■ Japan
Glass found in KFC food
Small pieces of glass were found in food sold at two outlets of restaurant chain KFC, the company said yesterday. The glass came from a broken thermometer in a refrigerator at a vegetable factory and had fallen onto shredded cabbage, it said in a statement. Two customers complained of hurting their teeth on the glass. One man said his tooth chipped when he chewed a glass shard, and another said a filling fell out, a KFC spokesman said. The company suspended sales of dishes containing shredded cabbage at its 228 outlets across Japan.
■ Japan
New minister named
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday named an agriculture insider to replace farm minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who committed suicide amid allegations of corruption. Norihiko Akagi, a lawmaker whose grandfather was a six-time farm minister, said he would use his position to try to push ahead stalled WTO talks. "We asked him to accept the post as he is a man with ready fighting potential," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the government's chief spokesman, told a news conference. "There is a lot of talk going on right now about the WTO and free trade accords," Shiozaki said.
■ Bangladesh
22 die in heatwave
A heatwave has killed 22 people this week with temperatures soaring above 40C, media reports said yesterday. Doctors said that in the northern district of Pabna alone, about 100 people — mostly children and the aged — had been taken to hospitals due to heatstroke. The hot and humid weather has also led to an outbreak of diarrhoea, fever and respiratory problems across the country, health officials said. The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka has admitted more than 500 patients, mostly children, on average each day over the past week. Weather officials said they recorded temperatures between 37C and 41C on Thursday.
■ Philippines
Tuneless singer slain
A jobless man was shot dead by a security guard for singing out of tune in a karaoke bar, police said on Thursday. Romy Baligula, 29, was halfway through his song on Tuesday night in a bar in San Mateo town, east of Manila, when 43-year-old security guard Robilito Ortega yelled that he was out of tune. As Baligula ignored his comments and continued singing, Ortega pulled out his revolver and shot him in the chest. Senior Superintendent Felipe Rojas said Baligula died instantly. The security guard was detained by an off-duty policeman shortly after the shooting. Deaths and violence are not uncommon in Philippine karaoke bars. The popular Frank Sinatra song My Way has been banned in many karaoke bars in Manila.
■ Span
`Elvis' wins spot on council
Council meetings in Reus, near Barcelona, could take a turn for the bizarre after the northern town voted in a councilor who promised to turn up dressed as Elvis Presley and wants to turn the square into a nudist pool. Ariel Santamaria, a former postman, stood for a small independent party dressed in full Elvis regalia complete with sideburns and won enough votes last weekend to take a council seat. His platform included plans to paint the town hall pink, plant marijuana in the parks and give the police GPS to find people who might need a light while rolling a joint.
■ Italy
Cocaine found in Rome air
A report from Italy's National Research Council released on Thursday found that there are traces of cocaine and cannabis in the air of the Eternal City. The institute made the discovery during a study of toxic substances in the air of Rome, Taranto, in the heel of boot-shaped Italy, as well as in Algiers. The results found that in Rome, there were traces of cocaine and cannabis -- as well as nicotine, caffeine and benzopirene, which is commonly released in cigarette smoke and auto emissions. "The highest concentrations of cocaine were found in the center of Rome and especially in the area of the University of La Sapienza," said lead investigator Angelo Cecinato.
■ Bosnia
Battle over cow payout
A farmer is locked in a legal battle over the death of his cow, which he says drowned in a rain-filled mass grave from the 1992-95 war that authorities failed to refill after exhuming the bodies. The grave was exhumed last year, uncovering the remains of 50 Bosnian Muslims killed by Bosnian Serb forces in the war. The farmer said the cow was stung by a gadfly and in its distress ran into the hole that was full of water after heavy rain. A court awarded him compensation of 2,800 Bosnian marka (US$1,930), but prosecutors appealed on suspicion of foul play. "We think the cow might have been already dead and he thought he could earn some money," prosecutor Mirsad Bilajac said.
■ United Kingdom
Loners lose more sleep
Loneliness is the biggest cause of stress among Britain's singletons, a poll shows. Being alone causes single people more sleepless nights than credit card debt, work pressures and global warming, according to the survey by dating Web site Parship.co.uk. It found that 6 million people -- 51 percent of Britain's singletons -- regularly lose sleep over their solo status. They lose an average 28 nights' sleep per year through worrying about the prospect of never meeting someone to share their lives with.
■ United Kingdom
Man shot during safety talk
Newspapers reported yesterday that a police marksman accidentally shot a colleague -- during a firearms safety lecture. The wounded man is in a serious but stable condition in a hospital in Oxford, southern England, the Times said. New control room operators for Thames Valley Police were being given a training lecture on how the force's firearms team operates by one of its officers, the Daily Mail said. "For some reason, the gun he was using was loaded and one of the audience was shot in the stomach from fairly close range," a police source said. The officer, who said he did not know the gun was loaded, has been suspended from the firearms unit, the Sun said. An investigation has been launched.
■ United States
Farmer scoffs at hog rival
The Georgia farmer on whose property a huge wild hog was killed in 2004 is skeptical about reports that an even bigger wild hog was killed in Alabama. Last week, an 11-year-old boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 476.73kg and measured 2.74m from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. But farmer Ken Holyoak said on Thursday he did not believe it. "That hog's so fat he could hardly walk. He couldn't make it in the wild. I'm about 99 percent sure that hog was growed in a pen and they turned him out and shot him," he said. Holyoak said he measured and weighed the pig, nicknamed Hogzilla, that was killed on his farm at 454kg and 3.66m long.
■ United States
Bodybuilder let off the hook
Prosecutors have dropped misdemeanor charges against a diabetic bodybuilder in California who said his behavior during a scuffle with police was due to insulin shock. Doug Burns, 43, who holds the "Mr Natural Universe" crown, was sprayed with Mace and wrestled to the ground by officers who believed he was intoxicated, at a downtown movie theater in Redwood City, California, in April. They arrested him for assault and resisting arrest. Burns maintained that he was disoriented and unaware of his actions as a result of extremely low blood sugar.
■ United States
`Dr Death' leaves prison
Jack Kevorkian, the retired pathologist dubbed "Dr Death" after claiming he had participated in at least 130 assisted suicides, yesterday left prison after eight years, still believing people have the right to die. A smiling Kevorkian said the release was "one of the high points of life" as he walked out with his attorney and 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. Kevorkian is expected to now move to Bloomfield Hills, just outside Detroit, Michigan, where he will live with friends and resume the artistic and musical hobbies he missed in prison.
■ Bolivia
Police bust big drug lab
Police have busted one of the biggest cocaine-making factories ever found, hidden deep in the jungle, dealing a major blow to South American drug-traffickers, authorities said on Thursday. The secret lab, which was uncovered in the Kaa-Iya national park, some 150km from Santa Cruz and inaccessible by road, could produce up to 100kg of cocaine a day. It was one of the biggest factories uncovered in Bolivia in two decades, and its production translated to about half of all the cocaine illegally exported from the country every year, authorities said. Six Colombians and two Bolivians were arrested in the early Monday raid when anti-drug squads stormed the plant while the men slept in their hammocks, their weapons next to them.
■ United States
Travelers warned on Iran
The State Department on Thursday reiterated a warning to US citizens against travel to Iran, citing hostility against Americans. "Some elements of the Iranian regime and the population remain hostile to the United States. American citizens may be subject to harassment or arrest while traveling or residing in Iran," the department said in a statement. The department said that Iranian authorities may deny dual nationals access to the US Interests Section in Tehran, because Iran does not recognize dual nationals as anything but Iranians.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
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