■ Australia
Steve Irwin has his Way
Officials have renamed a stretch of road in honor of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, who died last year after being attacked by a stingray. On Monday, the Department of Main Roads in Irwin's home state of Queensland officially renamed Glasshouse Mountains Road to Steve Irwin Way in memory of the slain adventurer and television personality. The road runs in front of Irwin's popular wildlife park, Australia Zoo. Irwin, 44, died in September after being stabbed in the chest by a stingray's poisonous barb while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef.
■ Cambodia
Man nabbed for child abuse
A US citizen has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing two Cambodian girls, police said yesterday. Roger Green, 59, was detained on Monday evening when police raided his hotel room and discovered the girls, aged 11 and 12. Stuffed toy animals were also found in the hotel room. Green, from Tennessee, will be formally charged tomorrow. Cambodia has struggled to shed its reputation as a haven for pedophiles, putting dozens of foreigners in jail for their crimes or deporting them to face trial at home.
■ South Korea
Lee Myung-bak is back
A former mayor of Seoul has a commanding lead in the race for president of South Korea, newspaper polls showed, as voter dissatisfaction with President Roh Moo-hyun and his ruling party remained high a year before the election. Lee Myung-bak, a Hyundai CEO-turned-politician with the Grand National Party, had about twice the support of distant runner-up and former GNP chairwoman, Park Geun-hye.
■ China
Traffic kills 245 daily
More than 89,000 people were killed in traffic accidents last year, amounting to 245 per day. The figure was down 9.4 percent compared with 2005, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Out of the total for last year, 76,000 deaths were caused by speeding, drunk driving or other traffic violations. The country's roads are seen as among the most dangerous in the world, with the WHO warning that the government may be massively under-reporting road fatalities. The WHO has said fatalities may be more than twice the official number, as official figures come from police reports and not from hospitals or medical clinics.
■ Philippines
Terrorists hiding on Jolo
At least five members of the Jemaah Islamiya (JI) terrorist group, including two Bali bombers, are hiding with Muslim extremists in the south of the country, a military official said yesterday. Brigadier General Juancho Sabban said they are being sheltered by the Abu Sayyaf group on Jolo, a southern island. He said military intelligence confirmed the presence of the five JI members. Two are wanted for involvement in the Bali bombing that killed more than 200 in 2002.
■ India
Fog grounds planes, trains
Thick fog wreaked havoc on New Delhi's transport systems yesterday, canceling and delaying nearly 150 flights and dozens of trains. An airport spokesman said problems began late on Sunday when visibility started to worsen because of fog. Aviation officials say many pilots are not trained to fly in poor weather. Low temperatures of around 4oC have killed at least 27 people, most of them homeless, over the last month.
■ Israel
Tag triggers uproar
Crowds trashed a prison vehicle in a row over the electronic tagging of an Orthodox Jewish man, the Yediot Aharonot reported yesterday. Prison officers went to Bnei Brak -- a stronghold of Haredi Judaism, the most conservative branch of the Jewish faith -- after they stopped receiving signals from the high-tech device that local rabbis decreed could not be worn on a Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, the newspaper said. Confronted by an angry mob, the prison officers fled on foot, leaving their vehicle to be smashed and overturned. The man had been tagged as a form of house arrest for his role in a recent violent protest against a proposed gay pride parade in Jerusalem.
■ Gaza
Kidnappings mar New Year
Palestinian gunmen kidnapped a Peruvian photographer working for Agence France-Presse in Gaza on Monday, while militants were seized and freed in separate abductions that sparked new violence between rival factions. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction of Jaime Razuri. Fatah militants kidnapped 10 Hamas gunmen, while Hamas militants abducted seven Fatah gunmen, sources from both factions said. All the kidnapped gunmen were later freed after both sides agreed to swap captives, sources said. The abductions had sparked gunbattles between the factions, which wounded three Palestinians caught in the crossfire, including a boy, rescue workers said.
