■ China
Angry villagers kill officer
Villagers beat to death a policeman in Guangdong Province as they vented their anger at officers accused of allowing people to drown in a pond after a raid on a gambling party, police and media reports said yesterday. The melee began when 11 police were sent to break up an illegal card game involving 30 people on Wednesday in Qingyuan, the security bureau said in a statement. Some of the fleeing gambling suspects jumped into a deep pond, and police saved one who couldn't swim but another drowned, it said. But an unidentified villager was quoted by Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily as saying that police would not rescue some of the villagers and even restrained people from saving them. The police statement said the gamblers were furious and incited other villagers to beat and stone the officers, killing one and injuring three others.
■ China
Cannoneer arrested
A farmer who led a cannon attack on a neighboring village in southern Guangxi has been captured after having eluded officials for 10 months, the Beijing News reported yesterday. The farmer, surnamed Ye, had devised 11 homemade cannons that he and fellow villagers used in two assaults on a neighboring village last April in a dispute over access to a nearby forest, according to the report. He told officials that a fellow villager had come up with the idea to construct cannons. Mu villagers fired 13 cannons on April 14 last year, injuring one person, according to the account. The newspaper said Ye and his fellow villagers thought the first attack was inadequate and fired more cannons the next day. About 500 police officers were deployed to intervene but Ye escaped, police said.
■ Japan
Blade found in tuna can
Nichiro Corp said yesterday it will recall 4.8 million cans of tuna and dispose of the meat after a man found a small blade in a product packaged in Vietnam. Japan's third-largest seafood producer said a man in Osaka found a blade measuring 1.9cm by 1.1cm, after opening a can. The cans were packaged in 2005 in a factory in Vietnam which will be put under investigation, a company spokeswoman said.
■ Indonesia
Fishermen find ammunition
A couple of fishermen diving to catch lobsters off the coast near Kupang found a totally different catch -- close to 500 assorted bullets, police said on Thursday. "They found several sacks on the bottom of the sea some 11m down this morning and after opening them quickly reported it to the marine police," East Nusa Tenggara Province chief detective Ricky Sihotang said by telephone. He said police had counted the contents of the bag and found 498 bullets of various calibres. Sihotang declined to speculate on the owners of the ammunition but said the bullets had probably not been in the sea for long as they were not rusty.
■ Australia
Activists rescued by whalers
Two activists harassing a Japanese whaling boat off Antarctica were lost for seven hours in bad weather yesterday before being rescued with the Japanese vessel's help, colleagues said. The Japanese crew helped search for the pair, who were trying to disrupt the whale hunt when they got lost in extreme fog in their inflatable boat, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said. "We called them and thanked them for that but said we are still planning on following [them]," said the group's international director Jonny Vasic. "It's kind of the rule of the sea and we would do the same," he said. "We are not out to hurt anybody and neither are they." The pair, an Australian and a US national, were ultimately found by the crew of their own vessel, the Farley Mowat.
■ Pakistan
Honor killings increase
At least 565 women and girls died in so-called honor killings last year, the country's main rights organization said on Thursday, nearly double the number it recorded the year before. The sharp increase from 287 in 2005 was due "at least in part" to expanded data collection, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in its annual report. However, it said many more cases may have gone unreported and has estimated in the past that the annual total may be about 1,000. The report said at least 475 of last year's honor killings followed accusations of "illicit relations."
■ France
Quake shakes southeast
A moderate earthquake shook southeastern Turkey yesterday, injuring more than two dozen people who fled their homes in panic, the local governor said. The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.3, was centered in the town of Silivre, in the province of Elazig, the Kandilli Observatory said. The quake was felt in neighboring provinces and at least 28 people were hospitalized after jumping from balconies and windows, in fear of being trapped in their homes, Governor Muammer Musmal said. The quake caused no serious damage, he said.
■ France
Firm to launch male hosiery
One of the nation's leading hosiery makers is launching a new line for men next month -- pantyhose with a welcome front opening and big feet, available in thick mannish knit but also as sheer tights. Gerbe said this week that the country's first hosiery line for men would go on sale next month "due to increasing demand from male clients." The pantyhose comes with a larger belt than for women as well as an opening, with "Men opaque," "sheer" or "satin" available in four models of tights, with and without feet, and three models of feel-good knee-high hosiery made to help drain toxins and massage tired limbs.
