■ India
Skull fragment lures crowds
Hundreds of people are thronging a hospital in Calcutta to see a patient holding a piece of his own skull that fell off. Doctors say a large, dead section of 25-year-old electrician Sambhu Roy's skull came off on Sunday after severe burns starved it of blood. "When he came to us late last year, his scalp was completely burned and within months it came off exposing the skull," Ratan Lal Bandyopadhyay, the surgeon who treated Roy said on Wednesday. "Later, we noticed that the part of his skull was loosening due to lack of blood supply to the affected area, which can happen in such extensive burn cases," he said.
■ Vietnam
Papers penalized for sex ads
Two local newspapers have been fined for running phone sex advertisements that violate the country's traditional cultural values, an official said yesterday. The Vietnam Sports newspaper was fined 12 million dong (US$750) for "running sex advertisements with contents that violate traditional habits and customs," said its editor, Hoang Du. The ads for mobile phone message services used "rude wording" to stir up sexual temptation, he said. More than 10 other papers have carried similar ads and are under investigation by the Ministry of Culture and Information, Du said. Ho Chi Minh City Law was also fined 10 million dong.
■ Hong Kong
City losing expat appeal
Hong Kong is losing its appeal as a destination for expatriates, judging by a report published yesterday that found only six people have applied for residency under a new migrant scheme. The city had expected a deluge of overseas applications when it launched its Quality Migrant Admission Scheme at the beginning of the month. But the deluge turned out to be a trickle with a half-dozen applications lodged in the first week, according to the South China Morning Post. The scheme allows for up to 1,000 people a year to migrate to Hong Kong and stay for up to a year to seek employment.
■ Australia
Smooth-talker nabbed
Police arrested yesterday a woman suspected of stealing thousands of dollars by posing as a doctor, a businesswoman, a flight attendant and a mobster's niece, after months-long chase across three Australian states. Jodie Harris, 28, was detained in Sydney early yesterday carrying several pieces of false identification, New South Wales state police officer Grant Taylor told reporters. Harris, who is wanted for fraud in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, has been dubbed the "Catch Me If You Can" thief after the 2002 film in which Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a smooth-talking fraudster. Police alleged Harris used a number of false identities to befriend unsuspecting women, stole their drivers' licenses and fooled bank staff into giving her access to their accounts.
■ Singapore
US teen lands in jail
A US teenager who came to Singapore for drug rehabilitation was sentenced to six months in jail after he went on a shopping spree with stolen credit cards, the Straits Times newspaper said yesterday. Dane Alan Butterfield, 18, stole two credit cards from his roommate at a private hospital where he was being treated for painkiller addiction and spent S$4,050 (US$2,550) in just a few hours, it reported. He was caught when he tried to purchase scarves at a duty-free shop while awaiting a flight back to Jakarta.
■ United Kingdom
Terror suspect rules altered
The House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British parliament, approved measures on Wednesday paving the way for terrorist suspects to be held for up to 28 days without charge, effective July 25. Parliament had agreed in March to double the previous 14-day period that police can hold terrorist suspects, after rejecting a proposal from Prime Minister Tony Blair's government for a 90-day period. But the change could not be implemented before Wednesday's adoption of a new code of practice dealing with the detention, treatment and questioning of terrorist suspects pending charge and trial.
■ United Kingdom
Murderous officer jailed
A jealous police officer who tried to murder his ex-wife by cutting through her neck with a saw after ramming her car off a road in southwest Scotland was jailed for 12 years on Wednesday. John Kelly, 45, ploughed his vehicle into Audrey McDowall's car in Dumfries last year. Horrified witnesses watched as he then grabbed the saw and started to hack at her neck. McDowell suffered a 15cm deep neck wound that just missed her carotid artery and internal jugular vein following the attack in September last year.
■ United Kingdom
Speed solution was `stupid'
Motorist John Hopwood concocted a novel scheme to avoid payment when he was given a speeding fine -- simply switch the road signs. Hopwood, 44, had been snapped by a speed camera breaking the 30mph (48kph) limit. So he went to a 40mph (64kph) area, removed a red "40" warning sign, drove back to the 30mph area, attached it to a lamp post and took a photo as "proof" that his offence of driving at 48mph had not been so bad. However, suspicion soon arose when other drivers started querying the sign. "This was a stupid act, bound to fail," Judge Anthony Ensor at Manchester Crown Court was quoted by media as telling Hopwood.
■ Croatia
Nazi ship to become church
The defense ministry has donated a World War II Nazi ship to a local Roman Catholic monastery, which will turn it into a sailing church, the Jutarnji List daily newspaper reported on Tuesday. The landing ship DTM-219 was used by Nazi Germany to transport tanks and infantry. It was given to communist Yugoslavia after 1945 as part of war compensation, it said. The ship, currently anchored at a Croatian navy port, will be towed to the city of Sibenik, in the central Adriatic, where it will be adapted at a local shipyard. It will be used as sailing church for the young, the daily said.
■ Netherlands
Thighs `sold' as ad space
A Dutch design student bored with conventional advertisements has set up a fake online agency offering advertising space for beer, cars and TV stations on prostitutes' thighs and cleavage. On his Web site www.instoresnow.nl, Raoul Balai also proposed painting brand names on zoo animals and floating huge billboards off popular beaches to get vacationers' attention. "I was getting sick and tired of advertising everywhere," Balai told reporters. "But I don't want to preach, and I thought satire would work better." Far from taking his ideas as a joke, an Amsterdam zoo had its lawyer threaten Balai with a defamation suit after his Web site depicted fish from the zoo bearing the brand name of a frozen fish company.
■ United States
Georgia on Bush's mind
President George W. Bush on Wednesday promised visiting Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili that he would work with partners in NATO to help Tbilisi join the alliance. "I believe that NATO would benefit with Georgia being a member of NATO, and I think Georgia would benefit," Bush said as they met in the Oval Office. Bush also turned to a song made famous by late soul legend Ray Charles to assure Saakashvili that worries about Iran, Iraq and North Korea would not make him forget about Georgia's needs. "I've got a lot that comes to my desk here, absolutely. I've got a lot to think about. But my friend, the president, wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't have `Georgia on my mind,'" Bush quipped.
■ Chile
Bolivia claims progress
Bolivia and Chile are making progress in a process that could eventually lead to re-establishing full diplomatic relations that were severed almost 30 years ago, the new consul to Chile said on Wednesday. Consul Jose Pinelo told reporters the two countries have still not begun formal talks on diplomatic relations but said the government of President Evo Morales was interested in strengthening bilateral ties. "In reality we haven't yet begun a dialogue," Pinelo said. "We're still in the trust-building stage and at the same time I think that we both feel more confident about the agenda." Relations between the neighboring countries have been rocky for more than a century after they clashed in a war.
■ Brazil
Candidate pledges free trade
The leading opposition candidate said on Wednesday he would pursue free-trade agreements and open the economy more aggressively than President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva if he defeated the incumbent in October. Former Sao Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin said Lula's center-left administration had done little to reach trade agreements with the world's largest markets, particularly the US and Europe. Lula "made very little progress," Alckmin, a centrist, said in reference to stalled trade talks between the South American trade block Mercosur and the EU. Negotiations toward a Free Trade Area of the Americas, including Mercosur, are also on hold.
■ United States
DNA exonerates convict
New York lawyers say DNA evidence exonerates a man convicted more than two decades ago in the brutal rape of a 25-year-old woman. The Innocence Project and prosecutors from the Bronx district attorney's office were to file papers yesterday asking for Alan Newton's 1985 conviction to be vacated based on recent testing on a rape kit performed on the woman after the incident. Officials at the Innocence Project -- a nonprofit legal clinic and criminal justice organization -- said they expected Newton would be released from prison after a hearing at Bronx Criminal Court.
■ United States
Trader donates millions
A wealthy bond trader and his wife will donate US$10 million to the University of California, Irvine, for stem-cell research, much of it for a proposed research building. About US$2 million would be allocated to support human embryonic stem cell research at the university, said Bill Gross of Newport Beach, founder and chief investment officer of Newport Beach-based investment firm PIMCO. Another US$8 million would be a matching gift for a proposed stem cell research center, he said.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
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