■ New Zealand
Pot grower calls police
A middle-aged woman rang police to report a theft of cannabis plants she had been growing in buckets at her North Island home, local media reported yesterday. The crying woman told a constable at the police station in Napier the plant theft was the fourth from her property in four years. The woman, 45, lamented someone had again sneaked on to her property at night to steal her three carefully nurtured marijuana plants. "I am a good person. I am sick of these low-lifes stealing my things," the unnamed woman told a police communications officer.
■ Bangladesh
City starts demolition
Authorities have launched a massive demolition drive in Dhaka to ease chronic traffic congestion, an official said yesterday. Thousands of illegally constructed buildings in upmarket areas of the city are being reduced to rubble by bulldozers and hundreds of workers with pickaxes. The drive began late last month but demolition crews now have moved into high gear, officials said. "Already we have demolished thousands of illegal structures. We will clear all the roads in the city in a bid to ease traffic congestion," the chief of the capital's development authority said.
■ Malaysia
Brothers in freak collision
The survivor of a midnight car crash has awoken in hospital to learn that his brother drove the other car and died in the freak collision. Nyew Loong Hooi, 33, was driving his car along a street in Penang state last week when he collided head-on in darkness with another sedan, the New Straits Times said yesterday. He fell unconscious and awoke on Friday to be told of the tragedy. His elder brother, Leng Chew, had been driving home at the time. Malaysia has one of the poorest road-safety records in the region, with risk-taking and poor enforcement among the reasons for the thousands that die each year.
■ Malaysia
Farm pampers cattle
A Farm has adopted the Japanese art of cattle pampering -- with an Islamic twist. Prime steer and lambs raised by the company Bif Dagang get daily massages to reduce stress, padded flooring to protect their knees, three baths a day to cool down and a special diet of softened corn and barley that is easily chewed and digested, the New Straits Times said yesterday. The method is similar to Japanese rearing of its Wagyu cattle, which produces the prized Kobe beef. But instead of beer or sake to stimulate their appetite, Bif Dagang gives its cattle 100-Plus brand soft drinks to ensure the meat produced is halal, or acceptable under Islamic dietary rules.
■ Philippines
Police raid lawmaker's home
Police yesterday raided the home of a left-wing lawmaker charged with multiple murders in connection with an alleged communist purge in the 1980s. The wife of Satur Ocampo, Carolina Malay, said he wasn't home at the time and was "somewhere meeting with his lawyers." Ocampo has denied the murder charges, saying he was in military detention under former dictator Ferdinand Marcos when the alleged killings took place near Inopacan town in central Leyte Province, about 610km southeast of Manila. Regional Trial Court Judge Ephrem Abando on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for Ocampo, Communist Party founder Jose Maria Sison and 50 other suspected communist leaders and guerrillas.
■ Finland
Klingon used in politics
A member of parliament is aiming for re-election by campaigning with a translation of his Web site into Klingon, used in the TV series Star Trek. "Some have thought it is blasphemy to mix politics and Klingon," said Jyrki Kasvi, an ardent Trekkie. "Others say it is good if politicians can laugh at themselves." He said his politics posed some translation difficulties, since Klingon does not have words for matters such as tolerance, or for many colors, including green -- the party under whose banner he is running under.
■ Germany
Man saws house in two
A 43-year-old decided to settle his imminent divorce by chainsawing a family home in two and making off with his half in a forklift truck. Police in the eastern town of Sonneberg said on Friday the trained mason measured the single-storey summer house -- which was some 8m long and 6m wide -- before chainsawing through the wooden roof and walls. "The man said he was just taking his due," a police spokesman said. After finishing the job, the man picked up his half with the forklift truck and drove to his brother's house where he has since been staying.
■ Vatican City
Pope opposed Bob Dylan
Pope Benedict was opposed to musician Bob Dylan appearing at a youth event with the late Pope John Paul in 1997 because he considered the pop star the wrong kind of "prophet," Benedict writes in a new book issued on Thursday. Benedict, who was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the time of the concert in Bologna, Italy, makes the disclosure in a new book of memoirs about his predecessor, who died in 2005. "There was reason to be skeptical, -- I was, and in a certain sense I still am, -- to doubt if it was really right to let these types of prophets intervene," Benedict writes.
■ Libya
Qaddafi warns against US
President Muammar Qaddafi called on Libyans to devote themselves to military training to deter "foreign aggressors" from occupying the country and stealing its oil wealth. Invoking the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, Qaddafi told a rally of supporters in the southern desert oasis of Fezzane the US and Britain were trying to take control of Iraqi oil to "compensate for their losses in Iraq." "You must be the armed people so as foreign aggressors or foreign invaders know Libya has armed people who cannot be attacked ... to steal their oil, occupy their land and slaughter them like the Iraqi people," the Libyan leader said late on Friday in a speech broadcast on state television.
■ United Kingdom
Winslet wins lawsuit
Actress Kate Winslet, an outspoken critic of Hollywood's obsession with being skinny, has won libel damages from a magazine that reported she visited a diet doctor. Winslet's lawyer told the High Court in London on Friday that the article in Grazia was wrong. "Grazia magazine have apologized to me in full, and admitted that their story was incorrect," the Oscar-nominated star said in a statement. "I feel very strongly that `curves' are natural, womanly and real. I shall continue to hope that women are able to believe in themselves for who they are inside, and not feel under such incredible pressure to be unnaturally thin." Winslet will donate the undisclosed settlement to an eating disorder charity.
■ United States
More peanut butter recalled
ConAgra Foods Inc has extended its recall of all peanut butter produced at a plant in Georgia by more than a year, back to October 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday. The recall covers all Peter Pan peanut butter and all Great Value peanut butter beginning with product code 2111, including peanut butter toppings. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 425 people have fallen ill from the outbreak of salmonella that has been traced back to the plant in Sylvester, Georgia.
■ United States
Clearfield 131 rice banned
The Department of Agriculture on Friday banned farmers from planting a variety of rice containing genetically modified material that has not been approved by the government, and it told growers to destroy any plantings of the seed. "Testing ... has confirmed the presence of trace levels of genetic material not yet approved for commercialization in Clearfield 131 (CL131) rice seed," the department said. "This seed is not an option for planting this crop season." Government tests confirmed results received from private testing announced last Monday, which prompted the department to order seed dealers to stop selling the long-grain rice seed.
■ United States
Boston frontman found dead
Brad Delp, the lead singer of the band Boston, was found dead in his home in southern New Hampshire. He was 55. Atkinson police responded to a call for help at 1:20pm on Friday and found Delp dead. Police Lieutenant William Baldwin said in a statement the death was "untimely" and that there was no indication of foul play. "There was nothing disrupted in the house. He was a fairly healthy person from what we're able to ascertain," police chief Philip Consentino said. Delp apparently was alone at the time of his death, Baldwin said. The cause of his death remained under investigation by the Atkinson police and the New Hampshire Medical Examiner's office.
■ United States
Feminist backs students
The author of a well-known feminist play has agreed to speak at a school district where three girls were suspended after they used the word "vagina" while reciting the play. Eve Ensler, who wrote The Vagina Monologues, will speak on Tuesday at a school theater, just before a meeting of the board of education, and will appear with the girls, school board member Peter Breslin said on Friday's Today show. Breslin appeared with 16-year-old juniors Hannah Levinson, Megan Reback and Elan Stahl. The girls were suspended for a day each after they included the word "vagina" in an excerpt they read aloud at a school event last week.
■ United States
Bus crash survivor dies
A college baseball player pulled from the wreckage of his team's charter bus in Georgia died of his injuries, raising the death toll from last week's crash to seven. Zach Arend, 18, had been in critical condition since the bus went off a highway overpass before dawn on March 2. He died about 6am on Friday, said Grady Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Denise Simpson. Arend's grandmother, Ann Miller, had said the Ohio teenager had suffered chest and abdominal injuries, a fractured pelvis and collapsed lungs. Arend's parents, Dana and Caroline, wrote in a family statement that he was a wonderful son. "He loved baseball, and he loved being with his family and friends."
‘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