■ CHINA
Ex-village chief on the run
Police are seeking a former village chief for allegedly killing his political rivals in an attack apparently motivated by local power plays, state press reported yesterday. Ning Yongfeng, 43, is suspected of shooting four people dead, including two newly elected members of the Jiuzhou Village committee in Hebei Province on Saturday night, the Beijing News said. Ning is believed to have used a hunting rifle in the killings and is on the run, it said. The killings came only hours after two of the victims were named to the local village committee, it said.
■ AUSTRALIA
TV ad targets speeding
Young men who drive too fast have had the size of their manhood questioned in the latest drive by anti-speeding campaigners to cut road deaths. The below-the-belt TV ads show women noticing a young man roaring past then turning scornfully to their friends and wiggling their little fingers. The mocking gesture with the pinkie is a clear sign they believe the driver is trying to compensate for an inadequate manhood and is designed to counter the idea that speeding is cool and macho. The "Speeding: No one thinks big of you" campaign targets young men between the ages of 17 and 25.
■ AUSTRALIA
DNA kits for dog attacks
Council rangers are being trained to bring delinquent dogs to heel using DNA technology. The City of Port Phillip, part of the country's second-largest city, Melbourne, announced on Sunday it will equip dog rangers with DNA kits -- swabs, gloves, evidence bags other equipment -- to gather clues at the scene of every dog attack on a human or pet. "We have to make sure that if we have to do something like put an animal down or prosecute, we're sure" of the canine culprit's identity, Councilor Janet Cribbes said. Fur, saliva, blood and excrement can all lead to an offender being collared.
■ PHILIPPINES
Hope for abducted priest
The abductors of an Italian priest have offered to negotiate for his freedom, a purported intermediary in the south said yesterday. The military and Muslim separatist rebels have been looking for Giancarlo Bossi in thick forests since suspected criminals snatched him two weeks ago. Marine Major General Ben Dolorfino said a group claimed to have received a call from Bossi's abductors early yesterday. "There is a group that has approached me, but I am not entertaining them until they can produce proof of life," Dolorfino said, describing the group as concerned citizens tapped by local leaders to help the military find Bossi.
■ PAKISTAN
Power outages trigger riots
One person was killed as enraged residents rioted over widespread power outages in the wake of a storm that left at least 228 dead in Karachi, police said yesterday. The protesters torched vehicles, pelted buildings with stones and blocked the main highway connecting Karachi to the rest of the country on Sunday, police said. Two days after the storm and heavy rains struck on Saturday, power cables snapped by falling billboards, trees and power pylons had yet to be repaired, leaving areas of the sweltering southern port city without electricity. Most of those killed were buried under collapsed houses or electrocuted by the severed cables in poor, shanty towns ringing the city.
■ ITALY
All-female beach a hit
Women are flocking to the country's first all-female beach: a short stretch of sand designed to let bathers relax away from prying eyes and soccer talk. Bathers arriving at Beach number 134 on the 80km stretch of beach clubs linking Rimini to Riccione on the Adriatic coast are greeted with a large sign featuring a cross over an image of a man. "I come here to relax, and all that is lacking is a eunuch at the door," Alice Ghresta, 24, said. Beach owner Fausto Ravaglia said that one man would be allowed in. "The lifeguard must be a man. Clearly, to save a woman you need a man. It's a question of muscles."
■ ARGENTINA
Soccer chief elected mayor
Buenos Aires sharply rejected a candidate for mayor backed by leftist President Nestor Kirchner on Sunday, electing a conservative businessman who heads the nation's most popular soccer team. Kirchner remains popular across the nation, but the commanding election win in Buenos Aires by Mauricio Macri, the president of the Boca Juniors soccer club, suggested a possible shift in political sentiment ahead of October presidential elections.
