■ SINGAPORE
Bible thief sentenced
A judge sentenced a man to four months in jail for stealing a bible, admonishing him with scripture before hauling him off to prison, the Straits Times reported yesterday. District Judge Bala Reddy also gave a new bible to the 26-year-old thief, who said he had tried to steal the book from a bookshop last month because he wanted to replace his old, tattered copy. At the Tuesday sentencing, the judge told the defendant -- who has previous convictions for theft -- to open his gift. "You will see at page 65 that it says `Thou shalt not steal,'" Reddy said.
■ SRI LANKA
Defense spending climbs
Colombo will hike overall defense spending by 20 percent to a record US$1.48 billion amid a rise in fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels, a bill tabled in parliament said yesterday. Defense spending next year would total 166.44 billion rupees (US$1.48 billion), up from an estimate of 139.4 billion rupees this year, the appropriation bill showed. The defense spending amounts to nearly a fifth of total government expenditure estimated at 925 billion rupees next year, the figures tabled in parliament showed. The government is due to unveil new revenue proposals on Nov. 7.
■ AFGHANISTAN
Two killed in mosque
Gunmen armed with machine guns opened fire on people praying at a mosque, killing two people and wounding 12, officials said yesterday. The assailants, numbering more than five, starting shooting inside the mosque in the Dashte Toop area of Wardak Province late on Tuesday, provincial police chief Eiwaz Khan Mazllum said. A local teacher was among those killed. Police were searching for the attackers, who fled after the attack, he said. Authorities were trying to determine the motive behind the shooting, said Muhibullah, the chief of criminal investigations in the province.
■ NEPAL
Everest concert planned
Mount Everest will host what organizers said yesterday will be the world's highest ever musical concert, planned by a group of cancer survivors and their supporters to help raise awareness of the disease. A group of 38, including seven cancer survivors, plans to leave Kathmandu Saturday and trek to the 5.5km-high Kalapathar hill for the Oct. 21 concert, said James Chippendale of the Denver, Colorado-based Love Hope Strength foundation. "The concert signifies our climb back from cancer and inspire others to climb back from cancer," Chippendale said in Kathmandu. "We are taking the battle against cancer to new heights."
■ SOUTH KOREA
Row emerges over defectors
Seoul lodged a protest with China yesterday after security officials scuffled with its diplomats in Beijing trying to help a group of North Koreans defect, a government official said. Four people believed to be North Korean refugees were arrested by Chinese security officials on Tuesday as they were seeking refuge inside a South Korean-run school in Beijing, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. "We'll be summoning the Chinese side to express regret and ask for an explanation over the incident," a South Korean official said, requesting anonymity. The four entered the school and then were chased to the roof by security personnel.
■ AUSTRALIA
Vodka drip saves Italian
Doctors were forced to use an intravenous drip of vodka to keep a 24-year-old Italian tourist alive after he consumed large quantities of ethylene glycol, found in antifreeze, which can kill. Doctors at Mackay Base Hospital in Queensland administered pure alcohol, the conventional antidote, but exhausted the hospital's supply. Desperate to continue the treatment the doctors bought vodka and hooked it up to the drip. "The patient was drip-fed about three standard drinks an hour for three days in the intensive care unit," Dr Todd Fraser said in a statement yesterday. "Fortunately for him he was in a medically induced coma for a good portion of that. By the time he woke up I think his hangover would have well and truly gone," Fraser said. "The ... administrators were also very understanding when we explained our reasons for buying a case of vodka."
■ RUSSIA
Killer updates body count
A man accused of murdering 49 people asked a court on Tuesday to add another 11 victims to his tally, and told a jury when he first strangled a man it was like falling in love for the first time. Alexander Pichushkin, 33, has been branded the "chessboard murderer" by newspapers because he hoped to put a coin on every square of a 64-place chessboard for each murder. "A first killing is like your first love. You never forget it," he said from a cage in the courtroom, after explaining how he started killing at age 18 with the murder of a classmate. Pichushkin said he had suggested to his classmate that they kill someone, but when his friend refused, "I sent him to heaven." He then smirked at the jury.
