■ Malaysia
Angler hooks dead body
A Malaysian angler who thought he had snagged a winner when he hooked a heavy object during a fishing competition was horrified to find a woman's corpse. The New Straits Times reported yesterday that he made the grisly discovery when he hooked the body in a weed-filled area of a city lake where a Malay-language newspaper was holding its annual fishing competition. District police spokesman Mohamad Yusuf Shuib said the corpse, believed to be an ethnic Malay woman in her 20s, had been in the lake for about three days. "There were no documents on her, and no apparent injuries," Yusuf said.
■ Hong Kong
Tsang has bad feng shui
Feng shui masters have predicted a bleak year for Hong Kong and its troubled Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權), a news report said yesterday. One of the experts in the ancient Chinese art said he saw a "tough year" ahead for Hong Kong people. "There will be endless arguments and negotiations in Hong Kong as well as the rest of the world," feng shui expert Mak Ling-ling told the South China Morning Post. "Votes will have to be cast again and again because politicians with largely diverse views cannot yet reach a consensus," he said.
■ Singapore
Youth arrests on the rise
Youth arrests in Singapore have climbed to the highest level in five years, with the offenders becoming younger and bolder, police data indicated yesterday. Arrests of those aged 19 and under numbered 2,428 during the first half of last year and accounted for 19 percent of the total number of arrests, according to a breakdown in the Straits Times.
■ Thailand
Would-be rapist loses tongue
A Thai cafe singer bit off the tongue of an alleged rapist as he tried to attack her in his taxi in the fourth such case of self-defense here in 15 months, police said yesterday. The woman, Patcharee Jirangda, 32, was allegedly attacked by a driver who took her to a remote area, stopped his car and tried to rape her. She walked into a police station "with about an inch [2.5cm] of the taxi driver's tongue," a police official told reporters. He said the driver was still at large.
■ Indonesia
Floods kill at least 24
Flash floods swept away houses and schools in central Indonesia early yesterday, killing at least 24 people, a government official said, predicting the toll would rise. Villages were inundated when overnight rains triggered a landslide on a hill in Panti, a subdistrict of East Java province, and forced a river to break its banks. Hundreds of people sought shelter from the surging waters in mosques and boarding schools."We have confirmed 24 deaths so far," said Burhanudin, a top official in Panti, as he awaited casualty figures from two other affected villages. "At least 30 others have been injured." Heavy tropical downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia. Hundreds of houses and boarding schools were destroyed before the rains subsided late yesterday morning, Burhanudin said.
■ Japan
Woman killed by snowfall
A woman in central Japan was killed when snow slid off her garage roof and buried her, a policeman said yesterday. Toshiko Hazama, 75, apparently suffocated on Sunday afternoon when about 120cm of snow came down in a rush while she and a 22-year-old man tried to remove it from the roof, area policeman Hiroshi Ninoshima said. The man was unharmed. The woman lived in the Gifu prefecture city of Gujo -- about 275km west of Tokyo -- a region that has seen record-breaking snowfalls this winter.
■ China
Panda births hit record
A record 21 surviving baby pandas were born in China's zoos and breeding centers last year, state media said yesterday. Sixteen pandas were born at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the rare animal's biggest natural habitat, the China Daily newspaper said. The rest were born in research centers in the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, in Luoguantai in the northwestern Chinese province of Shaanxi, and at the Beijing Zoo. "Despite the early deaths of a few baby pandas, 2005 has witnessed the largest number of surviving newborn pandas in China's history of artificial fertilization on the rare species," Na Chunfeng, an official with State Forestry Administration, said.
■ Malaysia
Elephant attacks man
A Malaysian man who was sleeping in a jungle hut was rudely awakened when an angry wild elephant tore down his shelter and attacked him, news reports said yesterday. The 26-year-old man said he was fast asleep during the predawn incident on Sunday when he suddenly felt his tiny hut shaking violently. "I can't remember the exact time but I heard huffing sounds and suddenly felt the whole hut collapsing. I felt a piercing pain on my right thigh and below my right armpit," he was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper. He said the elephant continued to attack him after the hut collapsed.
■ Germany
Couple shot during fireworks
Police were on Sunday investigating the shooting deaths of a man and a woman in the western town of Iserlohn during the din of New Year's Eve fireworks. A cousin of the man said the gunman walked up to all three of them as they were standing outside a house, about 40 minutes before the New Year was to be rung in. The attacker insulted the woman, then shot all three in the head. Other witnesses heard a car drive away. The cousin, 18, who survived with non-critical head wounds, said the attacker was a stranger to him. Police have made no arrest yet.