■ NETHERLANDS
Taylor boycotts trial again
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor boycotted the resumption of his war crimes trial yesterday, again blocking efforts to try him on charges of arming Sierra Leone rebels and orchestrating a murderous terror campaign they waged during their country's 10-year civil war. "I got a call this morning that Mr Taylor said he will not be in court,"said Vincent Nmehielle, the court's principal defender who is responsible for ensuring Taylor can mount an adequate defense to the charges. When his trial opened on June 4, Taylor also refused to leave his cell in a special wing of a Dutch jail, saying he did not believe he would get a fair hearing and complaining that he had insufficient funds to pay for his defense.
■ GREECE
Record heat bakes country
Authorities put emergency services on full alert yesterday and were bracing for power shortages as the country bakes in temperatures of up to 46oC, making this the hottest month ever recorded. Athenians heading for work dragged themselves out of the city's metro clutching newspapers over their heads to try stave off the blazing sun. Across the country, municipalities have set up large air-conditioned halls to provide shelter for the elderly and people with heart problems. Authorities have also told Athenians to stay out of the sun and avoid unnecessary travel.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Brits admit to petty crimes
Almost two-thirds of Britons regularly commit petty crimes, according to a new report. A survey by researchers at Keele University found that 61 percent of people they questioned had committed one of a variety of crimes. These ranged from paying cash in hand to avoid taxation, keeping money when given too much change, taking something from work or avoiding paying their TV license. Of those who confessed to breaking the law, 62 percent said they had committed up to three crimes while 10 percent admitted nine or more. The report, based on a survey of more than 1,800 people aged 25 to 65, said the findings cast doubt on what politicians liked to describe as a "law-abiding majority."
■ CANADA
Bishops reject gay unions
Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada narrowly overruled clergy and laypeople on Sunday to defeat a proposal to give churches the option of blessing same-sex unions. The issue has threatened to split both the Canadian church and the 77 million member Worldwide Anglican Communion, a loose federation of national churches whose members do not agree on how the 450-year-old Church should minister to homosexuals. In a 21-19 vote, the Canadian bishops rejected a proposal to give churches the option to bless gay couples. Clergy and laity voted in favor by larger margins, but the proposal had to pass in all three orders to be implemented.
■ GERMANY
Magazine reports 'torture'
A German news magazine reported on Sunday that two of its journalists embedded with troops from the US 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan witnessed Afghan and US soldiers involved in abusing prisoners. Focus reported that, during the search of a village for Taliban fighters, a patrol reportedly led by an Afghan army "platoon leader" apprehended a suspect in a house. When the suspect refused to talk, the magazine said, the platoon leader tied one end of a rope to the suspect's foot and the other end to a vehicle, then threatened to drag the man unless he told the truth.
■ UNITED STATES
Warning on staph infections
A dangerous, drug-resistant staph germ may be infecting as many as 5 percent of hospital and nursing home patients, according to a comprehensive study. At least 30,000 hospital patients may have the superbug at any given time, according to a survey released yesterday by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. The estimate is about 10 times the rate that some health officials had previously estimated. Some federal health officials said they had not seen the study and could not comment on its methodology or its prevalence. But they welcomed added attention to the problem.
■ UNITED STATES
Good year for giving
Charitable giving hit a record US$295.02 billion last year as Americans topped the philanthropic effort from major disasters a year earlier, a survey showed yesterday. A report by Giving USA Foundation showed a third straight year of charity giving growth fueled in part by mega-gifts from billionaires life Warren Buffett, but also from mainstream Americans, who donated roughly 2 percent of their incomes to various causes. "It is impressive that giving continued to rise in 2006, especially following the unprecedented levels of disaster giving in 2005," said Richard Jolly, chair of Giving USA Foundation, based at Indiana University.
■ VENEZUELA
Chavez urges preparedness
President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers on Sunday to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the US, saying the US government is using psychological and economic warfare as part of an unconventional campaign aimed at derailing his government. Dressed in olive green fatigues and a red beret, Chavez spoke inside Tiuna Fort - the country's military nerve-center - before hundreds of uniformed soldiers standing alongside armored vehicles and tanks decorated with banners reading: "Fatherland, Socialism, or Death! We will triumph!" "We must continue developing the resistance war," Chavez said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema