■ CHINA
Heavy rains kill three
Heavy rains have killed at least three people, forced 158,000 people from their homes, damaged thousands of buildings and flooded farmland in central China, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Xinhua said the Ministry of Civil Affairs sent an emergency rescue group to the disaster-hit area in southern Hunan Province following the rains that started on Wednesday night and continued through Thursday. About 75,000 people do not have access to clean drinking water, Xinhua quoted the ministry as saying. More than 57,000 hectares of farmland were affected with direct economic losses expected to hit 580 million yuan (US$75 million). Xinhua said more rainfall was forecast for the province.
■ AUSTRALIA
Groups slam `toad golf'
A local council has earned the ire of animal welfare groups for promoting the pleasures of "cane toad golf." The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), slammed the Townsville Council in Queensland for encouraging locals to tee off on a cane toad, which is regarded as a noxious pest in the area. "It's definitely not appropriate," RSPCA spokesman Michael Beattie told the Townsville Bulletin newspaper. "We accept that they are a menace and they need to be eradicated. However, hitting them with golf clubs is inhumane and totally ineffective," he said. "Cane toad golf" was listed among life's pleasures on a promotional beer cooler produced by the council.
■ PHILIPPINES
Bomb explodes in bus
Five people were injured when a bomb, believed to have been planted by Muslim extremists, exploded inside a bus in the south of the country yesterday, a senior police official said. The bomb went off after the bus unloaded passengers at a heavily guarded depot in Matalam town in the central part of the southern island of Mindanao, regional police chief Frederico Dulay said. The explosion injured bystanders, leaving at least one in serious condition, and was believed to have been set off by a cellphone, he said.
■ SINGAPORE
Airport to use face scanners
People traveling to Singapore will soon be required to have their face electronically scanned at immigration checkpoints amid efforts to boost security, the Straits Times reported yesterday. Nearly 1,000 computers at all of the nation's ports, land borders and airports, will be installed with face-recognition technology over the next year, it said, citing government documents tendering for suppliers of the system. The face-matching system will be used together with the fingerprint scanners currently in operation, the report said. The biometric system would process more than 250,000 face scans daily when fully operational.
■ POLAND
Stolen keys delay troops
The 1,200 troops assigned to NATO forces in Afghanistan will not achieve full combat readiness for several weeks due to stolen vehicle keys, the defense ministry said on Thursday. "We had been told a 10 percent theft rate was likely in convoys brought in from Pakistan, but we had not expected the spare car keys to go missing," a ministry spokesman told news channel TVN24. "We shall have to send away for spares, so it may take from several days to several weeks for our contingent to become combat ready." The military vehicles include Poland's Land Rover-like Honkers and US-built Humvees.
■ MALTA
Search under way for boats
The military said yesterday that it was coordinating a search for two boats carrying a total of 50 migrants missing off the Libyan coast in rough seas. The army said people on the boats had used satellite phones to contact residents at an open center for migrants in Malta late on Thursday afternoon, reporting their boats as being 76km off the Libyan coast. The Libyan coastguard said it could not conduct a search because of rough seas, while the master of an Iranian freighter located 42km from the boats said he was afraid to take the migrants on board as they might be armed. Contact with both boats was lost at about midnight on Thursday. On Friday a French frigate recovered 18 bodies 193km north of Libya, but Maltese authorities said there was no evidence that they came from the missing boats.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Calling to listen to death
A unique work of art, unveiled yesterday, invites viewers to phone a glacier in Iceland -- and listen to its death throes, live, through a microphone submerged deep in a lagoon which relays the splashes, creaks and groans as great masses of melting ice sheer off and crash into the water. The dying glacier sounds clearer than artist Katie Paterson, who has been camping out in torrential rain and bitter cold installing the piece. The visible tip of the project in Britain is her neon sign in London's Slade gallery which gives the mobile number 07758 225698, from which anyone can call. "This lagoon is a graveyard of glaciers," Paterson said on Thursday from her tent by the water. "In a way there is something heartbreaking about this, knowing that you are listening to something magnificent being destroyed -- but it is also very beautiful, a celebration of nature."
