■ New Zealand
Stargazing student killed
A South Korean student was run over by a car and killed as he lay in a shopping center car park at 3:30am while waiting to buy tickets to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, police said. Lee Sang-je was apparently stargazing when he was hit by a car at the Okara Shopping Center in Whangarei, 825km north of Wellington, early on Monday morning, Detective Shane Pilmer said. Pilmer said witnesses saw a gray sedan with two people inside hit the 18-year-old and then speed away. Lee later died of chest injuries at Whangarei Hospital.
■ Thailand
Bird species found
A bird species that has not been seen since the remains of one were found in India 140 years ago is alive and living in Thailand, scientists said yesterday. The live Large-billed Reed-warbler was found by chance by ornithologist Philip Round as he was putting identification tags on wild birds at a water treatment plant near Bangkok last year. The living bird has been matched to the original sample by DNA. Because only one sample had been known for so long there had been serious doubts over whether it was a distinct species or simply an aberration.
■ China
Panda pelt leads to jail
A woman has been arrested for trying to sell the pelt of an adult panda, state media reported yesterday. The Beijing News reported Sun Shiqun, 60, was arrested on Feb. 8 while bringing the panda pelt from Ya'an in Sichuan Province to meet a buyer in Chongqing. Sun told investigators she paid US$5,000 for the skin and planned to sell it for US$39,000. The report said the animal had been killed but did not give details. Sun had been investigated before for trying to pass off the pelt of a red panda as a giant panda. Both are endangered species. The panda is one of the world's rarest animals, with about 1,590 living in the wild.
■ China
Mandarin skills surveyed
More than half of all the nation's population can speak the country's national language, a survey by the Ministry of Education said. The survey showed that of the half a million people polled, 53 percent could communicate effectively in spoken Mandarin, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The country's Constitution says the government promotes the use of the form of Mandarin that has been adopted as the national language throughout the country. More younger people understand Mandarin, with about 70 percent of those between the ages of 15 and 29 speaking it, while 31 percent of those between the ages of 60 and 69 said they can speak Mandarin.
■ China
Paralyzed activist persists
An activist working to help villagers displaced by the giant Three Gorges Dam has appealed a decision on the beating that left him paralyzed last June to China's parliament. Fu Xiancai (傅先財), who has been petitioning since the 1990s for appropriate compensation for the more than 1 million people displaced by the dam, was beaten in Hubei Province after he criticized the dam project in an interview given to a German broadcaster. A police investigation into Fu's beating said he had inflicted the injuries on himself and local courts have thrown out the case, New York-based Human Rights in China reported. Fu has appealed to National People's Congress Standing Committee Chairman Wu Bangguo (吳邦國) to intervene, the statement said.
■ Israel
Killer bug spreading
A bacterium resistant to antibiotics has led to "dozens of deaths" in hospitals, a report on public television said on Tuesday. "The bacteria has been in most of the large hospitals in the country," Galia Rahav, a specialist in infectious diseases at Tel Aviv's Tel Hashomer hospital said. "Of 130 cases, there was a 30 percent death rate in our hospital," she said, adding there was nothing that could be done to fight the bacterium, which is from the klebsiella genus. Klebsiella organisms can lead to a range of diseases, notably pneumonia, urinary tract infections and septicemia.
■ Germany
Spider's sex lives revealed
A new study by scientists of spiders' copulation techniques found that males leave part of their sex organ inside their female partner as a sort of "chastity belt" to deter rivals. "By breaking off parts of their intromittent organs inside a virgin female, males can reduce sperm competition and thereby increase their paternity success," the Bonn University researchers wrote in the journal Behavioral Ecology. After setting the tone by shaking the female's web, the male has only seconds to have sex before the larger female kills him. In more than 80 percent of cases, the tip of the male's genital organ breaks off inside the female. This appears to be the result of a hasty getaway -- but also leaves behind a sort of chastity belt that keeps other males away, the study showed.
■ Germany
Dirty depositer nabbed
An 18-year-old man has been detained for repeatedly defecating in front of a cash machine in a bank vestibule in the southern town of Eggmuehl, police said on Tuesday. A police spokesman said the man, who left his deposit at the bank eight times, was caught only after the bank installed video monitors to film him in action. A staff worker later spotted the man as he was boarding a local bus. She alerted police and they then detained him as he was about to get off the bus. He faces charges of vandalism, the spokesman said.
■ Iran
Quake leaves 35 injured
A moderate earthquake damaged buildings and injured at least 35 people yesterday in a southwestern town, sending panicked residents running into the streets, a local official said. The magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck at 2:03am and was centered in the town of Doroud, 380km southwest of Tehran, said Jafar Lak, an official in the governor's office in Doroud. "The epicenter of the quake was exactly in the center of the town and damaged many buildings," Lak said. No one was killed in the quake, but 35 people were injured, Lak added.
■ United States
Movies linked to smoking
White US teenagers who watch a lot of R-rated movies or have unsupervised access to TV shows appear more likely than similar black youths to start smoking cigarettes, a study found on Monday. Researchers found that white adolescents with the most exposure to R-rated movies were nearly seven times more likely to have started smoking compared to those with less exposure. Even after taking into account such things as having a friend who smoked, lack of parental guidance or doing poorly in school, those who watched more R-rated movies were still three times more likely to start smoking, the study found. Among black adolescents in the study there was no similar impact.
■ United States
`Wired' man detained in LA
Officials detained an Iraqi man during a security scare at Los Angeles International airport on Tuesday but said a suspicious object found in a body cavity search did not pose a threat. The man, identified as Fadhel al-Maliki, 35, was detained at passenger screening at the airport just before 6am on Tuesday morning. The bomb squad was called as a precaution and authorities said they found wires in his clothing and a magnet inside a lower body cavity. The man was preparing to board a US Airways flight to Philadelphia. The flight left without the passenger but with his luggage aboard. It made an unscheduled landing in Las Vegas where the plane was thoroughly searched but nothing was found.
■ United States
Statements admissible
A military judge at Camp Pendleton, California, has ruled that statements made by a Marine corporal charged with kidnapping and murdering an Iraqi man can be used at trial, the Marine Corps said on Tuesday. Corporal Trent Thomas, 25, was part of a squad of seven Marines and a Navy corpsman charged last year with the killing of Hashim Ibrahim Awad in the Iraqi town of Hamdania. Prosecutors have said Awad was killed after the squad was unable to find an insurgent suspected of planting bombs. Five of the squad members have since pleaded guilty to reduced charges after reaching deals with prosecutors.
■ United States
Boy urged to `stab mommy'
A Connecticut man has been arrested for allegedly stabbing his wife several times, then giving the knife to his two-year-old son and telling him to "stab Mommy," police said. Fermin Rodriguez, 21, attacked his 17-year-old wife on Sunday night, after accusing her of cheating on him, police said on Monday. They would not say whether the boy followed his father's directive, the Connecticut Post reported. Rodriguez was charged with first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, first-degree unlawful restraint and threatening. The wife, Keyschla Rodriguez, was taken to a hospital for treatment of stab wounds to her chest, face, arms and legs.
■ United States
Nobel Prize trophy stolen
A Nobel Prize won by late US physicist Ernest Lawrence in 1939 has been stolen from its display case at the University of California, Berkeley, police said on Tuesday. The coin-shaped trophy featuring a profile of Alfred Nobel is valued at US$4,200 and was the first ever Nobel Prize to be awarded to the university. "It's considered an artifact," a police spokesman said. "It is cast of 23-carat gold, dates to 1939 and has several features that are unique from the modern prize." The prize was discovered missing on March 1, police said. Lawrence won the Nobel Prize for his invention of the particle-accelerating cyclotron.
■ United States
Criminal helps police
A 24-year-old Wisconsin man called police to tell them he was trying to break into a church, but he was not having much luck. Police said the found the man waiting at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Stevens Point. The man told them he had hoped to get married in the church and was trying to use a metal shovel to break through the doors. He told them he figured they could help. Officers searched the man and found marijuana. He then invited them to his home, where he told them they would find more drugs. They did: a stash of marijuana and stolen prescription drugs.
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