■ Singapore
German `dope' jailed
A German teenager caught smoking in the toilet of an airliner has ended up in jail after police found him with marijuana, a report said yesterday. Ray Sebastian Nantwi Lutzenkirchen, 19, was sentenced to six months in jail by a court on Friday, the Straits Times reported. He was on a Gulf Air flight from Bahrain earlier this month when a stewardess smelled cigarette smoke as he came out of the toilet. The teen was arrested when the plane landed in Singapore. A search revealed that he was carrying 1.53g of cannabis.
■ New Zealand
Telephone robber nabbed
A man who robbed an Auckland bank was so disappointed with his haul he tried again -- this time by phone, police said yesterday. "He's rung [the bank] and said `I'm the guy who robbed you the other day and I want the manager to put some money in a bag and go and stand in the street," a police spokesman said. "[He said] `I'll drive by slowly and take the bag from you and drive off.'" The man did not appear, but called again to arrange a second rendezvous. Police traced the calls and arrested a man yesterday.
■ North Korea
US envoy denounced
Pyongyang has denounced a recent attack on its regime by the US ambassador to South Korea as "declaration of a war" and vowed retaliation. Alexander Vershbow called North Korea a "criminal regime," citing illicit activities it is allegedly involved in. Vershbow's comments are "a sort of provocative declaration of a war ... and [North Korea] will mercilessly retaliate against it," an unidentified North Korean spokesman said.
■ Afghanistan
Police killed in raids
Nine policemen were killed in two separate attacks by Taliban guerrillas, police said yesterday. The incidents happened in the southern province of Helmand on Friday night. They said five guerrillas also died in one of the attacks. Seven policemen were killed in Hazar Joft district after dozens of insurgents raided and burned the district and police headquarters and the other two died in a raid in Baghran district, they said. Helmand was a key Taliban bastion until US-led forces overthrew their government in 2001.
■ China
River ice causes alarm
A cold front has caused a 210km stretch of the Yellow River to become clogged with ice, forcing authorities to sound a flood alert, state media said yesterday. The ice jam is concentrated in the Ningxia Hui region in the northwest of the country, the Xinhua news agency reported. In response, the Ningxia Flood Control Headquarters has ordered cities along the river to do what they can to remove ice and other obstacles. If that fails, the cities are to make necessary preparations to fight the floods that may result, the agency said.
■ New Zealand
Council lacks festive spirit
A Salvation Army brass band playing Christmas carols was silenced in Wellington's main shopping street because a city council official deemed it was making excessive noise, a newspaper reported yesterday. The six-piece band's playing was said to be "offensively loud," the Dominion Post reported. A spokesman for the council said it had acted following a formal complaint. "We're there to give people a message of Christmas," band member John Millar told the newspaper, dubbing the council's call mean-spirited. "We feel it's nice music and it isn't too noisy, especially compared to other buskers and bands," he said.
■ Singapore
Reporter held for longer
The Straits Times newspaper said yesterday Chinese authorities had extended the detention of its chief correspondent in China, who was arrested earlier this year on charges of spying for Taiwan. Ching Cheong (程翔), 56, was first detained in April in Southern China, and formally arrested in August. "Because the case is complex, and with the approval of the Beijing People's Procuratorate, the investigation and detention period for Ching Cheong was extended for one month," an official told the Straits Times. So far, all requests from Singapore Press Holdings, the owner of the Straits Times, for a lawyer to meet with Ching have been turned down by Beijing, the paper said.
■ South Korea
Ten day spree kills gamer
A man collapsed and died from exhaustion after playing computer games for 10 days without a proper rest, police said on Friday. The 38-year-old man collapsed on Thursday as he was playing an online game at an Internet cafe in Incheon, west of Seoul. "He was carried to a nearby hospital but declared dead on arrival," a police officer said. The officer said the man had played computer games from morning to night every day and had barely stopped to sleep. In August, a 28-year-old man died in southeastern Taegu city after playing an online computer game for more than two days.
■ United Kindom
Santa gets the sack
A British Santa got the sack and was booted out of his grotto by bouncers for spending too long chatting to children, a newspaper reported yesterday. It was more "Go! Go! Go!" than "Ho! Ho! Ho!" for actor Alan Seymour, 57, who was told to clear off when he refused to stick to a strict 30-second time limit with each Santa-loving child, the Daily Mirror said. The sessions cost ?17.50 (US$30.70) each. The actor was accused of losing customers because bored children were spending too long lining up for the grotto. Seymour, complete with white beard and red suit, claims he was frogmarched out by the heavies as he got one sack more than he bargained for.
■ United States
Hunter cheats death
A Mount Holly, Arkansas, hunter suffered hypothermia and kidney damage after becoming entangled in his deer stand and dangling upside down 9m above the ground in sleet for 8 hours. Raybon Upton was hunting by himself on Wednesday when his ankle became caught on the deer stand and he slipped. He was trapped there until about midnight when rescuers called by his wife were finally able to free him. "I just got this gut feeling that something wasn't right. And I went out there and found him," Tammy Upton said on Friday. Upton was conscious but trapped when his wife found him about 8:30pm and called for help. A firefighter was able to secure him with a rope until a fire crew with a ladder could free him.
■ United States
Student saboteur charged
A 17-year-old student accused of rigging pens to explode as revenge for being expelled was charged with nine felonies for blasts that injured three people, authorities said. The El Monte, California, teenager, whose name was not released because of his age, was charged on Friday with assault with a deadly weapon and the possession, assembly, transportation and detonation of a booby-trap or destructive device. The boy confessed to rigging the pens and "he admitted this was stupid," Detective Dennis Miller said. Prosecutors will seek to have him tried as an adult, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said in a statement.
■ The Netherlands
`Domino' sparrow honored
A sparrow that knocked over 23,000 dominoes and almost derailed a world record attempt before being shot dead will be enshrined in the Rotterdam Natural History Museum, the museum said on Friday. The ill-fated bird flew into an exposition center on Nov. 14 and began knocking over tiles that were being set up for the "Domino Day" television program before it was killed by an exterminator with an air rifle at the urging of panicked organizers. The shooting was seen by many as an overreaction, and caused a furor. A Web site was erected in honor of the bird; animal rights groups condemned the killing and prosecutors opened an investigation.
■ Greenland
Reindeer under threat
A massive surge in the reindeer population poses a threat to the island's habitat and the reindeer's chances of survival, reports said on Friday. A part of western Greenland about the size of Denmark is estimated to have some 125,000 reindeer -- a 25 percent increase since 2000, authorities in the self-governing Danish territory said. "At some stage, the grazing will be so limited that a large number of animals will rapidly starve to death," an expert said.
■ Poland
Former pope's home for sale
The two rooms and a kitchen in southern Poland where Karol Wojtyla was born in 1920 is now a shrine to the memory of the late Pope John Paul II, visited by up to 5,000 pilgrims every day. The property, owned by the heirs of a local Jewish family living in the US, is also now the target of a discreet bidding war pitting the Archbishop of Krakow, the pontiff's former confidante, against Polish and US Jewish organizations. The owners of the 19th century house in a little street behind the basilica in the southern town of Wadowice want to sell the property and expect it to fetch US$1m for the place that the Wojtyla family rented. John Paul was born in the house in May 1920 and lived there until he moved to Krakow at the age of 18.
■ United Kingdom
Thatcher's memory fading
Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's short-term memory has faded to the extent that she cannot remember the start of a sentence by the end, her daughter Carol revealed yesterday. The "Iron Lady", 80, who has suffered a series of minor strokes, can still vividly recall events in the distant past but no longer reads much because it is "pointless," Carol Thatcher said, describing her mother as "very frail." "For someone who had such an exciting life, she doesn't take well to having time on her hands," journalist and broadcaster Carol, 52, told the Daily Mail newspaper.
■ Haiti
Government retires judges
The interim government said on Friday it has removed five of the 10 judges from the Supreme Court, another move in a tense power struggle ahead of next month's national elections. The move came a day after the court ruled to uphold an earlier decision allowing US multi-millionaire Dumarsais Simeus to run for president in his native country. Michel Brunache, chief of staff for interim President Boniface Alexandre, said the government's decision to retire the judges was made long ago. It was signed during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday and five new judges have been nominated.
■ Germany
Ambassador summoned
The Foreign Ministry said on Friday it had summoned Iran's ambassador to protest against suggestions by Iran's president on Thursday that the Holocaust might not have happened and that Israel should be moved to Europe. Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said at a government news conference the decision to deliver a formal protest to Iran's envoy in Berlin was meant to show that Berlin was taking the president's comments very seriously. "We have summoned the Iranian ambassador," Jaeger told reporters. "When one summons an ambassador, then you signal the start of something in diplomacy, that there are grounds for serious discussion."
■ United Kingdom
Britain aided nuke program
Fresh and apparently incriminating documents have come to light under the Freedom of Information Act on the way Britain helped Israel obtain its nuclear bomb 40 years ago, by selling it 20 tonnes of heavy water. The government files not only confirm that Britain was a knowing party to the deal, but also contain subsequent intelligence assessments confirming that the sale of heavy water, which is used to produce plutonium, was crucial to Israel's nuclear weapons program. Kim Howells, a Foreign Office minister, had previously claimed that "the UK was not in fact a party to the sale of heavy water to Israel."
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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