■ United Kingdom
Harder driving tests mulled
The government is considering introducing tougher driving tests in a bid to cut the number of deaths in road crashes, the Times reported yesterday. The proposals being looked at could mean learner drivers having to complete a minimum period of practice before being allowed to take their test, similar to the 120 hour-requirement that exists in Sweden, the newspaper said. More than 3,000 people are killed and about 30,000 seriously injured on Britain's roads every year. "We have developed this attitude that you learn to pass the test and then you learn to drive. It's an option to have more formal training," Road Safety Minister Stephen Ladyman told the paper.
■ United Kingdom
Paisley backs police
The leader of Northern Ireland's largest Protestant party, Ian Paisley, issued a New Year's message on Monday holding out hope for reconciliation with his Roman Catholic political rivals Sinn Fein. "This year can be a year of delivery," said Paisley, who heads the hardline Democratic Unionist Party. "Quality support for the police, the courts and the rule of law would do much to change the mistrust and suspicion held by the unionist electorate and the sooner we have delivery, the better for us all," Paisley said. Sinn Fein's refusal to back the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been a major stumbling block to restoring a power-sharing government.
■ United Kingdom
Suspected killer in court
Steven Wright was due to appear in court yesterday charged with the murders of five prostitutes in Ipswich. At his first court appearance last month, Wright, 48, did not enter a plea. Newspaper reports say Wright is a forklift driver and former steward on the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship, with three children and two ex-wives.
■ Iraq
Death tally issued
Authorities on Monday reported that 16,273 civilians, soldiers and police died violent deaths last year, a figure that outstrips an independent count for the year by more than 2,500. The tabulation by the ministries of health, defense and interior showed that 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police and 627 soldiers fell to violence raging in the country last year. The independent accounting, gleaned from daily news reports from Baghdad, showed the total at 13,738. It found that the total number of security forces killed was 1,791, a figure that is 174 fewer than the Iraqi total of police and soldiers. The UN has said as many as 100 Iraqis die violently each day.
■ Israel
Ex-Jerusalem mayor dies
Former Jerusalem mayor Theodor "Teddy" Kollek, a tireless preacher of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, died yesterday at age 95. "Teddy was Jerusalem and Jerusalem was Teddy," Mayor Uri Lupolianski said after his office reported the death of one of the nation's most famous political figures. Kollek became mayor of Jewish West Jerusalem in 1965, two years before Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in a Middle East war. He was re-elected five times, serving 28 years, before losing in 1993 to now Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Kollek will be buried tomorrow in the city's Mount Herzl cemetery. Kollek launched more ambitious building and restoration projects in Jerusalem than any city father since 16th century Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who built the Old City walls.
■ Mexico
Rebels celebrate anniversary
Thousands of Zapatista rebels on Monday celebrated the 13th anniversary of their brief uprising against the government with dances, songs and discussions aimed at improving the status of poor Indians in Chiapas state. The ceremonies, which attracted hundreds of foreigners from numerous countries, began on Sunday night under the stewardship of the ski-masked, pipe-smoking Zapatista leader and spokesman Subcomandante Marcos in the Zapatistas' base of Oventic. Participants saluted the Mexican and Zapatista flags and held a large dance.
■ United States
Airline employees spot UFO
Federal officials said it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon, but a group of United Airlines employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois, last fall. The workers, some of them pilots, said the object did not have lights and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds, a report in the Chicago Tribune said on Monday. The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged that a United supervisor had called the control tower at O'Hare, asking if anyone had spotted a spinning disc-shaped object.
■ United States
Frigid dip starts new year
Hundreds of New Yorkers bravely splashed into frigid ocean waters to start the new year on Monday, including one man who ended up in a hospital. Louie Scarcella, spokesman for the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, said the injured man was not a club member, but just one of the 200 or so people who joined the 80 members to take the annual plunge into the 9oC Atlantic Ocean waters. The man was injured when he dived into shallow waters. The annual swim raised US$25,000 for Camp Sunshine, a retreat for children who have life-threatening illnesses.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema