■ THAILAND
Insurgents sabotage railway
Rail services were suspended yesterday in southern Thailand after Islamic insurgents sabotaged the tracks, while a Muslim man was killed in an ambush, police said. The rebels removed 65 nuts and bolts from sleepers on the track between Yala and Narathiwat provinces, forcing train services to be suspended, police said. Railways have been under maximum security since rebels launched 10 acts of sabotage on the tracks early last month, forcing the suspension of services for five days. Meanwhile, a 32-year-old Muslim man was shot dead in an ambush early yesterday in Narathiwat Province as he headed to a plantation to tap rubber trees, police said.
PHOTO: AFP
■ SOUTH KOREA
Monks arrested in tax scam
Four Buddhist monks have been arrested for their part in an income tax scam involving the sale of fake donation receipts, a report said yesterday. The temple chiefs in Gwangju were detained on Monday, the JoongAng newspaper said. The scheme aimed to help 2,570 workers evade a total of 2.1 billion won (US$2.28 million) in tax between 2005 and last year, the paper said. Donations to charities, schools and religious organizations are tax-deductible. Some monks even distributed pamphlets advertising the fake donation service, prosecutors were quoted as saying. "These temples were businesses selling fake receipts rather than religious organizations," prosecutor Jo Myeong-sun said.
■ MALAYSIA
Rhinos' sperm count low
Low sperm counts and other reproductive problems are preventing pregnancy among endangered rhinos, a worrying trend that wildlife experts say could hasten the animals' extinction. Experts meeting in Borneo this week to discuss ways to save the Borneo rhino said a major threat was the animals' own inability to reproduce. "Maybe because they live in fragmented locations deep in the jungles and because of that, they rarely get the opportunity to mate," the New Straits Times yesterday quoted Sabah Wildlife Department deputy chief Laurentius Ambu as saying. But scientists also found that male rhinos suffer from low sperm count.
■ JAPAN
Teacher gets jail term
A court yesterday gave a suspended prison sentence to a school teacher who posted photographs of child victims of traffic accidents on the Internet. The Tokyo District Court sentenced Toshio Watanabe, 34, to a 30-month prison term, suspended for five years. The crime "trampled on the feelings of bereaved families," presiding judge Osamu Iguchi said. The teacher maintained a Web site with photos of children who were naked or in swimsuits. It also carried pictures of children killed in traffic accidents, wars and natural disasters.
■ CHINA
Dinosaur bones boiled
Villagers in Henan Province dug up a tonne of dinosaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers. Until last year, the fossils were being sold as "dragon bones" at about 4 yuan (US$0.50) per kilogram, scientist Dong Zhiming said on Wednesday. Dong, a professor with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said when the villagers found out the bones were from dinosaurs they donated 200kg for research.
■ NETHERLANDS
Cyclist takes unusual ride
Police officers in the city of Alkmaar were surprised to see a car passing by with a man sitting on a bicycle on its roof. The driver and his wife, when stopped by the police, said they heard a noise while waiting at a traffic light, but did not realize they were taking on an extra passenger. The 26 year-old man who took the free ride was fined for public drunkenness, not carrying an identity card and providing a false identity to the police.
■ RUSSIA
Extradition appeal refused
Prosecutors have officially refused Britain's request to extradite a businessman accused in last year's fatal poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian news agency reported yesterday. Interfax cited what it said was an informed source as saying the Prosecutor General's refusal to turn over Andrei Lugovoi was based on a constitutional prohibition against turning over Russian citizens to foreign nations. In London, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Foreign Office both said they were looking into the report. In May Britain accused Lugovoi of involvement in the killing of Litvinenko, who died in November from a fatal dose of a radioactive substance.
