■ Australia
Stallone charged in court
Aging Hollywood hunk Sylvester Stallone faces a stiff fine for allegedly trying to bring vials of a muscle-building hormone into the country, where it is restricted. An X-ray of bags among Stallone's entourage on their arrival on Feb. 16 to promote his latest Rocky Balboa movie prompted a search that revealed 48 vials of the human growth hormone product Jintropin, the Sydney Local Court heard yesterday. Stallone, 60, did not appear in court and was excused from appearing at another hearing scheduled for April 24 as long as a lawyer appears on his behalf. He will be required to enter a plea at the next hearing.
■ Japan
Landing gear fails
An All Nippon Airways passenger plane with 60 people on board made a successful emergency landing yesterday after circling an airport for nearly two hours when its front landing gear failed to descend. No one was injured when the Bombardier DHC-8 turboprop made a controlled landing on its rear wheels and then carefully touched its nose to the runway. Sparks shot from the bottom of the white and blue fuselage as the plane skidded to a halt, but the pilot kept it on the tarmac. The mishap was the latest in a string of problems with ANA's fleet of Canadian-made Bombardier aircraft.
■ Malaysia
Authorities to void marriage
Authorities are seeking to annul the marriage of a Muslim couple, claiming the husband was born a woman and the wedding was an illegal same-sex union, a court official said yesterday. A Shariah court in the southern state of Malacca heard a lawsuit on Monday filed against the couple by the state's Registrar of Marriages, a court official said. The New Straits Times newspaper identified the couple as Mohamad Sofian, 40, and Zaiton Aziz, 43, who were married in December 2002 in a mosque. The couple ran into problems when they tried to register their marriage.
■ Nepal
PM says king should bow out
The prime minister has suggested that King Gyanendra, who has been stripped of all power and authority, should give up his throne, news reports said yesterday. "If the king abdicates the throne now it would create a new environment," the Kantipur newspaper quoted Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala as saying in his hometown of Biratnagar. Koirala did not elaborate on what he meant by a "new environment" but criticized a statement last month by the king, in which he defended his decision in 2005 to dismiss the government and assume direct power.
■ India
Road collapse kills 18
At least 18 members of a wedding party were killed and 28 injured when a road collapsed, sending their bus hurtling down a ravine in northern India, a report said yesterday. The bus was carrying wedding guests in the hill state of Utta-rakhand when the driver parked the vehicle because of landslides, police superintendent V.P. Singh told the Press Trust of India. But a part of the road suddenly caved in and the bus hurtled 180m down the ravine. Thirteen people died on the spot while others died of their injuries en route to hospital, police said.
■ Germany
Hack fined for pope plot
A journalist has been fined 100 euros (US$131) after he filmed three artists stealing water from Pope Benedict's garden hose in Bavaria to sell on Internet auction site EBay. The three men, clad in overalls and wearing masks, broke into the garden of the Pope's house in Pentling, a suburb of Regensburg, last August armed with as many as 20 old lemonade bottles, said the journalist's lawyer, Jan Bockemuehl. They were filmed in the act by freelance journalist Hubertus Wiendl, who was caught when the caretaker noted down his car registration number, he said. Wiendl denied any knowledge of the plan to enter the garden.
■ Belgium
Police probe US$28m theft
Around US$28 million worth of diamonds have been stolen in a robbery from ABN Amro bank in Antwerp, known as Europe's diamond capital, a public prosecutor said on Monday. "A lot of safes were broken into and they [robbers] took a lot of diamonds ... and they were both cut and uncut," Dominique Reyniers said. A reward of 2 million euros (US$2.6 million) was offered for information leading to an arrest, she said. The robbery took place on March 5 but police did not think it necessary to appeal to the public for information until now, Reyniers said.
■ Germany
Bad Doberan, bad
A town has been forced to make the embarrassing admission that Adolf Hitler is still one of its honorary citizens just three months before it is due to host the G8 summit. Bad Doberan on the Baltic coast is under pressure from leftwing campaign groups to revoke the honor given to the Nazi leader, ahead of the meeting. The small spa town, 6.4km from the meeting's center in Heiligendamm, will host many of the fringe meetings of the G8, as well as provide accommodation for thousands of guests and journalists. According to the town's records, Hitler was awarded the honor in 1932, a year before the Nazi takeover of Germany.