■ France
Woman gives birth in plane
An airplane flying to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion landed with an additional passenger after a woman gave birth in the aircraft's toilet, the airline said on Sunday. The Air Austral flight had been in the air more than five hours after taking off from the eastern French city of Lyon on Saturday when a steward noticed a passenger had been in a toilet for a long time, and upon investigation the woman turned out to be in labor. "I didn't believe it and so I got up to go see and the baby was already out," said pilot Jean-Christophe Durieux after arriving in Reunion on Sunday.
■ France
Four die in Alps
Two mountain climbers and two skiers died in the Alps on Sunday during a weekend with high avalanche risk, rescue services said. Two other people were still missing. Near the Courchevel ski station, an American from California was killed by an avalanche as he skied off-piste. The victim was identified as Ajay Tambe, a 42-year-old Indian-born man from Cupertino, California. The bodies of two mountain climbers were discovered at the base of a climb on the Mont-Blanc mountain and it was unclear whether they fell or were victims of an avalanche. Both were foreigners, but rescuers declined to provide further details on their identities. At the Valoire station, a woman in her 50s who was skiing off piste was trapped by an avalanche and died soon after being transported to a hospital.
■ Nigeria
Oil thieves killed
Troops killed 12 men caught stealing crude oil from a pipeline in the southern state of Delta, the head of a government task force on pipelines said on Sunday. Siphoning oil from pipelines, a practise known locally as bunkering, is common in the Niger Delta, a vast region of mangrove creeks and swamps that accounts for almost all of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels per day production of crude. Government official Isiaka Pachiko said troops on patrol in remote Oghara community stumbled on a group of bunkerers on Saturday who had heavy drilling equipment and four trucks ready to be loaded with oil. A gunbattle broke out and 12 of the suspected oil thieves were killed.
■ Austria
Merkel's husband pops up
Joachim Sauer, the notoriously publicity-shy husband of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made a rare public appearance, astonishing the Austrian public and the media by accompanying Merkel to a New Year's Day concert by the Vienna Philharmonic. Sauer upstaged his wife simply by showing up. When she was sworn in as Germany's first woman chancellor, Sauer stayed away. On Sunday, Sauer sat in the second row behind his wife.
■ United States
Four die in NY violence
The year began with a streak of deadly violence in New York City, with four men killed between midnight and daybreak. Carlos Cintron, 17, was fatally stabbed when he tried to break up a fight among friends the police said. Three other men died in shootings. Eric Card, 34, was found shot in the neck, while Joseph Williams, 32, and Kendell Scott, 37, were fatally wounded after a shootout outside a nightclub, the police said.
■ United States
Teen returns from Iraq
A 16-year-old who took off to Iraq alone to experience the lives of its people firsthand, arrived back in Florida on Sunday. Farris Hassan, who set off for Iraq as a journalism project, was getting a crash course in media as throngs of reporters and photographers waited for him at Miami International Airport. The teenager had skipped school and left the US on Dec. 11, traveling to Kuwait, where he thought he could take a taxi into Baghdad to witness the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections. The border was closed for the elections, so Farris went to stay with family friends in Lebanon, before flying to Baghdad.
■ United States
Avalanches take deadly toll
A New Year's Day avalanche killed two men who were snowmobiling near Rocky Mountain National Park, and a snowshoer was missing and presumed dead after another avalanche in Utah, officials said. A blizzard had been moving through the Colorado mountains near Trap Lake where the two snowmobilers were caught in the avalanche on Sunday morning, said a spokeswoman. The two men were confirmed dead a couple of hours after the slide she said. Their identities were not released, but officials said the group was visiting from Iowa. In Utah, the dangerous conditions on the slopes forced rescue teams to hold off resuming their search for a snowshoer missing after an avalanche in Provo Canyon.
■ United States
Baby dies traveling to party
A three-month-old New Jersey girl died while traveling with her mother to a New Year's Eve party in Harlem, the authorities said on Sunday. The New York City medical examiner's office completed an autopsy, but the results were inconclusive, pending toxicology and tissue tests said a spokeswoman. The girl's mother, Leslie Abad, 27, accompanied by a friend, boarded a train in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with the girl about 11:10 pm on Saturday. During the journey they noticed the child was unusually quiet and when they tried to wake her noticed blood around her mouth and nose. The child was taken to a local hospital where she was declared dead on arrival.
■ United States
PR company paid Iraqis
A Pentagon contractor that paid Iraqi newspapers to publish positive articles by US soldiers has also been compensating Sunni religious scholars in Iraq for help with its propaganda work the New York Times reported yesterday. Citing a former employee of the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm, the newspaper reported that the Pentagon directed the company early in 2005 to identify religious leaders who could help produce messages that would persuade Sunnis in the violent Anbar Province to participate in national elections and reject the insurgency. The company then retained three or four Sunni religious scholars to offer advice and write reports for military commanders on the content of propaganda campaigns, the newspaper said, citing the former employee.
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