■ Pakistan
Rain electrocutes 15
A public holiday was declared in the southern city of Karachi yesterday after the heaviest rains for four years killed at least 15 people, mostly by electrocution. All government offices and schools in the port city of 12 million people were closed for the day, Sindh Province government spokesman Salahuddin Haider said. Electrocution is a common problem after rains here, where the infrastructure is often basic and many people set up crude illegal power lines to steal electricity.
■ Indonesia
H5N1 death suspected
A woman died of suspected bird flu in a village that has been hard hit by the disease, a hospital official said yesterday, as health workers investigated a new possible cluster of the H5N1 virus. Euis Lina died on Thursday night -- three hours after being admitted to hospital in West Java Province with symptoms of the disease, said Yati Maryati, the hospital's director. He was awaiting laboratory test results to confirm the cause of death. Lina was from Cikelet, a hamlet 150km southeast of Jakarta, where bird flu killed a 9-year-old a girl earlier this week.
■ Japan
Chopsticks receive boost
A company is conducting a campaign to help the country's fast-food addicted population to re-learn the fading art of eating with chopsticks, according to a report in the Yomiuri Shimbun yesterday. Hyozaemon has dispatched its employees around the nation to give 20-minute lectures on how to use the utensils correctly. The instructors teach how to grip them, and provide tips on choosing the right size chopsticks for your hands.
■ Cambodia
Street kid gets 20 years
A court has sentenced an 18-year-old street boy to 20 years in prison for stabbing a British bar owner to death during a botched robbery in February, a court official said yesterday. Lao Chamrong, also known as Tong Chen, was arrested near the royal palace in Phnom Penh as he was cleaning blood off his knife after stabbing David Mitchell, from Walsall, England, five times in the chest, police investigators said. "He admitted to the court that he murdered the British man," prosecutor Ngeth Sarath said. "We sentenced him to 20 years in jail." Lao Chamrong told the court he broke into Mitchell's house looking for food but was interrupted.
■ Japan
Court rejects appeal
The Tokyo High Court rejected an appeal yesterday from a chemist sentenced to death for allegedly producing Nazi-invented sarin gas used in his cult's deadly 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway. Masami Tsuchiya, 41, was convicted of heading the chemical unit of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, whose nerve gas killed 12 people and injured thousands of others on rush-hour trains. "The court has dropped the appeal," said a High Court official, upholding the 2004 sentence given by the Tokyo District Court over the 1995 subway attack and other crimes. Tsuchiya conspired with the cult's guru Shoko Asahara, who has also been sentenced to death, to develop deadly chemicals.
■ Vietnam
Evacuations ordered
Authorities ordered the evacuation of thousands of people yesterday in the central and northern regions to avoid flash floods and landslides triggered by prolonged rains that have killed at least 19 people. Floods after torrential rains since last Friday hit the central highlands' coffee-growing region and four central coastal provinces, killing at least eight people in Binh Thuan Province and four in Nghe An Province, a government report said. Six others drowned in four provinces and one died in the Mekong delta province of Dong Thap. The floods also displaced thousands of people, inundated 5,000 houses and submerged nearly 40,000 hectares of crops.
■ China
Engineers not up to scratch
Most engineering students are not qualified to practise the profession upon graduation, a newspaper reported yesterday. Educators from China and abroad cited a lack of quality education and professionals working in the field as the source of the problem with 8 million engineering students, the largest number in the world, the Shanghai Daily said. As a result, only 14 percent of engineering graduates become qualified engineers, and most graduates give up engineering and take up other careers within nine years of graduating, according to research conducted by the East China University of Science and Technology.
■ China
Police cage mentally-ill man
A mentally-ill man in southeastern Guangxi region who killed a neighbor has been released by authorities but forced to live in a metal cage in his home, state media reported yesterday. The man was exempted from legal responsibility after authorities decided his mental illness was to blame for the June killing of his neighbor, the Beijing News reported. But police delivered a metal cage to his home after his release, pushed him into it and welded up its metal door, the report said, quoting his wife Wang Xueyu. The newspaper said the man had been eating, sleeping and going to the toilet in the cage.
■ United Kingdom
Doherty pleads guilty
Rock singer Pete Doherty pleaded guilty yesterday to possessing illegal drugs, including heroin and cocaine, and is due for sentencing on Sept. 4, a court official said. The singer, a self-confessed drug addict, appeared at Thames Magistrates' Court in London after spending the night in custody. On Thursday, the 27-year-old frontman of rock band Babyshambles, was charged with seven counts of possessing drugs between April and early this month.
■ United Nations
Troops in prostitution case
The UN has launched an investigation into allegations that its peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo had engaged in financing child prostitution, a spokesman said on Thursday. The case was first thought to have involved Congolese soldiers in the northeastern region of South Kibu, but it was discovered that UN peacekeepers were part of the child prostitution ring, Stephane Dujarric said. "The UN mission is shocked and appalled by allegations of the existence of a vast prostitution ring involving peace troops," he said.