■ Mauritania
Presidential runoff required
No candidate garnered more than 50 percent in a vote widely seen as the nations first truly free presidential ballot, forcing a runoff between the top two contenders later this month, Interior Minister Mohamed Ahmed Ould Mohamed Lamine said. International observers said early reports indicated voting had been free and transparent. With all votes tallied, former government minister Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi had received 25 percent, followed by longtime opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah with 21 percent, Lamine said on Monday.
■ Italy
Senator protests art loan
A senator chained himself to the gates of the Uffizi museum in Florence on Monday to protest the loan of Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation for a show at the National Museum in Tokyo. Inside the museum, the painting was being bundled in three protective crates filled with shock absorbers and high-tech sensors to monitor humidity, temperatures and stress levels. The 15th century masterpiece will be shown from March 20 through June 17 as part of "Italian Spring," a series of events promoting Italian culture and products. Senator Paolo Amato protested the loan, saying it exposes a priceless masterpiece to unnecessary risk and belittles its significance.
■ United States
Kidnappers receive death
Two men from the former Soviet Union convicted of kidnapping and killing five Los Angeles people as part of a get-rich-quick ransom plot were sentenced to death yesterday, a court ruled. Iouri Mikhel, 41, and Jurijus Kadamovas, 40, were convicted in January following a marathon four-and-a-half-month trial at Los Angeles Superior Court. A jury last month recommended they be executed. Their five victims were killed even when ransoms were paid, prosecutors said. Nancy Shapiro, whose husband Meyer Muscatel was the first to be killed, said after the sentencing that she felt "justice has been served."
■ United States
Indian hackers charged
Three people from India were charged with hacking into brokerage accounts in the US as part of a scheme to pump up the value of their shares, officials said on Monday. An indictment charged the three with securities fraud, computer fraud, identity theft and other charges in connection with a high-tech "pump and dump" scheme that reaped millions of dollars. The Justice Department said two of the three had been arrested in Asia and were being held for extradition to a US federal court in Omaha, Nebraska. The case marked the first overseas arrests in connection with an online brokerage intrusion scheme perpetrated in the US, officials said.
■ United States
Zoo elephant to be removed
Ruby, the Los Angeles city zoo's oldest elephant, will be moved to an animal sanctuary after years of lobbying by animal-rights activists. "Today, after 20 years of living here, and over 25,000 pounds [11,339kg] of peanuts, I may add, we finally say goodbye," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told a Los Angeles Zoo news conference Monday to announce the move. "I've said very clearly that I believe elephants should be in sanctuaries, and not in zoos. But it's still a debate, it's a conversation that we gotta have. So what we've done here is create a balance," he said.
■ Colombia
Governor ordered arrested
Colombia's federal prosecutor in Bogota ordered the arrest on Monday of the governor of a northern province for his alleged links with the country's far-right militias. Chief prosecutor Mario Iguaran ordered the arrest of Trino Luna, governor of the province of Magdalena, said a spokesman for the prosecutor's office who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the case. Prosecutors are investigating links between Luna and the paramilitary leader Hernan Giraldo. A latecomer to the paramilitaries, Giraldo is alleged to have been one of the largest drug-traffickers in the country, exporting tons of cocaine from his stronghold in the Sierra Nevada along the country's Caribbean coast.
■ Gaza Strip
BBC reporter kidnapped
Palestinian security services were hunting yesterday for a BBC correspondent kidnapped at gunpoint by armed men in Gaza on Monday. Alan Johnston, 44, was forced from his car at gunpoint in Gaza City as he drove home from his office. Johnston, a Briton, has been reported from Gaza for the past three years, one of the few Western journalists to be permanently based in the territory. His posting was due to end next month. The Palestinian interior ministry and the presidency ordered all security services and police to search for the missing journalist.
‘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
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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