■ AUSTRALIA
Shark attacks woman
A woman and her baby survived a shark attack in knee-deep water at a popular holiday beach, authorities said yesterday. The 38-year-old was bitten on the lower leg on Wednesday afternoon while strolling with her baby in shallows at Warra Beach, 1,100km north of Perth. "A shark came up behind her and bit her on the calf," a St John Ambulance spokesman said. "Her husband was with her, but did not identify the shark or its size." The woman suffered severe injuries to her lower left leg and was taken by air ambulance to Perth, where her condition was stable, the spokesman said. The beach is famous for its shallow, fringing corals and is popular with tourists visiting the famous Ningaloo reef marine park.
■ AFGHANISTAN
Bombs kill 10 police
Two bomb blasts 15 minutes apart on a road in Kandahar city yesterday killed 10 police and wounded five, an official said. The first blast -- a remote control bomb targeting a police vehicle -- killed four officers, said Gul Zaman, a police official. About 15 minutes later, a secondary blast hit police attending to the wreckage of the first bomb, killing another six police and wounding five, Zaman said. An Associated Press reporter was among the journalists at the scene when the second blast went off, bloodying some officers who began shouting and carrying bodies away in the chaos.
■ CHINA
Beijing policeman stabbed
A policeman was stabbed in Beijing's Tiananmen Square at the weekend, one day after a vandal damaged the huge portrait of Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) facing the politically sensitive landmark, authorities said yesterday. The officer was stabbed on Sunday after questioning a man who had been "lingering on the square and acting suspiciously for several days," Xinhua news agency said. The man became annoyed and lashed out, hitting the unnamed officer in the face before stabbing him in the stomach with a knife, the statement said. Police detained the man, identified as Pan Shucun, 41. The officer is in a stable condition.
■ JAPAN
Teen cut off mom's arm
A teenager who turned up at a police station with his mother's severed head had also cut off her arm, which he stuck in a flower pot and painted, the Mainichi Shimbun reported on Wednesday. Police found the woman's arm in a flower pot in the boy's bedroom with the hand at the top, it said. The arm was painted white. A saw and a can of spray-paint lay in the bloody room, the newspaper said. It said police believe the 17-year-old attacked his mother as she slept and stabbed her repeatedly in the neck. She died from blood loss before he dismembered the body, the report said.
■ PAKISTAN
Troops exchange fire
Pakistani and Afghan troops exchanged mortar and gun fire on their disputed border yesterday, days after clashes on the frontier claimed more than a dozen lives, a Pakistani official said. The two-hour battle erupted after Afghan forces fired a mortar at Pakistani soldiers near the Teri Mangal area in the Khyber tribal district, a Pakistani military spokesman said on condition of anonymity. "Pakistani forces responded effectively and the exchange of fire continued until 5am," the spokesman said. The Afghan ministry of defense said two members of their security forces were wounded.
■ FRANCE
Sarkozy names PM
President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday named loyal adviser Francois Fillon, a moderate right-winger, as his prime minister. The 53-year-old senator from the ruling UMP party, who worked closely with Sarkozy on his election campaign, has crucial experience in pensions reform which will be a key asset to the new government. The assignment was announced in a presidential statement a day after Sarkozy took over as head of state from Jacques Chirac.
■ TURKEY
Activists build Noah's Ark
Environmental activists are building a replica of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat -- where the original Biblical Ark is said to have landed after the great flood -- in an appeal to world leaders to take action against global warming, Greenpeace said on Wednesday. Turkish and German volunteer carpenters are making the wooden ship on the mountain in eastern Turkey, bordering Iran. The Ark will be revealed in a ceremony on May 31, a day after Greenpeace activists climb the mountain and call on world leaders to take action to tackle climate change, Greenpeace said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Judge admits tech illiteracy
A judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like "Web site" in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet. Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals. "The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is," he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws. Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum." An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts."
■ UNITED STATES
Blair takes swansong trip
One of the most controversial double-acts in global affairs was due to have its Washington swansong yesterday as the US and British leaders bring the curtain down on a tumultuous partnership. US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were to hold a news conference in the White House Rose Garden after meeting over dinner late on Wednesday for talks dominated by the US-led "war on terror." Before he resigns on June 27 after a decade in power, Blair headed into his valedictory trip to Washington with a clarion call for world leaders to remain engaged with the US.
■ UNITED STATES
CIA expert made top officer
A CIA expert on China has been made the top intelligence officer for East Asia under US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, the US government said on Wednesday. Paul Heer will be responsible for US intelligence estimates on East Asia by the National Intelligence Council and will serve as the director's top adviser on issues related to the region, the office of the DNI said. In a statement, McConnell said Heer is "one of the country's leading intelligence analysts on East Asia," a region that offers the US "tremendous challenges and opportunities." Heer has served since 1983 at the CIA, most recently as a senior analyst in its "China Issue Group" and before that as chief of its China political assessment team.
■ MEXICO
Police kills 15 suspects
Fifteen alleged drug traffickers and two civilians were killed on Wednesday in a shootout with police after gunmen killed five police in an earlier attack, officials said. The clashes took place in the northwest state of Sonora between police and around 50 armed men traveling in a dozen or so vehicles, a spokesman at the state attorney's office said. "A total of 15 assassins are dead. During the clashes, the body of a kidnapped policeman was found, in addition to four city police from Cananea who were killed" earlier in the morning, Jose Larrinaga said.
■ UNITED STATES
`Hugging bandit' jailed
The "Hugging Bandit" -- the plus-size pickpocket who put the squeeze on tipsy men and their wallets in upstate New York -- is behind bars, police said. Myra Castleberry, 48, was being held without bail and police hoped they had seen the last of a decade-long spree of thefts. "Hopefully, she'll be hugging her pillow in her prison cell for a long time," Detective Sergeant Tom Donovan said on Tuesday. The Hugging Bandit targeted dozens of unsuspecting men outside bars over the years, distracting them in the wee hours of the morning by fondling them and then secretly stealing their wallets.
■ UNITED STATES
Storm topples Basilica spire
A powerful storm toppled a small spire from the University of Notre Dame's Basilica of the Sacred Heart and left more than 16,000 people in and near the Indiana university without power on Wednesday. One person died when a tree fell on his car. At Notre Dame, one of four smaller spires that surround the basilica's main spire fell to the ground, bringing with it some bricks and mortar. No one was injured. "That's a fairly significant amount of damage to one of the university's most important landmarks," spokesman Dennis Brown said. Several large trees on campus also were damaged, he said.
■ UNITED STATES
Bo Diddley suffers stroke
Bo Diddley is in intensive care after suffering a stroke in Iowa, a publicist said on Wednesday. The 78-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was listed in guarded condition at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, said Susan Clary, a publicist for the musician's management team. Diddley, who has a history of hypertension and diabetes, was hospitalized on Sunday following a concert in Council Bluffs in which he seemed disoriented, she said. Tests indicated that the stroke affected the left side of his brain, impairing his speech and speech recognition, Clary said.
■ UNITED STATES
Shells found at LA airport
People were evacuated from the upper level of a Los Angeles Airport terminal after mortar shells were found at a baggage screening area, a law enforcement official said. A Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad responded to the scene at around 9:40pm on Wednesday, police department spokesman Lieutenant Jason Lee said. No explosives were found. "We found out that it was an inert round," Lee said. "No explosives, just a shell." Lee said there were no arrests. Passengers were allowed back into Terminal Two less than two hours later. The terminal services a dozen airlines, including Northwest Airlines, Air Canada and Virgin Atlantic.
‘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