■ Thailand
Chat room page shut down
The government has shut down a popular political online chat room, the Web site said yesterday, just days after YouTube was blocked for videos deemed insulting to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The political page of Pantip.com was closed for national security reasons at the request of the Information Communication and Technology Ministry (ITC), a notice on the Web site read. "ICT has asked for the temporary closure of [the political page] `Rajadamneon Room' after it found several topics that might endanger national security," the site said in a notice.
■ Hong KOng
Burial-at-sea operational
The ashes of 11 people were scattered off a small island a mile from downtown as a new burial-at-sea scheme went into operation in the space-scarce city, the government said yesterday. Family members and religious ministers took to the high seas aboard a specially decked out boat for the burials Saturday afternoon. Each deceased was given a religious send-off of their family's choosing before their ashes were tossed over the side, a government spokesman said. The government gave the go-ahead for burials at specific sites around the territory's coast last year in a bid to ease competition for burial space in its choked cemeteries and crematoria.
■ Hong Kong
Tourism boss to stop scams
The Hong Kong Tourist Board's new boss James Tien (田北俊) vowed yesterday to crack down on high-street retail scams that prey on unsuspecting Chinese visitors. The comments by Tien, follow revelations that a number of jewelry shops had sold fake goods to Chinese tourists. "I find these allegations shocking and deeply damaging for our tourism industry," Tien, a tycoon lawmaker and former Cabinet member, said in an address on public radio. Chiefs at the Tourism Industry Council trade body warned that such scams would damage the territory's reputation as a shopping destination.
■ China
Parent care check planned
Changyuan County plans in-depth checks on how its officials' treat their parents, with those who are nice to their mother and father first in line for promotion, Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. Up to 500 family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors will be grilled by special investigators about the behavior of each official in the county, including their family values and any drinking or gambling habits, the report said. The findings will be considered when deciding promotions.
■ Australia
Hicks cannot sell story
Al-Qaeda supporter David Hicks will be barred from selling his story when he returns home from Guantanamo Bay prison camp, despite having broken no law, the attorney general said yesterday. Hicks will soon be sent to a prison in his hometown of Adelaide to serve a nine-month sentence after pleading guilty two weeks ago to aiding al-Qaeda in a plea deal agreed on at the US naval base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. The deal includes the condition that Hicks not speak to the media for a year, and does not sell his story -- provisions that Attorney General Philip Ruddock said will not be enforceable once he returns home. However, Ruddock said a separate federal law against criminals profiting from crime through media deals will stop the 31-year-old from selling his story.
■ United States
Famous criminal dies
Jimmy Lee Smith, the lifelong criminal whose role in the 1963 kidnapping and killing of a police officer inspired Joseph Wambaugh's true-life crime novel The Onion Field died in jail at age 76, a California prisons official said. Smith died on Friday at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, where he was being held for failing to report to a parole officer, Bill Sessa, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokes-man, said on Saturday. Foul play was not suspected, but the cause of death was under investigation, the county coroner's office said.
■ United States
Man wants to give house
Mike Bassett wants to give away a house, a big house, with a fireplace, built-in cabinets, a bay window, two full bathrooms and walk-in closets. There is just one catch -- the lucky recipient has to move it. Bassett says if he does not have a taker by July 1, he will raze the structure to make way for more parking for his supermarket and gas station next door in Bellevue, Ohio, 72km southeast of Toledo. "I hate to tear it down," Bassett, 54, said on Friday. "It's a beautiful house." He said that in the past week he has received about 20 inquiries about the house, which was used for offices until last June.
■ United States
Dolphin chat line opened
A marine mammal rehabi-litation facility opened a dolphin "chat line" on Saturday, hoping to teach a deaf dolphin's unborn calf to communicate. The stranded dolphin has been recovering at the Marine Mammal Conservancy in Key Largo, Florida, since Jan. 30. A battery of tests has confirmed she is deaf. Dolphins need to hear echoes of sounds they produce to find food, socialize and defend themselves. Researchers decided to electronically connect the dolphin's habitat with a lagoon at Dolphins Plus, a nearby research facility. Underwater speakers and microphones were installed at both locations and connected via telephone lines.
■ United States
Moviegoers shocked
A family-film audience was stunned to get an unintended glimpse of a horror movie, which left some parents shaken and the theater chain apologizing for the mix-up. The moviegoers were expecting to see The Last Mimzy, the PG-rated tale of a brother and sister who discover a mysterious box of toys and become endowed with superhuman powers to help preserve the future. Instead, the crowd saw the opening scene of The Hills Have Eyes 2, the R-rated sequel to a remake of a 1977 horror classic by Wes Craven. The movie, which centers on National Guard troops who stumble on a clan of mutant cannibals, starts with a chained woman giving birth to a mutant.
■ United States
Flight canceled over fit
Northwest Airlines canceled a flight from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Detroit, Michigan, after the captain cursed on a cellphone in a bathroom, then swore at one of the 180 passengers on the plane, officials said on Saturday. "He used what was described to me as rude language," Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said about Friday's incident on Northwest Flight 1190. "At some point during the boarding process, he left the cockpit, went into the front lavatory, locked the door and continued his conversation. "Passengers who were boarding the aircraft could hear his end of the conversation through the lavatory door."
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number