■ Germany
Man gets chocolate surprise
A man was put off his Italian chocolate treat when he noticed that a bump in the bar was not a nut but part of a human finger. "He found a fingertip, complete with fingernail, right in the middle of the bar," said a police spokesman in the town of Mainz, close to Frankfurt. "I suppose it went unnoticed because there were nuts in the chocolate and it was hard to tell the difference," the police spokesman said, adding the fingertip was being examined by forensic experts. The man was in shock when he took the bar to police after a doctor confirmed its contents. Police declined to name the brand of the chocolate.
■ United Nations
FAO issues cat warning
Cats should be kept away from areas affected by the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus as they can pick up and spread the disease, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday. Cats at infected farms should be kept indoors, the agency said, as evidence from around the world showed they could catch bird flu from eating infected poultry or wild birds. The worst fear is that cats could become a host for the virus where it could mutate into a form that may cause a human pandemic, the FAO said. "Cats could act as intermediary hosts in the spread of the H5N1 virus between species," said the FAO's Assistant Director-General, Alexander Mueller.
■ Sweden
Giraffe falls on man
A giraffe fell on top of a zoo boss leaving him with concussion and killing itself in the fall, media reported on Thursday. The 400kg male giraffe was to undergo routine testing for tuberculosis at the Kolmaarden Zoo 160km south of Stockholm. "We have a portable wall that we pull up next to a solid wall so that the animal can fall gently to the side when it is anaesthetized. You also have to make sure that the neck doesn't fall backwards," animal curator Mats Hoeggren said. But instead the giraffe seized up and fell on the zoo's operations manager, Lennart Sunden, who was standing beside it to hold its neck. Sunden needed seven stitches to his head.
■ United States
Dog coughs up diamond
Here is a dog with expensive tastes: A pit bull in Raisinville Township, Michigan, ate its owner's US$5,000 wedding ring before being made to throw it up again. Tina Burlett thought someone had broken into her house and stolen the custom-made ring. But her grandmother suspected the family dog, Missy. X-rays showed she was right. "I couldn't believe it," Burlett said. "I didn't think so at the time, but it's funny now." Missy has been caught gnawing on VCRs, electric blankets and even Burlett's diamond earring.
■ Cuba
Castro's health improving
Acting Cuban President Raul Castro said his ailing brother Fidel was getting better and performing exercises and was still consulted on all important governmental issues. "He's getting better each day," the younger Castro said to news media at the opening of a book fair on Thursday. Raul made a surprise appearance at the annual fair -- an event his older brother has often attended. "He's consulted on the most important questions," Raul Castro said of Fidel. His informal comments to the press were the first since he assumed provisional power.
■ Germany
Clinton's pants questioned
US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton should tap into her feminine side and wear dresses and skirts instead of pants, fashion designer Donatella Versace was quoted as saying on Thursday. "I can understand [pants] are comfortable, but she's a woman and she is allowed to show that," Versace told Germany's weekly newspaper Die Zeit in an interview. "She should treat femininity as an opportunity and not try to emulate masculinity in politics," Versace said. "I admire her for her determination, which will hopefully take her to the White House," Versace told the paper.
■ United States
Harvard's first female head
Harvard University appears poised to name historian Drew Gilpin Faust as its first woman president this weekend, according to two published reports. Harvard's main governing board, the Harvard Corporation, will make its recommendation to the Board of Overseers, the authority with the final say, tomorrow, multiple sources told the Boston Globe and the Harvard Crimson. Both newspapers said that Faust was the only remaining candidate. Faust, an expert on the Civil War and the South, was the first dean of Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Radcliffe, the former women's college at Harvard, officially merged with the university in 1999.
■ United States
More pilots armed
The federal agency charged with protecting airplane passengers from terrorist attacks is asking governments around the world for permission to place armed pilots on international flights. The Department of Homeland Security wants to extend the system whereby pilots are currently armed on a small number of domestic flights. Pilots are unarmed on international flights, even though they are considered higher risk. There are about 2,000 armed air marshals who fly on domestic and international flights as passengers. The government wants agreements with other countries that cover the use of air marshals to apply to armed pilots. Officials say this would allow a much greater reach as pilots are present on all flights.
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