■ Israel
Minister to be indicted
The attorney general has decided to indict a top minister and key ally of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on charges of sexual harassment, in a new blow to a government that emerged politically weakened this week from a 34-day war against Lebanese guerrillas. Justice Minister Haim Ramon was informed on Thursday that he is entitled to a hearing "to try to convince the attorney general otherwise," said Moshe Cohen, a Justice Ministry spokesman. Ramon, 56, is suspected of forcibly kissing an 18-year-old female soldier during a farewell party at a government office.
■ United Kingdom
`Wicked' mom jailed
A woman who gave her 9-year-old son heroin and crack cocaine was sentenced to nine years in jail on Thursday for what a judge called "an act of pure wickedness." Judge Anthony Niblett said Emma Kelly, 31, had betrayed her son by providing him with drugs, on one occasion giving him heroin outside the gates of his school. "There can be no greater betrayal of a mother's trust and duty towards her child," the judge said, passing sentence at Hove Crown Court in southern England.
■ Netherlands
Man gets high on chocolate
Police at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on Thursday released a warning for hallucinogenic dark chocolate bars after a homeless man ate one and confused their uniforms with wedding dresses. "He ate some and we found him hallucinating," a police spokesman said. "Several days later he brought us another bar that he had just found and we passed it on to the forensic institute.". Tests showed the 72 percent cocoa dark chocolate contained psilocine, a mind-altering substance found in hallucinogenic mushrooms and considered to be a hard drug. Police later found more chocolate bars on the ground and in airport trashcans.
■ Burina Faso
Cave-in traps miners
Rescue workers battled yesterday to save dozens of illegal gold panners trapped underground when a disused mine shaft collapsed, police said. Three people were confirmed killed when the mine collapsed on Thursday, six more escaped and some 46 were still believed to be underground, police in Poura district said.
■ Cuba
Castro on the mend
President Fidel Castro is getting better and every precaution has been taken to prevent aggression against Cuba, his brother said in his first public statement yesterday since the Cuban leader was hospitalized. "Every step has been taken to prevent any attempt at aggression. The nation is giving strong proof of its self-reliance," Raul Castro, 75, said in an extensive interview with the official newspaper Granma titled "No Enemy Can Defeat Us." He said Fidel, 80, was undergoing a "satisfactory and gradual recovery," from his intestinal operation last month, which on July 31 led to the temporary transfer of power to Raul, who is also defense minister. He said his brother's "progressive recovery" was due to "his exceptional physical and mental nature."
■ United States
Gibson pleads no contest
Mel Gibson, who ignited a furor with his anti-Semitic rant after being stopped for speeding last month in Malibu, California, pleaded no contest on Thursday to a drunken driving charge and was spared jail time in a deal with prosecutors. Gibson, who was placed on probation for three years, did not appear in Malibu Superior Court for the hearing. Under the terms of his plea deal, Gibson was ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for a year, including five times a week for the first four-and-a-half months, and to enroll in an alcohol abuse program for three months and make a public service ad on the dangers of drinking while driving. In addition, he was fined US$1,300 and had restrictions placed on his driving for 90 days.
■ Russia
`K19' saved from scrapyard
A Soviet submarine involved in a notorious accident which threatened to trigger nuclear war has been saved by its former cook, just weeks before it was due to be scrapped. Vladimir Romanov, now a multimillionaire businessman, wants to turn the K19 into a museum. Romanov, who owns Edinburgh's Hearts football club, snapped up the nuclear craft -- made famous in the film K19: The Widowmaker starring Harrison Ford -- from a wrecking yard in northern Russia. He plans to get it moved to a berth in Moscow. Inside the sub will be exhibits on its history and a club for submariners.
■ United Kingdom
Stolen headdress found
An ancient headdress -- considered one of Peru's most prized artifacts and missing for more than two decades since being looted from an archaeological dig -- was recovered in a raid on a London law firm, police said on Thursday. Specialist art detectives seized the antiquity from the London firm after a lengthy investigation into stolen goods, London's Metropolitan police said. The centuries-old artifact -- fashioned from a sheet of embossed gold, with a feline face at its center and eight curving tentacles -- is estimated to be worth around US$1.9 million, experts said.
■ United States
Forced confession ruled out
Three Rwandan rebels charged with murdering two US tourists in Uganda were tortured and coerced into confessing, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, barring US prosecutors from using the confessions in court. The ruling dealt federal authorities a major setback in a case stemming from the 1999 deaths of eight sightseers, including two Americans, who had traveled to a remote rain forest hoping to see rare mountain gorillas. The three rebels said Rwandan officials bound and beat them until they confessed to the US investigators. Doctors said scars supported those claims.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of