■ Australia
House-burning party
Residents of a tiny town danced and drank beer as they watched the home of a convicted pedophile burn to the ground in a suspected arson attack, the Australian newspaper reported yesterday. Up to 40 people swelled Meringur's usual population of 16 on Sunday night to celebrate as flames engulfed the home of Terrence Ellis, 52, the daily said. Ellis was convicted two weeks ago of abusing a young girl from the town in the southeastern state of Victoria and jailed for five years. "It certainly was a bit of a party," the victim's brother said. Victoria police confirmed the fire that destroyed Ellis's timber cottage was suspicious, but an investigator said the heat was too intense to pinpoint where it began. "I don't think they'll get very far," one resident was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
■ Australia
Man steals 12 snakes
A man held up a woman and two children at gunpoint before fleeing with a dozen snakes worth more than A$100,000 (US$74,535), police said yesterday. The man demanded the 12 green tree snakes, which are not venomous, when he approached the door of the woman's home near Adelaide, on Wednesday, state police said. He then stuffed the snakes -- measuring up to 80cm long -- into a duffel bag and bound the woman's ankles and the hands of two boys before fleeing the scene. The snakes are valued at A$9,000 each, police said. Police were investigating the alleged theft, but no suspect had been arrested as of yesterday. The woman and children were not identified.
■ Nepal
Border guards `kill' refugees
A Tibetan exile group said yesterday that Chinese border guards opened fire on dozens of refugees, killing two and wounding several more as they tried to sneak into Nepal from Tibet over the weekend. The refugees were crossing the Nangpa La pass, near Mount Everest on China's side of the border, when Chinese soldiers opened fire, said Lhundup Dorjee of the Tibet Refugee Center in Kathmandu. "Around 42 of them managed to escape and cross in to Nepal, but we don't know what happened to the rest of them," Dorjee said. Neither Chinese nor Nepali officials were immediately available for comment on the reported shootings, which allegedly took place on Sept. 30 at the 5,800m pass just west of Mount Everest.
■ Pakistan
Woman kills spy boyfriend
A woman stabbed to death her boyfriend, who worked for Pakistan's powerful spy agency, for not marrying her, police said yesterday. Mazhar Iqbal, 27, who worked with Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, as a telephone operator, was killed on Wednesday by his 25-year-old girlfriend in Islamabad. The woman was arrested shortly after the incident. "She was in love with him. She told police that she killed him because he had refused to marry her," a police official said. The woman has not yet been charged and is being held for questioning. She was expected to appear in court yesterday.
■ Hong Kong
Smuggling turns deadly
A Chinese illegal immigrant who was smuggled into Hong Kong inside the wheel-arch of a tourist coach was killed on Wednesday when the vehicle crushed him as he tried to escape, police and media reports said. The elderly man was dragged at least 100m along a busy street, leaving a grisly trail of blood on the road. The victim, who was found with no identification documents, was declared dead on arrival at hospital.
■ Lesotho
603-carat diamond found
A 603-carat white diamond has been found in the tiny southern African kingdom, making it the biggest rock of the century and one of the world's largest, it was announced on Wednesday. "The diamond, named the Lesotho Promise, is the largest reported find this century and ranks as the 15th-largest diamond ever found," said the mine's joint owners, South Africa's Gem Diamond Mining and the Lesotho government. "The stone is an exceptional color, rated D, the top color for diamonds. The largest diamond previously found [in Lesotho] was the 601-carat Lesotho Brown recovered in 1967," the statement said.
■ United States
Rapist posing as officer
At least 10 girls and women have been raped on the Fort Apache Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, by a man who poses as a police officer, federal authorities said. Since March, nine girls and one young woman -- all Native American -- have been attacked on a trail between two housing projects between 10pm and 2am, said officials with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The attacks began in March, but the bureau became aware of them only in August. The agency formed a task force of agents to investigate. "Once they saw it was involving someone posing as law enforcement, the BIA made this a high priority," BIA agent Warren Youngman said.
■ Israel
Rogue skipper escapes jail
The commander of an Israeli commercial ship that rammed a Japanese fishing boat, killing seven people, was sentenced to a year of community service in a plea bargain, an Israeli TV station reported. The ship's second officer, Pilastro Zdravko, a citizen of Croatia, was in charge of the Zim Asia container ship when it crashed into the fishing boat on Sept. 28 last year, about 40km off the northern coast of Japan, killing seven of the eight men on the boat. The prosecution accepted the plea bargain because Japanese witnesses were either unable or unwilling to come to Israel to testify in a trial, Channel 2 TV reported. At the magistrate's court in the port city of Haifa on Wednesday, Zdravko was sentenced to six months in prison on a charge of causing death by negligence, but the prison term was converted to a year of public service at the port, the TV report said.
■ United States
Crash kills stunt pilot
A stunt pilot was killed when his single-engine plane crashed on Wednesday while performing a loop at an air show, police said. The crash happened in Tucumcari, 174km west of Amarillo, Texas. Guy "Doc" Baldwin, 60, lost control of the aircraft, Police Chief Larry Ham said. "We don't have any indications there was a mechanical failure," he said.
■ Russia
Suicide figures revealed
The country's suicide rate is the world's second highest, leaving only Lithuania ahead, the director of the Serbsky Center of Social and Legal Psychiatry said as quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency. "Every year 60,000 people take their lives in Russia, if one takes the annual average for the past 12 years," Tatyana Dmitriyeva told reporters on Wednesday. The most endangered group were adults aged 45-55 and adolescents, Dmitriyeva said, explaining that the leading reasons for suicide were biological predisposition, social upheavals, inflation, and stress linked to family conflicts, divorces and loneliness.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia