and 7.5cm to 13cm in the Chicago area, where by late afternoon about 30 flights had been canceled at O'Hare International and Midway. The heaviest snow -- up to 25cm -- fell along the Interstate 35 corridor into Kansas City, said a National Weather Service forecaster. Numerous vehicles slipped off roads or got into fender benders, troopers said.
■ United States
Lost winning ticket found
A US$25,000 lottery ticket was easy money for Mike Sargent of Alvarado, Texas -- until he lost it. Then it meant days of searching fields and ditches -- even sifting through a trash bin -- before help arrived from an unexpected source. Five days after he lost the ticket, Sargent got a call from Gerardo Ruiz, a water meter reader from Midlothian who returned it at the urging of his wife. "I went home and I showed [it to] my wife ... She said, `Well you better call that guy, maybe you can get a reward, because God is going to punish you if you don't return it,'" Ruiz recalled. Sargent gave Ruiz US$2,500 as a reward.
■ United kingdom
Marine denies being bullied
A Royal Marine who was filmed being kicked unconscious in a naked initiation fight, sparking a criminal investigation, insisted yesterday that he was not bullied and it was just "Marine humor." Ray Simmons, 23, told the Daily Mirror that he was the rookie knocked out by a non-commissioned officer seemingly wearing a blue surgeon's outfit, in the shocking video that was headline news in Britain last month. The video prompted an investigation by the Royal Military Police's Special Investigations Board, with the Ministry of Defense saying "behavior of this kind will not be tolerated." But Simmons said he bore no grudges, and it was just a bit of tomfoolery that got out of hand.
■ Spain
`Terror financiers' arrested
Police have arrested at least seven people suspected of financing Islamic terrorism, news reports said yesterday. The arrests began on Thursday night in the Costa del Sol region, the news agencies Efe and Europa Press reported. The detainees were suspected of raising money for an Algerian-based Islamic extremist organization, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, the agencies reported. Efe said they were arrested on orders from the National Court, the Madrid-based tribunal that oversees probes of terrorism cases in Spain. Interior Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment on the reports.
■ United Nations
Official to visit Eritrea
Jean-Marie Guehenno, the UN undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, plans to visit Eritrea to convince the African nation that its move to expel UN peacekeepers is unacceptable, a spokesman said on Thursday. Eritrea this week ordered peacekeepers from the US, Canada and European nations to leave the country within 10 days, a move likely to make the world body's observation of the tense border with Ethiopia impossible. The UN has demanded that Eritrea reverse its decision.
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