■ SPAIN
Police arrest arms dealer
Police have arrested a Syrian arms dealer wanted by the US on terrorism and other charges. Monzer al-Kassar, a longtime resident of Spain, was arrested at Madrid airport after arriving on a flight from Malaga, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. It said al-Kassar faces charges in New York of conspiracy to provide aid and equipment to a terrorist organization, conspiracy to kill US citizens and officials, conspiracy to acquire anti-aircraft missiles and money laundering.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Mild bird flu spreads
A recent outbreak of mild bird flu in north Wales has spread to northwest England, the farm ministry said. A case of H7N2 bird flu has been found at a poultry farm near St. Helens and all the birds will be slaughtered and a 1km exclusion zone imposed, the ministry said. The H7N2 strain was found at a farm in North Wales last month. The two farms are about 113km apart.
■ UNITED STATES
Wheelchair taken for ride
A man in Paw Paw, Michigan, was taken on a wild ride when his wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a semitrailer truck and was accidentally pushed down a highway for 6.4km at about 80kph, authorities said. The 21-year-old man, whose name was not released, was unharmed but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He had been secured to his wheelchair by a seat belt. "The man spilled his soda pop, but he wasn't upset," said Sergeant Kathy Morton of the Michigan State Police.
■ UNITED STATES
Teen crashes through mall
A teenager drove to a crowded suburban mall in Massapequa, New York, but neglected to park -- instead smashing through the entrance and cruising past clothing stores before exiting the car to deliver a speech to onlookers, police said. The 19-year-old man drove through the mall's main glass doors at around 7pm on Thursday, continued past a JCPenney, passed the mall's central court, knocked over a kiosk and then made two left turns before exiting near a McDonald's, Nassau County police said. After breaking through the second set of doors at Westfield Sunrise mall, the driver exited the car and started giving a rambling speech before being restrained by a passer-by until police got there, Officer Thomas Brussell said.
■ UNITED STATES
Buttock jabber charged
A New York man is accused of paying underage girls to let him jab their buttocks, and he now faces charges under a new law that specifically addresses crimes committed for sexual gratification, prosecutors said. Frank Ranieri, 25, of Staten Island, paid at least five girls -- all between the ages of 15 and 17 -- thousands of dollars since 2003 to engage in "piquerism," a sexual fixation on penetrating the body with sharp objects, such as pins, nails and stilettos, the Staten Island district attorney's office said.
■ BRAZIL
Rare Amazon monkey stolen
The theft of a rare Amazon monkey from a zoo could harm biologists' efforts to repopulate the endangered species, zoo officials said on Wednesday. Workers arriving at the zoo on Tuesday morning noticed the male pied tamarin was missing, and found a wrench and a coat left behind in its cage. "This is a significant loss," said Luiz Antonio da Silva Pires, director of the city zoo in Bauru, 350km northwest of Sao Paulo. "The monkey was likely one of the few still alive in captivity and we were hoping to use it to start a new population and keep the species alive."
■ UNITED STATES
Senate holds hell debate
State senators rushing to beat a legislative deadline on Thursday took time out to debate whether a four-letter invective is too coarse for use on the House floor. During debate over a regional planning bill, Senator Tom McClintock, a Republican, used the word repeatedly to register his objections. "Who the hell are you?" McClintock asked time and again, directing his comment to the bill's sponsor, Senator Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento. McClintock later said he meant no insult to Steinberg. Senator Carole Migden, a Democrat, asked McClintock to apologize. "`Who the hell are you' is offensive," she said. The public use of profanity by political leaders has led to a decline in accepted standards for their use, Migden said. Vice President Dick Cheney famously used the F-word during an argument on the floor of the US Senate.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number