■ Australia
Irwin has last laugh on critic
Croc hunter Steve Irwin has had the last laugh on his main critic Germaine Greer -- with his portrait replacing that of the outspoken feminist at the nation's National Portrait Gallery. Greer generated a storm of outrage when she said the animal world had finally taken its revenge on the self-proclaimed wildlife warrior when he was killed by a stingray last year. The Canberra gallery said Greer's portrait had been taken down last week as part of a regular rotation of works. It has been replaced with a photograph of Irwin standing next to an elephant.
■ Australia
Local council thinks pink
A local council has installed pink lights in a public car park to deter thugs in souped-up cars from cruising around the facility and intimidating other patrons. The pink lights are the latest innovative crowd control measure from Sydney's Rockdale Council, which last year began piping crooner Barry Manilow's greatest hits into a park to discourage youths from hanging around. Rockdale mayor Bill Saravinovski said the behavior of loutish car enthusiasts, known locally as "hoons," had been discouraging patrons from visiting local restaurants. "Pink is supposed to be a color that calms people and so we thought it would stop these hoons from cruising the area," Saravinovski said.
■ Malaysia
Gangs eyed to fight crime
A wing of the nation's ruling party plans to persuade unruly biker gangs to fight crime by offering them rewards for catching bag-snatchers, a report said yesterday. Gang members would get 50 ringgit (US$14.30) for each bag-snatcher caught, and a new motorbike if they round up 30, the United Malays National Organization youth wing has proposed. Motorbike gangs are the bane of the nation's drivers who complain they roam the streets at night performing dangerous stunts and threatening other motorists.
■ Australia
Drunken man catches shark
A man who caught a 1.3m shark with his bare hands off a beach said yesterday he only tried the feat because he was drunk on vodka. Phillip Kerkhof was fishing off a jetty at Louth Bay, a town on South Australia state's Eyre Peninsula, when he spotted the bronze whaler shark swimming in the shallows, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported. The shark bit a hole in his jeans, but he was uninjured.
■ Malaysia
Chastity belts an option
A respected Muslim religious adviser has suggested that women wear chastity belts to thwart "sex maniacs" who rape and commit incest, according to a report yesterday. Abu Hassan Din al-Hafiz said cases of rape and incest were rampant and that chastity belts would help reduce sex-related crimes, the Star daily reported. "We have even come across a number of unusual sex cases, where even senior citizens and children were not spared. The best way to avert sex perpetrators is to wear protection," he was quoted as saying in the newspaper.
■ Egypt
Al-Qaeda posts video
Al-Qaeda posted yesterday a video showing what they claimed to be an insurgent attack on a military position of US and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan. It begins with the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, ridiculing US President George W. Bush and saying that his claim to have deprived al-Qaeda of a safe haven in Afghanistan is a "bare-faced lie," according to a transcript by IntelCenter, a US group that tracks extremist messages.
■ Indonesia
Police on high alert
Security forces have been on highest alert in the restive Central Sulawesi Province following warnings militants may be planning attacks, the region's police chief said yesterday. The Australian government said earlier yesterday it had credible information militants may be in advanced stages of planning attacks in Central Sulawesi, the scene of tension between Muslims and Christians.
■ Pakistan
Man fails `innocence test'
A rural tribal council ordered a man to stand neck-deep in a freezing pond for 10 minutes to "prove" his son innocent of a robbery charge. Khuda Bakhsh -- his arms and legs bound with rope -- was also told to move 25m though the pond in the eastern province of Punjab. However, Bakhsh held out for only two minutes and the family was fined US$650, village official Waqar Aziz said. Under tribal rules, elders can order a person accused of minor crimes to through cold water. Anyone staying in the water for the required time or crossing the coals without injury is acquitted.
■ Brazil
Drug war causes panic
The drug war among police, drug dealers' gangs and paramilitary militias continued to cause panic in Rio de Janeiro days before the city's world-famous Carnival parades are to begin. In the early hours of Thursday, drivers fled -- sometimes resorting to going against the direction of traffic -- in efforts to escape northern areas of Rio, where fighting has been going on since Tuesday, the news Web site G1 reported. Shots rang out around the poor neighborhood Complexo do Alemao for several several hours and the police used tear gas, the report said. Hundreds of police agents have been trying since Tuesday to take the Complexo do Alemao.
■ United Nations
UN condemns attack in Iran
The UN Security Council responded to a request from Iran on Thursday and condemned the deadliest terrorist attack in the country in years, extending "sincere condolences" to the Iranian people, but not to the government, at US insistence. Acting US Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said it was "a rich irony" that a government that rejects the Security Council's authority and has refused to implement a council resolution demanding suspension of its uranium enrichment program asked the council to adopt a statement condemning the attack. "We rejoice in the fact that the government recognizes that the council is the supreme body to deal with issues of international peace and security," Wolff said.
■ United Kingdom
Police to step up patrols
Armed police plan to patrol parts of south London where three teenage boys have been shot dead in the past 12 days. A special temporary task force is to be set up to help investigate those crimes and two other murders, police said on Thursday. The latest shooting saw Billy Cox, 15, murdered in his home in Lambeth on Wednesday. The new measures are to be introduced following a special meeting called by Metropolitan Police Chief Ian Blair and attended by senior colleagues from Scotland Yard's Specialist Crime Directorate and Territorial Policing Unit.
■ South Africa
Farm confiscated
Authorities have for the first time seized a farm from its owners and intend to confiscate more land as part of an intensified drive to divide it up among rural communities dispossessed by apartheid, ministers said on Thursday. Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana said that the government planned to push through new legislation to simplify the confiscation process and set up a new body with powers to acquire land for poor farmers. The government wants disadvantaged communities to own 30 percent of agricultural land by 2014 to ease the crushing poverty.
■ United States
Dinosaur eggs seized
Customs agents have seized fossilized dinosaur eggs believed to have been smuggled illegally from China and auctioned for US$420,000, officials said. The 22 eggs were so well-preserved that embryonic raptors are visible inside 19 of them. They were seized late last week from the Bonhams & Butterfields auction house in Los Angeles, officials said on Thursday. The eggs were auctioned in December to an undisclosed buyer, but the transaction was scrubbed before money changed hands.
■ United States
Granny jailed over young boy
An 84-year-old woman who confessed to having sex with an 11-year-old boy in her foster care reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to attempted sex abuse, officials said. Georgie Audean Buoy will serve 36 months in prison, Leslie Wolf, chief deputy district attorney for Wasco County, Oregon, said on Thursday. Buoy was originally charged with six counts, including attempted rape, for which she faced eight years in prison, Wolf said. She must register as a sex offender after serving her sentence, and must pay US$5,000 to the victim, as well as up to US$7,500 in restitution for counseling.
■ United States
Nude jogger vows to change
A man who liked to jog naked in a park, wearing only running shoes, said he would keep his clothes on after he was fined US$95 for indecent exposure. Darryl Delacruz, 43, a Silicon Valley engineer, said he would miss the "liberating feeling" of running naked. After other park users complained, park rangers finally caught him on Jan. 9. People are allowed to sunbathe naked in the park, but only out of eyeshot of others. "We don't see it as appropriate behavior. A significant number of people feel uncomfortable with a nude person running around," Midpeninsula Rangers Peace Officers Association president Kerry Carlson said.
■ Colombia
US$10m in drug cash found
Authorities found more than US$10 million stashed behind a closet in a Cali apartment, bringing to nearly US$90 million the sum of cash and gold seized this year from the city's drug lords, police said on Thursday. The region around the western city of Cali is home to the Norte del Valle cocaine cartel, which is accused of exporting about 500 tonnes of the white powder since 1999, worth about US$10 billion. The packets of US$100 bills were found on Wednesday in a luxury apartment building near the spot where drug boss Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela was captured, police told reporters.
■ Brazil
Couple rescued from hole
A young couple survived more than two-and-a-half days in a hole after being forced into the 8m deep well during a robbery. According to media reports on Thursday, the couple was saved by chance on Wednesday by a passer-by who refused to identify himself. The two young people were robbed on Sunday night and forced to go down a dark well in an abandoned factory terrain in the town of Mogi das Cruzes, in the state of Sao Paulo. The media spoke of a "miraculous rescue," since access to the factory, in a remote wooded area, is difficult.
■ United States
Former border officer jailed
A former border inspector was sentenced on Thursday to five years in federal prison for guiding hundreds of illegal immigrants through his checkpoint booth in exchange for at least US$70,000 from a smuggling ring. Michael Anthony Gilliland, a 44-year-old former US Marine and a border agent for 16 years, pleaded guilty in September to letting illegal immigrants through San Diego's Otay Mesa port of entry in exchange for bribes. Gilliland and five others coordinated smuggling operations and deliberately failed to record vehicles that carried immigrants through border lanes under his supervision, according to court documents. He was arrested in June. Four co-conspirators have been sentenced to shorter prison terms. A fifth is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in