■ INDIA
Fishermen catch a big one
Two men hoping to catch fish were stunned when they found a 4m crocodile tangled in their net, officials said yesterday. The amateur fishermen summoned firefighters to help haul the reptile out of the water at a popular coastal fishing area in southern Johor Bahru city on Monday, said Abdul Hamid Abdullah, head of operations at the city's fire department. Firefighters took 20 minutes to pull the crocodile out with ropes."It was very big. We were surprised," firefighter C. Kesavan said. "In my lifetime, this is the first time I have seen a crocodile in saltwater."
■ JAPAN
Police nab suicide operator
Police arrested a man who ran an Internet suicide site for allegedly killing a woman who paid him to kill her, a police official in Kanagawa said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Kazunari Saito, a 33-year-old electrician, was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly giving Sayaka Nishizawa, 21, sleeping pills and suffocating her in April, the official said. Nishizawa contacted the suspect through an Internet suicide site he hosted and paid him ?200,000 (US$1,700), the official said. Her body was found on April 16 in her apartment in Kanagawa, the official said. The suspect told police the woman had asked him to "see through" the dying process, Kyodo News agency said.
■ CHINA
Pudong official under probe
A former top official for Shanghai's stunning new financial district has quit the city's local congress and is facing investigation for alleged corruption, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. Kang Huijun (康慧軍), former deputy director of the Pudong District, "lost his seat" in congress, it said, citing a statement from the congress saying Kang had resigned amid allegations he "seriously violated discipline by taking bribes." Public tip-offs prompted the investigation, Xinhua said. The financial magazine Caijing reported that Kang, also a former chairman of the Shanghai Lujiazui Development (Group) Co, the biggest property developer in the district, also was suspected of abusing his position to obtain real estate on the cheap.
■ CHINA
Activists missing: group
Two leading democracy campaigners have gone missing amid an intensified crackdown by the Chinese Communist Party on political dissent ahead of the party congress next week, rights groups said yesterday. Yao Lifa (姚立法) and Lu Banglie (呂邦列), activists promoting local democratic elections in Hubei Province, disappeared in recent days, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders said in a statement. Both Yao and Lu once served as elected legislators to lower-level people's congresses in Hubei, but their outspoken criticism of local polls soon found them in trouble with authorities.
■ MALAYSIA
First Malaysian in space
Malaysians celebrated yesterday as its first astronaut hurtled through space on board a Russian Soyuz rocket in a landmark for the nation which is marking 50 years of independence. "It's a small step for me, but a great leap for the Malaysian people," said Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, the 35-year-old doctor and part-time model who blasted off late on Wednesday from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. Muszaphar, along with Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and American Peggy Whitson, will circle the earth for the next two days before docking at the International Space Station where he will spend nine days.
■ RUSSIA
Elephant kills zookeeper
A nervous elephant at a zoo killed its handler on Wednesday with a single blow of its trunk when it lashed out while being moved onto a truck. Elephant handlers at Moscow City Zoo had been trying to load three African elephants onto a specially designed truck to transfer them to a zoo in Spain. "It was a most unfortunate death of a dedicated zookeeper who had worked with these animals for many years," a zoo spokeswoman said. The zoo had wanted to move the elephants because the facility was too cramped.
■ BELGIUM
Man guilty of racial killings
A jury on Wednesday convicted a 19-year-old for the killing of a white toddler and her black babysitter and the wounding of a woman of Turkish descent last year. Hans Van Themsche faced a maximum penalty of life in prison at his sentencing hearing yesterday, after the 12-person jury in the port city of Antwerp ruled he was guilty of racially motivated murder and attempted murder. The jury's ruling, issued after a 10-day trial, rejected the defense's argument that Van Themsche had been insane.
■ DENMARK
Roman cemetery found
Archeologists have discovered a Roman cemetery from circa 300AD in suburban Copenhagen with about 30 graves, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. "It is something special and rare in Denmark to have so many [ancient Roman] graves in one place," archeologist Rune Iversen was quoted as saying by the Roskilde Dagblad. The graveyard's exact location in Ishoej, southwest of downtown Copenhagen, was being kept secret until the archeologists from the nearby Kroppedal Museum have completed their work, the newspaper wrote. Archeologists found necklaces and other personal belongings.
■ CZECH REPUBLIC
Babies swapped at birth
Nikola and Veronika were both born last Dec. 9, delighting two sets of parents who brought home what they thought were their bundles of joy. Ten months later, Czech authorities say the girls were accidentally swapped at birth. Police spokeswoman Marcela Lavicka said an investigation was in its early stages. The apparently accidental mix-up came to light earlier this year when Nikola's parents became suspicious because their daughter did not resemble them, prompting DNA tests. The couples met last week for the first time and were introduced to each other's girls, agreeing to swap their daughters before the end of the year. It remained unclear what led to the swap.
■ GERMANY
Mail to Hitler published
Correspondence between dictator Adolf Hitler and the public is being made public. Some wrote to him asking if he would be godfather to their children, others bombarded him with requests for visits to their regions. He also received a constant stream of presents including palm trees and honey. In July 1933 Ernst Selbach, a hotel porter and Nazi party member, sent him a violin decorated with 245 ivory swastikas. In a haunting letter Heinrich Herz, a Jewish craftsman, wrote in 1934 pleading for him to halt the persecution of Jews. The letters have been published for the first time in Letters to Hitler, which is being launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week.
■ BRAZIL
Double accident kills 28
A truck coming down a hill plowed into rescue workers and gawkers at the site of an earlier collision -- a double accident that killed at least 28 people and injured 90, police said. The first crash occurred when one truck tried to pass another on a curve and smashed into an oncoming bus with about 20 people aboard in the southern state of Santa Catarina, highway police spokesman Adrian Fiamoncini said Wednesday. Six people on the bus and the truck driver were killed. "It was a serious accident but everything was under control," Fiamoncini said. But about 90 minutes later, "all of a sudden for no reason another truck arrived and ran everybody over," Fiamoncini said.
■ MEXICO
Politician stripped of title
A politician stripped of his first-place title in a marathon after apparently taking a shortcut said he never intended to complete the race and simply went to the finish line to collect his belongings. Roberto Madrazo, who finished a distant third in last year's presidential election, was lampooned in Mexican and German media after photographs and video footage showed him running across the finish line pumping his arms and grinning in the Sept. 30 Berlin marathon. After a race photographer noted Madrazo finished the marathon wearing a jacket and long running tights and barely sweating, officials opened an investigation and eventually disqualified his age-55 category 1st place win.
■ UNITED STATES
Six-year-old tries to drive
A hungry six-year-old grabbed his grandmother's car keys, positioned his child seat behind the steering wheel and tried to drive himself to a neighborhood restaurant. He did not get far. Unable to take the car out of reverse, the boy backed up 23m from her house into a transformer on Tuesday, knocking out electricity and phone service to dozens of townhouses in Broomfield, Colorado, north of Denver. No one was injured and the boy, whose name was not released, got out of his car and told his grandmother what happened.
■ UNITED STATES
Madam pleads guilty
A woman accused of running a brothel out of her million-dollar, suburban Atlanta home, pleaded guilty to prostitution and cocaine possession while more serious charges were dropped, her attorney said. Lisa Ann Taylor, 43, the so-called "Mansion Madam," also pleaded guilty on Wednesday to keeping a house of prostitution and was sentenced to seven years of probation. Prosecutors said the exotic dancer who advertised under the name Melissa Wolf charged men to have sex with her and other women at her home at the Sugarloaf Country Club in Duluth, Georgia.
■ UNITED STATES
Cop files suit after rescue
A police officer in Florida has sued the family of a one-year-old boy she rescued, saying she slipped and injured her knee while saving the child. The young boy, Joey Cosmillo, fell into the family pool in January. He was resuscitated, but suffered brain damage and now cannot walk, talk or swallow. Casselberry police Sargent Andrea Eichhorn alleges the boy's family left a puddle of water on the floor, causing her fall during the rescue efforts. She broke her knee and missed two months of work. "The loss we've suffered, and she's seeking money?" said Richard Cosmillo, 69, the boy's grandfather, who lived in the home with his wife and the boy's mother.
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