■ Hong Kong
Fake job man jailed
A businessman who swindled Filipina maids out of money by promising them high-paid jobs in South Korea began a two-year jail sentence yesterday. Wong Chi-wing, 41, told 16 Filipinas he could secure factory jobs for them in South Korea paying US$940 a month, around double what they were earning as maids. They each paid between US$250 and US$700 as a "processing" fee between January and October last year but the jobs never materialized, Kowloon City Court heard on Tuesday. Wong was arrested when three of his victims met him to demand a refund and called police who arrested him on the spot.
■ Fiji
Qarase claims victory
Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase claimed victory yesterday for his governing United Fiji Party (SDL) following racially charged general elections in the South Pacific island nation. He also promised to end a damaging stand-off with the country's military leader over plans to offer amnesties to the plotters of a 2000 coup which deposed the country's first ethnic Indian prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry. "The SDL party and my colleagues feel honored and privileged to be the government of the day for the next five years," Qarase said on commercial radio. "We will have a working majority and that is good enough."
■ India
Burglars net US$2 million
Burglars stole diamonds and jewelery worth up to 100 million rupees (US$2.2 million) in a well-planned heist in the south, police said on Tuesday. The burglars managed to rob the upmarket jewelery store in the city of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh state without alerting security guards, police said. Police said the robbers broke into the Alukkas shop in the early hours of Tuesday by forcing open the main back door and drilling holes into others so they could reach through and unlock them. The burglars discovered the loot in an area without a security alarm. The jewelery was normally kept in another room with alarms, police said.
■ China
Beijing to host Hamas
China said yesterday it will host the foreign minister of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, and added that Beijing's interests in the Middle East range beyond oil to development issues and the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar is among 23 ministers from Arab states and entities invited to Beijing late this month for a conclave on China-Arab relations, Zhai Jun (翟俊) of the Chinese foreign ministry said at a news conference. Zahar's government, which came to power in elections in January, has largely been shunned by the US and EU, which consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
■ Japan
Fingerprinting foreigners
Foreigners will be photographed and fingerprinted on arrival as part of measures to prevent terrorism, under a measure approved by parliament yesterday. Civic groups and lawyers have said the legislation, approved by parliament's upper house, risks breaching human rights and invading individuals' privacy. The new legislation, which had previously passed the lower house and now becomes law, exempts children under 16, diplomats and "special permanent residents" including ethnic Koreans. It allows Japan to deport any arriving foreigner it considers to be a terrorist, and requires planes and ships arriving in Japan to submit lists of passengers.
■ Germany
Mugger pleads for bus fare
A knife-wielding mugger was reduced to pleading with a pensioner for his bus fare home after she refused to hand over her purse, police said on Tuesday. With his woolly hat pulled down and the neck of his sweater covering his nose and mouth, the youth pulled a 25cm blade on the woman in the seaside town of Binz and threatened to stab her unless she handed over her bag, police said. She refused. "Then he tried to invoke her pity," a police spokeswoman said. "He said `at least give me 5 euros (US$6.40) for the bus ride home.' But she just walked off and left him standing."
■ Ghana
Mourners killed in crash
A collision between two buses on Tuesday left 39 people dead, including 38 choir members, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) reported late on Tuesday. GNA said that the accident occurred early on Tuesday on the Kumasi-Sunyani road. The choristers were driving to attend a funeral when their bus collided with a State Transport Company bus during a rainfall. The driver of the State Transport Company bus died in the accident. Police Deputy Superintendent Maxwell Osei said that the accident occurred when the bus carrying the mourners attempted to overtake a car and collided with the oncoming bus. The country has high rates of traffic fatalities, despite sustained education campaigns to improve road safety.
■ France
Villepin stands firm
Embattled Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin faced down his attackers over the Clearstream dirty tricks scandal on Tuesday, accusing the Socialist Party (PS) opposition of using the affair as a fig-leaf for their own lack of policies. Leading a counter-offensive in a debate on a PS censure motion, Villepin told the National Assembly he was the victim of a campaign of lies over claims that he ordered a secret enquiry into Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, and he brushed off calls for his resignation. "Faced by this rumormongering, we will continue our work with method, calm and perseverance. Up until the last day set down by our institutions, we will continue to work on behalf of the French people," he said.
■ United Kingdom
McCartney, Mills to split
Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills are planning to separate, a report said yesterday. Representatives of the couple declined to comment but said a statement was expected later in the day. The Daily Mirror quoted an unidentified source as saying: "Paul hasn't come to this decision lightly, but felt things couldn't carry on as they were." The Outside Organization, which represents the former Beatle, and Anya Noakes, who represents Mills, both declined to comment but said a statement was being prepared.
■ Nigeria
Third term bill rejected
Senators on Tuesday threw out a bill to amend the Constitution, defeating a campaign by supporters of President Olusegun Obasanjo to let him stand for a third term in elections next year. The surprise vote was greeted with dancing, shouts of joy and hugs among many senators, who had argued that the amendment was a threat to democracy in Africa's biggest oil producer. "The Senate has said clearly and eloquently that we will discontinue further processes on this amendment bill," Senate President Ken Nnamani said.
■ Canada
Rival talks about suspect
A US polygamist on the FBI's most wanted list is probably in Canada, a rival in British Colombia said on Tuesday. Winston Blackmore said Warren Jeffs would be the "dumbest person if he weren't in Canada." But at a news conference, Blackmore did not say whether he knew where Jeffs was. Jeffs heads the FLDS church, a polygamist sect that broke away from the Mormon church. He is considered by his followers to be a prophet, but he is wanted on criminal charges of sexual conduct with a minor, arranging marriages of underaged girls and fraud. Blackmore was a member of the FLDS until he was excommunicated by Jeffs several years ago.
■ United States
Nicole Kidman engaged
Actress Nicole Kidman says she and New Zealand-born country music star Keith Urban are engaged. "He's actually my fiance," Kidman told People magazine on Monday after hosting a weekend gala event in New York. The story was posted on People's Web site on Tuesday. The Oscar winner's announcement comes just weeks after she told the Ladies' Home Journal that she still loved her ex-husband, Tom Cruise. Kidman and Cruise were married 10 years. Urban won a Grammy last year for best male country vocal performance.
■ United States
Elephant refuses workout
Trainers at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage have made little progress trying to coax an African elephant onto the world's first pachyderm treadmill. For two months, trainers have used 3,600kg Maggie's favorite treats -- watermelon, apples, carrots, peanuts in the shell, banana slices and sweet potatoes -- to try to entice her into exercising on the US$100,000 piece of equipment. Maggie arrived at the zoo in 1983 as a calf. She has been alone since December 1997, when the zoo's other elephant died of a foot infection. The treadmill is part of a US$1 million program the zoo launched two years ago to improve Maggie's life.
■ United States
Souvenir mine destroyed
An Air Force team destroyed a World War II-era land mine in the suburban backyard of a Dallas, Texas, family that said friends had given it to them as a souvenir of an Arizona trip at least 10 years ago. An anonymous phone call alerted authorities to the device, police said. Police arrived on Monday evening to find the land mine with a live fuse. They contacted the bomb squad, which then called in a team from Dyess Air Force Base. The mine did not contain explosives but was still considered dangerous, police said. Feliciano and Lucy Guzman, were unaware the device was a land mine, said their son, Jesse. "I never thought it was a land mine," he said. "It looks like a mousetrap."
■ United States
Springtime for Mussolini?
If one of Hollywood's leading studios had its way, it would have been "Springtime for Mussolini," not Hitler, or so says Mel Brooks. With the DVD of the musical film version of The Producers released on Monday, the veteran writer-director reminisced about the struggle he had to get the original 1968 comedy made when he pitched the idea to Universal Pictures. "They said, `We love this movie but we just want to make one small change' ... instead of making a Broadway play about Adolf Hitler, make it about Mussolini instead because `we couldn't possibly make a movie about Hitler,'" Brooks said in an interview last week.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
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