■ CAMBODIA
Mother accused of murder
A woman was charged yesterday with premeditated murder for allegedly tossing her one-year-old baby boy into a river, officials said. So Savoeurn, 20, claimed she is HIV-positive and had passed on the virus to her toddler, said Prak Chut, a district police chief of the southeastern Svay Rieng Province. She said she threw her son into the river because she could not afford food or medicine for him, Prak Chut said. Prak Chut said So Savoeurn had no medical documents to prove her or her son's illness. Police arrested her Thursday, two days after authorities found her son's body floating in the river.
■ CHINA
Factory explosion kills five
Five people were killed and 2,000 were evacuated in a chemical factory explosion, state media reported yesterday. The blast at Canzhou Dahua TDI, a producer of chemicals used in the manufacturing of polyurethane, occurred on Friday afternoon in Hebei Province, the official Xinhua news agency said. "The blast in the nitration workshop section led to a fire," a Cangzhou city spokeswoman said. More than 100 people were injured, fourteen seriously, many of them suffering burns, the report said. The accident prompted authorities to move more than 2,000 residents in a nearby village in case of a toxic leak.
■ BANGLADESH
Authorities fight bird flu
Authorities are struggling to combat deadly bird flu as it continues to spread with more than 150,000 chickens and foul destroyed, an official said yesterday. The avian influenza, first detected in a farm near the capital Dhaka, has so far infected more than 40 farms in 11 districts. Authorities have culled 151,000 birds, government spokesman Abdul Motalib confirmed. "The situation is not grave yet. But with limited technical men and working seven-days a week, we have been struggling to combat the deadly disease," he said. Motalib said a farm in the northern Nilphamari district was the latest to be infected with the deadly virus on Friday. A total of 3137 chickens and ducks were culled.
■ PHILIPPINES
Sixth eruption of volcano
A volcano shot clouds of grayish ash and steam 4km high yesterday, but residents were in no immediate danger from the eruption, volcanologists said. It was the sixth eruption of the 1,560m Mount Bulusan this year, said Espie del Mundo of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. "This is usually just ash, so the only hazard is from ash," such as respiratory ailments, del Mundo said. The volcanic ash caused "zero visibility" over some parts of Juban and Irosin towns, making it hazardous for motorists, said Mayor Edwin Hamor of nearby Casiguran who visited the area.
■ VIETNAM
Activist lawyers sentenced
A court on Friday sentenced two activist lawyers to up to five years in jail in the latest trial of political dissidents in the communist-run state. Nguyen Van Dai, 39, and Le Thi Cong Nhan, 28, part of a new generation of Internet-based political activists with supporters overseas, were found guilty of "spreading propaganda against the state," a criminal offense. The four-hour trial was one of three this week of activists from the country's tiny dissident community, who propose alternatives to one-party rule. Hanoi People's Court Chief Judge Nguyen Huu Chinh sentenced Dai to five years in prison plus four years "administrative surveillance."
■ DENMARK
Wind power growing
Already a world leader in wind energy production and consumption, the country has built the world's largest offshore wind park in the North Sea as it aims to generate 75 percent of its electricity needs with wind power by 2025. Looking out from the port of Esbjerg, the blades of 80 giant wind turbines rotate high in the sky at the Horns Reef wind farm some 20km offshore. The 160 megawatts of wind energy capacity generated by the park is enough to meet the needs of 150,000 homes for a full year.
■ ITALY
Thousands rally over bill
Tens of thousands of people rallied in Rome yesterday to protest a bill that would give many legal rights to unmarried couples, including homosexual couples, fueling a debate that has split Italy amid calls by Pope Benedict XVI to defend the traditional family. The legislation, which awaits parliamentary approval, has underscored long-standing tensions in the largely Roman Catholic country between a desire to hold on to traditions and a push toward greater secularization. Organizers of yesterday's "Family Day" demonstration included lay Catholic groups and family associations. While the demonstration was endorsed by Italian bishops, neither the Vatican nor the Italian bishops' conference is formally behind it. "Family belongs to believers and nonbelievers alike," said Gaetano Quagliariello, a center-right senator who helped organize the event.
■ MALI
Rebels kill officer
Tuareg rebels in Mali, accompanied by Tuaregs from Niger, killed a military police officer in an attack on a Saharan outpost on Friday, the first such raid since a peace deal last year. The assault against the gendarmerie post at Tin-Za, just 3km from the Algerian border, was led by Ibrahim Bahanga, a well-known Malian Tuareg insurgent chief, the territorial administration ministry said. A senior government official said one gendarme had been killed in the attack and five wounded. The Tuaregs, whose ancestral Saharan lands are split between Niger, Mali, Algeria and Libya, have long demanded greater autonomy.
■ NETHERLANDS
Fake becomes real bust
Dutch customs police turned a fake break into a real bust on Friday when they stopped a woman trying to smuggle 1.5kg of cocaine into the country in a plaster cast on her leg. Police spokesman Rob Stenacker said the woman, whose name was not released, acted nervously while her passport was being checked and agents became suspicious about the thickness of the cast. "She had two different letters from a doctor about her leg and both of them appeared fake," he said. A sniffer dog quickly indicated that the cast contained more than plaster. The woman was taken to hospital, where an X-ray revealed the drugs but no fractures.
■ RUSSIA
Court rejects royal heirs
A Moscow court has again denied a request by descendants of the last czar to have the monarch and the royal family declared victims of political repression, news agencies reported on Friday. The decision by the Moscow City Court is the second time that the court has ruled on the matter of whether to "rehabilitate" czar Nicholas II and his family. Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 and he and his family were detained. A firing squad executed them on July 17, 1918.
■ VENEZUELA
Oil projects face huge tax bill
Caracas on Friday said it had slapped record tax tabs of more than US$545 million on oil projects led by Conoco Phillips, the lone holdout in President Hugo Chavez's oil nationalization campaign. The nation's energy minister said days earlier that it was in "conflict" with Conoco over its refusal to sign an accord recognizing the OPEC nation's takeover of four multibillion-dollar Orinoco projects on May 1. The Seniat tax authority said in a statement it had hit the Petrozuata oil project, 50.1 percent owned by ConocoPhillips, with a tax claim of more than US$465 million for operations between 2003 and 2005.
■ UNITED STATES
Wolfowitz broke ethics rules
The World Bank executive board has concluded that bank president Paul Wolfowitz broke ethics rules in arranging a pay raise for his girlfriend and will try to end his tenure next week, the Washington Post reported yesterday. Citing unnamed senior bank officials, the newspaper said board members do not want to vote to fire Wolfowitz since that might provoke a rupture with the US. But they are inclined to adopt a resolution saying they have lost confidence in him, hoping that will persuade him to resign, the report said. Bank officials said the resolution will probably assert that Wolfowitz's continued tenure jeopardizes the bank's ability to raise funds for its campaign to eradicate poverty, the report said.
■ UNITED STATES
Calf born with two noses
Mark Krombholz had to look twice at his new calf, Lucy -- one time for each nose. "I didn't notice anything too different about her until I got her in the barn," Krombholz said. "And all of a sudden I went to feed her a bottle of milk and I thought maybe she'd been kicked in the nose and there were two noses there." The second, smaller nose sits on top of the first. "It's a functioning nose because the middle of her second nose, the flap would go in and out when she drank out of the bottle like that," Krombholz said. "It was kind of funny."
■ UNITED STATES
Man feigns mental retardation
A man was sentenced to 13 months in prison for pretending to be mentally retarded in order to claim disability benefits. Pete Costello, 28, pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to defraud the government and to Social Security fraud. He began receiving disability benefits from Social Security, which pays a pension to the retired and disabled, when he was 8. He was ordered to repay the US$59,226 he has received since turning 18. Costello, who cannot read or write, dictated a letter to his public defender that was submitted to the judge before Friday's sentencing and filed in court.
■ UNITED STATES
Men caught in fish feces
Rescuers cut through a filtration tank filled with dense fish feces to reach four workers who fell into the sludge on Friday while cleaning the 5.5m tank at a western Massachusetts farm. The workers became trapped for 45 minutes after a bracket holding a plastic filtration pad collapsed as they stood on it to clean the tank, said Captain David Dion of the Turners Falls Fire Department. Dion said rescue workers cut a hole in the side of the tank and then slashed through the feces mix to pull out the workers. None of the workers appeared to have life-threatening injuries.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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