■ BOSNIA
Burqa bandits rob bank
Two armed men disguised as Muslim women in burqas held up a bank in Sarajevo and got away with some US$40,000, Bosnian police said on Tuesday. They said the pair entered the bank in the capital wearing head-to-toe black dresses and veils typical of women adhering to the orthodox Islamic code and trained guns on customers. They then made customers lie on the floor while they emptied the tills, police said. "Everything happened in a moment. Two persons in black niqabs [burqas] came into the bank. I thought they were ladies," the Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje quoted bank customer Mehmedalija Komarac as saying.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Twins are different colors
They were born within minutes of each other, but the British twins celebrating their first birthday on Wednesday are far from identical: one of the girls is black while the other is white with blond hair and blue eyes. Through a genetic quirk, Millie Biggs is dark-skinned like her Jamaican father while her twin sister Marcia has a fair complexion and strawberry blonde hair, the Birmingham Evening Mail reported on their first birthday. "People have said that it's one of those unusual things to do with the genes. It's very rare that it happens -- a one in a million chance," the girls' mother Amanda told the paper.
■ QATAR
New video calls for attacks
Osama bin Laden's right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a new video calling for Islamic fighters to strike Western interests worldwide and for regime change in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. "The struggle against the corrupt regimes and the corruptors is in two phases ... In the short term, one must take aim at the interests of the Crusaders and Jews," Zawahiri said in the 95-minute video shown on Wednesday. "All those who have attacked the [Islamic] nation must pay the price, in our countries and theirs, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Palestine and in Somalia," he said.
■ UNITED STATES
American takes eating title
Californian student Joey Chestnut, 23, ended the six-year reign of Japan's Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayshi on Wednesday, gobbling 66 weiners in 12 minutes in the annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating contest. On Tuesday Kobayashi had considered dropping out of the event after arthritis of the jaw and a pulled wisdom tooth left him in pain. He still managed to eat 63 dogs with their buns. The new champ takes home a mustard-yellow championship belt and US$10,000.
■ UNITED STATES
Gore's son arrested for drugs
The 24-year-old son of former vice president Al Gore was arrested for drug possession on Wednesday after he was stopped for speeding in his hybrid Toyota Prius, a sheriff's official said. Al Gore III was driving at about 160kph on a freeway south of Los Angeles when he was pulled over by an Orange County sheriff's deputy at about 2:15am. The deputy smelled marijuana and searched the car, a sheriff's spokesman said. The search turned up a small amount of marijuana, along with several prescription drugs. Gore was arrested on suspicion of drug possession and booked before he made bail and was released at 2pm.
■ UNITED STATES
Beach find blown up
A woman walking her dog on Wednesday found a live, World War II-era bomb on a beach in Crescent Beach, Florida. Jeannie Emack called the authorities, who determined the roughly 45.4kg bomb was too old and unstable to move. Instead, they evacuated nearly two blocks of homes, while members of the sheriff's Explosive Ordinance Disposal team dug a hole in the sand and detonated the bomb. Officials say the rust-covered bomb had probably been in salt water for about 50 years. It was believed to have washed ashore on Wednesday morning.
■ UNITED STATES
Boy, 5, battles rabid fox
A quick-thinking five-year-old boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout in Kingstown, North Carolina, protecting six other children. "I wanted to protect my little brother," Rayshun McDowell, who battled the animal in the front yard of his home, told the Charlotte Observer in an interview published on Tuesday. The fox bit Rayshun in the leg on Sunday, but the boy held the animal down for more than a minute before his stepfather could step in. Rayshun's stepfather, Ryan Thompson, on crutches because of a broken leg, used a stick and his crutch to kill the fox. Animal control officials said test results confirmed the fox had rabies and Rayshun is undergoing treatment.
■ UNITED STATES
Diners sing for their lunch
Customers at the Liberty Street Diner in Charlestown, West Virginia, don't sing for their supper. They sing for their country. Every day at noon, customers join waitress Judy Hawkins in a sing-along with a local radio station's broadcast of the The Star-Spangled Banner. Hawkins said she started singing the national anthem several months ago and it is now a daily ritual.
‘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