■ INDIA
Man offers tongue to god
A jobless devotee was admitted to hospital after he cut off his tongue and offered it to a Hindu goddess, police said yesterday. Doctors stitched the wound but said the man, identified as Suresh Kumar, 24, may not be able to speak again. The incident took place on Tuesday evening when Kumar visited a temple dedicated to Hindu goddess Kali on the outskirts of Jammu, the winter capital of Indian Kashmir. Inside the temple, he cut his tongue off with a knife and gave it to the priest to offer it to the deity. He was immediately rushed to hospital.
■ INDIA
Questions infuriate staff
Female civil servants are furious with new government guidelines that force them to list intimate details, including their menstrual history, in appraisal forms, a newspaper reported yesterday. The All-India Services Performance Appraisal Rules 2007 -- which apply to senior government workers -- ask female employees to record their last menstrual period, as well as when they last took maternity leave, the Hindustan Times said. "The questions are too intrusive and have no bearing on our work," Seema Vyas, a senior bureaucrat in Maharashtra state, was quoted as saying. India's Ministry of Personnel, which drew up the new appraisal guidelines, says it has not received any complaints.
■ CHINA
Corrupt officer jailed
A philandering policeman has been jailed for life for taking 5 million yuan (US$625,000) in bribes so he could lavish his six mistresses with cash and gifts, the Shanghai Daily reported yesterday. Xu Xiaogang (許曉剛), 56, former vice director of public security in Jiangxi Province, was convicted by a court on Monday of taking advantage of his post to seek personal benefits, it said. The daily said Xu admitted to taking bribes from criminal suspects under investigation between 1997 and 2005. He then used that money to shower his mistresses in various different cities with cash and gifts.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Scientific paper pulled
A US publication has withdrawn a paper by Seoul National University scientists about the world's first cloned wolves in a further disgrace for a team that embarrassed the country with a stem cell research fraud. The university said on Monday it was investigating a team of scientists at the school for possibly inflating data in its wolf experiment to increase its cloning success rate. After that, the US periodical Cloning and Stem Cells said on its Web site it "will await the outcome of this investigation before deciding upon any action."
■ EGYPT
Architect can't test theory
The powerful head of the nation's antiquities department in Cairo on Tuesday ruled out any on-site tests to check the veracity of a new French theory about the building of the Great Pyramid. French architect Jean Pierre Houdin put forward a theory on the construction of the Great Pyramid in March, suggesting it had been built using an internal spiral ramp, rather than an external ramp as had long been suggested. Using 3-D technology from Dassault Systems, the architect built a model of the 4,500-year-old structure with the internal tunnel and he has said he wants to test the veracity of his theory on site.
■ NETHERLANDS
Prince shows off daughter
A beaming Crown Prince Willem-Alexander showed off his new daughter early yesterday in the Hague, just hours after his Argentine wife Princess Maxima gave birth. "She is an exemplary daughter, we're very proud," the prince said, carrying his third daughter on a white embroidered pillow. "We had a relaxed night and the delivery went very well," Willem-Alexander said at a nationally televised news conference. "We can't wait to show her to [her elder sisters] Amalia and Alexia." The girl, who is fourth in line to the throne after her father and two sisters, weighed in at 4.2kg and was 52cm long.
■ GERMANY
Wall removed in secret
One of the last remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall in the center of the German capital was removed by workers on contract to the government in a secretly engineered operation over the Easter weekend. In the hope that no one would notice because of the quiet holiday break, the 18m strip of graffitied wall was yanked from its foundations in the dead of night. Startled tourists were the first to notice on Easter Sunday when they went to take photographs of the famous strip on Potsdamer Platz, the center of the once-divided city, and found it was gone. The media initially responded by spearheading a hunt for the tourist attraction, which contains well-known murals.
■ SAUDI ARABIA
Wives trim husband's nose
A Riyadh man lost a bit of his nose in a joint assault by his two wives after he jokingly threatened to marry a third woman. Judaie Ibn Salem had thought his threat would help resolve an argument over dividing up his house. "I swore that I would do it because ... they were impolite and that's when I came under an even bigger attack," Ibn Salem told Shams newspaper after having seven stitches inserted. "I never realized they would get so worked up," he said. "But the only way to restore my dignity is really to take a third wife."
■ SWEDEN
Moose, reindeer to pick salt
Moose and reindeer at a Stockholm wildlife park have been invited to an unusual taste panel that will help decide which type of salt should be used to deice the country's roads in wintertime. The less they like it, the better. The National Road Administration plans to introduce a new, sweeter blend of road salt, but wants to make sure it does not attract wildlife to Sweden's highways, project organizer Frida Hedin said on Tuesday. She said the 14 hoofed jury members at Stockholm's Skansen open-air museum will be presented with two salt blocks -- one with the new sugary flavor and another tasting like the road salt being used today.
■ ECUADOR
Galapagos Islands at risk
The government declared the world-famous Galapagos Islands at risk on Tuesday and could temporarily suspend tourism permits and enforce rigorous population restrictions to prevent further environmental harm. "We are pushing for a series of actions to overcome the huge institutional, environmental and social crisis in the islands," Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said after signing an emergency decree to help the archipelago. Correa did not provide any details about the possible restrictions, but said the country would consider suspending some tourism permits. Thousands of visitors travel to the islands annually.
■ BAHAMAS
DNA confirms father
A former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, was identified on Tuesday as the father of Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith's seven-month-old daughter after DNA test results were released by a court. The revelation brought to a climax a tabloid maelstrom that was kicked off by the abrupt death of the buxom widow of a billionaire from an accidental drug overdose in a Florida hotel casino on Feb. 8. Her baby, Dannielynn, could one day be worth a fortune if Smith's estate wins a decade-long battle to inherit from former oil tycoon husband J. Howard Marshall.
■ BRAZIL
Priest confronts pigeons
A priest who blames ethanol production for a plague of pigeons outside his cathedral is threatening to set loose hawks and monkeys to frighten the birds away. Environmentalists warned on Tuesday that the scheme would break the law, but the priest seems unrepentant. "I know that these actions are prohibited," the Reverend Francisco Jaber Zanardo Moussa said in a statement. "But I don't care, I'll do everything I can to promote my people's well-being." The priest said the predators should frighten away a flock of 60,000 pigeons that have been forced from their natural habitat by the area's booming sugarcane plantations. He said the pigeons dirty the town's central plaza and could spread serious diseases in Ribeirao Preto city.
■ UNITED STATES
Man has last wishes tattooed
US Army veteran and cancer survivor Russell Parsons says he is not afraid to die -- and he has the tattoo to prove it. Tattooed on his right arm are instructions to the funeral home where he has a prepaid cremation: "Barlow Bonsall cook @ 1700-1800 for 2 to 3 hours." "It's a recipe," the 67-year-old widower said. "It's a recipe for cremation." Linda Wilson, manager of Barlow Bonsall Funeral Home and Crematorium in West Virginia, said she thought Parsons was joking several weeks ago when he said he was going to have his final wishes tattooed on his arm.
■ UNITED STATES
Simulation turns sour
Students said a three-week lesson that assigned the roles of Germans and Jews during the Holocaust got out of hand when some students took the role-playing too far. The exercise in the Waxahachie, Texas, Ninth Grade Academy school's Advanced Placement Geography course was meant to bring home the reality of intolerance during the Holocaust, school officials said. The point of the class was "learning about the problems of intolerance and the problems of discrimination and helping kids understand what some people went through to change the world," Principal John Aune said. The exercise got out of hand when the German students spat on or hit the Jewish students.
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