■ JAPAN
Two-year-old girl stabbed
A woman stabbed a two-year-old girl in a busy underground shopping arcade south of Tokyo yesterday, a police official said, the latest in a series of crimes that have shocked the country. News reports said the toddler was seriously injured. Two off-duty police officers grabbed the 29-year-old woman after hearing screams at the shopping arcade, which is connected to a main train station in Yokohama, according to a local police official who refused to give his name, citing protocol. The woman, identified as Shio Kikuchi, was arrested, he said.
■ CAMBODIA
3,000 rally for HIV care
Some 3,000 people, including 500 who are HIV-positive, took to the streets yesterday to demand better HIV and AIDS care in the country. "We need better access to treatment. Most HIV-positive people still lack access to even cheap ... treatment," said Kong Vanny, a 42-year-old woman, who was infected by her husband. The crowd, including Buddhist monks, university students and government officials, also lit candles to mark Cambodia's annual AIDS Memorial Day at a central park in Phnom Penh. "We hope this event will help raise awareness of HIV/AIDS among Cambodian people," said Hor Bunleng, undersecretary of state at the National AIDS Authority.
■ AUSTRALIA
Drop that blaster!
An Australian movie fan on his way to pose for a Star Wars 30th anniversary photo shoot was arrested by police after his replica laser pistol was mistaken for a more earthly machine gun, media reported yesterday. The 32-year-old man, dressed in black and carrying a backpack with a replica laser blaster poking out the side, alarmed diners at a food court in central Melbourne. "It was a replica gun. We weren't sure what we were dealing with," Senior Constable Daniel Sage told the Herald Sun newspaper. Photographs showed a gun closely resembling the weapon carried by Han Solo in the cinema classic. The man had been on his way to pose for a community newspaper ahead of the 30th Star Wars movie anniversary.
■ JAPAN
Minister opposes bomb ban
The country needs cluster bombs to protect itself and opposes an international ban on the weapons being discussed in Peru, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday. "There is no substitute to replace them when defending Japan," Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said. "What's at issue regarding cluster bombs is when they are used by the side on the offensive. Japan will never use cluster bombs for the purpose of attacking others," he said. The country has been officially pacifist since World War II and its US-imposed 1947 Constitution bans the country from even possessing a military.
■ GERMANY
Two arrested in Thailand
Two German men suspected of sexually abusing children have been arrested by police in Thailand in a joint operation with German authorities, federal police said on Thursday. The men, aged 56 and 62, were arrested on Sunday at a hotel in Khorat near the border with Cambodia in the company of a 16-year-old boy. German police said they had seized computers belonging to the men containing pornographic photographs. The 56-year-old man has been a resident of Thailand since 2002 while the 62-year-old regularly visits the country but lives in Munich.
■ FRANCE
Vineyard planted in Paris
Nestled among rows of skyscrapers, a vineyard was inaugurated on Thursday in the heart of Paris' main business district with the aim of producing a wine harvest in three years' time. Boasting 350 plants of Pinot Noir grapes and 350 plants of Chardonnay, the vineyard was planted on rich earth trucked in from surrounding farmland to the concrete, high-rise La Defense complex on the western rim of Paris. The "Clos de Chantecoq" covers 1,000m2 as part of a public project to renovate Europe's largest business district.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Dolphin dialects detected
Dolphins living off the coast of Wales whistle, bark and groan in a different dialect from dolphins off the western coast of Ireland, scientists have discovered. Different physical environments might have contributed to the mammals developing distinctive sets of vocalizations or "dialects," said Simon Berrow from the Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation. Berrow supervised a master's thesis by student Ronan Hickey at the University of Wales, Bangor, who analysed 1,882 whistles from the dolphins in the Shannon estuary and bottlenose dolphins in Cardigan Bay in Wales.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Divorcee gets ?48m payout
The Court of Appeal upheld a ?48 million (US$94.7 million) divorce award to the ex-wife of an insurance tycoon on Thursday, but expressed concern that London is becoming the world capital for big money breakups. John Charman had argued that the award set by a lower court for Beverley Charman, his wife of 29 years, was "grotesque and unfair." The Court of Appeal's ruling will be closely studied for guidance in other big cases. While endorsing the settlement, the largest ever in a contested divorce in England and Wales, the court urged the government to consider recognizing prenuptial agreements as legally enforceable.
■ ITALY
Terrorist suspects acquitted
A Milan court on Thursday acquitted three Moroccan men, including a former imam, of terrorism charges, lawyers said. The suspects were alleged to have raised money and recruited extremists for a Moroccan extremist organization, the Islamic Combatant Group, which is blamed for the 2003 bombings in Casablanca, Morocco. The three were not suspected of having taken part in any attack, according to Italian news reports. Acquitted were Abdelmajid Zergout, the former imam of the northern town of Varese, Mohamed Raouiane, and Abdelillah El Kaflaoui. The three were arrested in 2005 in Turin. An informant had told authorities that he had seen the former imam in a training camp in Afghanistan, and the defendants' phone calls had been wiretapped.
■ UNITED STATES
Congressman nabs thief
A congressman chased and caught a man who picked the lawmaker's pocket on Thursday night in Washington, a local television station reported. Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Republican, was walking in Georgetown when a group of young men came up behind him. Frelinghuysen felt someone grab at his wallet and when he turned, the would-be robber took off, WRC TV reported. Frelinghuysen, 61, gave chase and caught the suspect a short distance away. Two passing police officers saw the chase and arrested the 18-year-old suspect, the report said.
■ UNITED STATES
Toddler survives fall
A three-year-old fell from his fifth-floor apartment in Dubuque, Iowa, but was recovering on Thursday, authorities said. Connor Ehlers suffered a lacerated head, among other injuries, and was in fair condition, hospital officials said. The boy fell on Wednesday night from his apartment window, apparently after pushing against the window screen, Police Chief Kim Wadding said. Toya Broaden, who lives on the second floor of the Bishop Block Apartments said she was in her apartment about 8pm on Wednesday when she heard something hit her window sill. She looked out and saw the child lying on the sidewalk.
■ UNITED STATES
Florida battles cat-sized rats
Deep in the heart of the Florida Keys, wildlife officials are laying bait laced with poison to try to wipe out a colony of enormous African rats that could threaten crops and other animals. US federal and state officials are beginning the final phase of a two-year project to eradicate the Gambian pouched rats, which can grow to the size of a cat and began reproducing in the remote area about eight years ago. "This is the only place in the United States where this is occurring," said Gary Witmer, a biologist with the US Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado. A former exotic pet breeder bred the species and allowed the critters to escape.
■ UNITED STATES
Poll gives Bush bad news
Americans now view the war in Iraq more negatively than at any time since the invasion more than four years ago, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. Sixty-one percent of Americans say the US should have stayed out of Iraq, and 76 percent say things are going badly there, including 47 percent who say things are going very badly, the poll found. US President George W. Bush's approval ratings remain near the lowest of his more than six years in office. Thirty percent approve of the job he is doing overall, while 63 percent disapprove. More Americans -- 72 percent -- now say that "generally things in the country are seriously off on the wrong track" than at any other time since the Times/CBS News poll began asking the question in 1983.
■ HONDURAS
President orders propaganda
President Manuel Zelaya has ordered radio and TV stations to broadcast government propaganda to counteract what he called unfair coverage of his administration. Zelaya said on Wednesday they would be required to simultaneously air conversations and interviews with government officials for two hours a day, for 10 days straight. Broadcasters said the transmissions would start on Monday. Under Honduran law, the government may order broadcasters to air messages that are deemed to be of national importance.
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