■ WEST BANK
Israeli troops kill militant
Israeli troops killed a militant from the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement in the occupied West Bank yesterday, the group said. A spokesman from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade said that one of its members was killed by undercover Israeli forces operating in the West Bank city of Nablus. An Israeli army spokesman said the army was looking into the details of the incident.
■ ITALY
Priest defrocked for affair
A priest who professed his love for a parishioner has been defrocked by the Roman Catholic Church despite an overwhelming show of support from his congregation, La Repubblica reported on Tuesday. Padua Bishop Antonio Mattiazzo issued a decree on Monday replacing Don Sante Sguotti with another priest. But young people in the town have had T-shirts made with the inscription "We are all children of Don Sante," alluding to a rumor that the priest had a child with the parishioner. "I don't know yet what I'll do," Sguotti told La Repubblica.
■ FRANCE
Kiss lands artist in court
A self-professed art lover went on trial on Tuesday, accused of kissing a US$2 million painting. Prosecutors in Avignon have accused Cambodian-born Sam Rindy of "savagery" for having left a red lipstick smear on the work by US artist Cy Twombly, and demanded the court fine her 4,500 euros (US$6,320). The picture's owner, Yvon Lambert, wants US$2 million in damages and 33,400 euros that he says is needed to pay for the restoration work. Rindy, an artist, has said she was "overcome with passion" when she saw the painting in a gallery in July.
■ CANADA
130 arrested in sweep
Police arrested 130 people after a sweep of five Montreal locations in connection with an international telemarketing scheme that targeted small business. A steady stream of suspects was paraded out of one Montreal building over several hours into three waiting yellow school buses parked outside. Police said the suspects pretended to represent a federal agency and said there was a new law requiring first aid kits. Diane L'Ecuyer, the assistant deputy commissioner for the Quebec branch of the Competition Bureau, said instead of paying C$40 (US$40), about 1,500 unsuspecting customers ended up paying around C$400.
■ CANADA
Funds pledged for waters
The government on Tuesday announced an investment over three years of US$42.5 million in conserving and protecting its territorial waters, especially the Arctic Ocean. About half that amount, US$23.2 million, will be allocated to the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans for "enhancing our spill response capacity and emergency planning in the Arctic Ocean," the ministry said in a statement. The funding will also bolster "our ability to prevent, detect and reduce pollution, increase protection for ecologically significant marine areas through nine new marine protected areas."
■ UNITED STATES
Change for a million?
A man asked for change on Saturday when he handed a US$1 million bill to a cashier at a US supermarket. But when the employee at the Giant Eagle store in Pittsburgh refused and a manager confiscated the bogus bill, the man flew into a rage, police said. The man slammed an electronic funds-transfer machine into the counter and reached for a scanner gun, police said. Police arrested the man, who was not carrying identification and has refused to give his name to authorities. He is being held in the Allegheny County Jail. Since 1969, the $100 bill is the largest note in circulation.
■ UNITED STATES
Stripper gets worker's comp
An Indiana appeals court upheld a worker's compensation award for an exotic dancer who was injured while performing on a pole at a strip club. The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday in favor of Angela Hobson and ordered the state Worker's Compensation Board to determine if she was entitled to double compensation. Hobson claimed she suffered neck pain and numbness after injuring herself while dancing at the Shangri-La West club in Fort Wayne on Dec. 20, 2001. She underwent surgery for a herniated disc in her cervical spine, according to court records.
■ UNITED STATES
GE shoe scanner rejected
You will still have to take your shoes off at the airport checkpoint. The Transportation Security Administration said on Tuesday that it had rejected the use of a General Electric shoe-scanning machine that was supposed to provide a central benefit for members of a version of the Registered Traveler program called Clear: the ability to pass through security with their shoes on. The machine would instead have scanned the shoes electronically for weapons or explosives. But the agency said that the GE shoe scanner "does not meet minimum detection standards." In July, it rejected an earlier version of the machine. GE, a partner in the Clear program with the entrepreneur Steven Brill, made changes and submitted the new version in August.
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
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing