■ INDIA
Marathon surgery successful
Doctors said yesterday they had separated a two-year-old girl from her twin and reconstructed her body after a marathon operation at a Bangalore hospital. Lakshmi, born with four arms and four legs but a single head, was under observation at the intensive care unit of Sparsh Hospital, said Sharan Patil, the surgeon who led the team that operated on her. "She has withstood the operation, she is safe and doing well," Patil said. Lakshmi had been fused to the headless conjoined twin that had stopped developing in their mother's womb. She had been attached to the "parasitic twin" at the pelvis. She had absorbed the organs and body parts of the undeveloped fetus -- a condition that occurs once in 50,000 twin births. The operation lasted more than 24 hours.
■ INDIA
Boy dies after class beating
A 14-year-old boy died after his teacher allegedly beat him in class for scribbling in his notebook, police said yesterday. Ajay Kumar had been breathing through a ventilator in a New Delhi hospital since Oct. 23. He died on Tuesday, said Rajan Bhagat, spokesman for the New Delhi Police. Police are investigating the case, Bhagat said. "My son's fault was that he was scribbling in his notebook" and writing over his teacher's signature, Satya Prakash told the Hindustan Times. The teacher then beat the teen until he collapsed, the father was quoted as saying. Officials also said they will order an inquiry.
■ JAPAN
Police won't arrest Marines
Police have decided against arresting four US Marines over the alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old woman in Hiroshima Prefecture last month, police spokesman Kyoji Yokoyama said yesterday. Police handed over the case to prosecutors to make a final decision on whether to continue an investigation, but they are likely to drop it because of discrepancies between the accounts of the woman and the Marines, Yokoyama said. "It would be difficult to press formal charges against the four men," he said. The Marines allegedly met the woman at a restaurant or bar, drove her to a nearby parking lot, raped and robbed her.
■ FINLAND
Seven die in school slaying
At least seven people died when a gunman opened fire at a school in Tuusula yesterday, hours after a video was posted on YouTube predicting a school massacre. A teacher at Jokela High School said the gunman was one of its pupils. "At this moment its seven [deaths] or more, higher," said Eero Hirvensalo, the head of the medical response team. The YouTube video, set to hard-driving music, shows a still photo of a school that appears to be Jokela High School. The photo then fragments to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a gun at the camera. Three people were wounded, early reports said. One of those shot was the school principal, said Tuula Panula, spokeswoman for the Tuusula municipality, some 60km from Helsinki.
■ GREECE
Police seal off village
Scores of heavily armed police sealed off the mountain village of Zoniana on the island of Crete yesterday after suspected drug smugglers ambushed police, leaving three officers with gunshot wounds. Special police units searched house-to-house in the village of 1,600 inhabitants as snipers took up positions on the hills above and helicopters flew overhead. Police Chief Anastasios Dimoshakis traveled to Crete to coordinate the effort on the island, where gun ownership is widespread and police for decades have battled blood feuds as well as drug and arms-smuggling by criminal gangs based in close-knit communities.
■ ITALY
Three detained over killing
Police detained an American woman and two others on suspicion of murdering and sexually assaulting a female British student in Perugia last week, authorities said on Tuesday. Meredith Kercher, 21, was found dead on Friday in her rented room in the central Italian city the morning after attending a Halloween party, authorities said. Kercher, found half-naked, died fighting off a sexual attack, Perugia Police Chief Arturo De Felice told a news conference on Tuesday. He said Kercher was a "victim and nothing more." A coroner said Kercher was stabbed in the neck, but police said no murder weapon has been found.
■ SPAIN
Africans die at sea
At least 50 Africans died while trying to sail from Senegal to the Canary Islands in a boat that was found on Tuesday after spending more than two weeks adrift, Spanish police said. The boat was found in waters off Mauritania by a Mauritanian patrol boat, a Civil Guard official said. It was one of the highest death tolls this year among Africans trying to escape poverty and reach Europe's southern gateway. The boat set out from Senegal with 150 people aboard, and after it lost power and food and other supplies ran out, travelers started dying and were thrown overboard, the official said. When the vessel was found on Tuesday, there were 100 people aboard and two dead bodies, the official said.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Blaze sweeps nursing home
A blaze swept through a nursing home on Tuesday, killing about a dozen people and injuring five, the South African Press Association reported. The fire occurred at a nursing home near the KwaZulu-Natal town of Nkandla, SAPA said, citing emergency officials. Police said they were interviewing employees at the nursing home and forensic teams were expected to begin work at the site early yesterday.
■ UNITED STATES
New Matisse record set
A 1937 Henri Matisse painting set a new auction record for the artist where it went for US$33.6 million at Christie's. Overall sales of US$395 million from Tuesday night's auction were the second highest ever achieved in fine art auctioneering, Christie's said. The Matisse work, L'Odalisque, Harmonie Blueue features one of the artist's favorite models lounging behind a bouquet set on a table. The buyer was not identified. The previous auction record for a Matisse painting was US$22 million for Danseuse dans le fauteuil, sol en damier, a 1942 work, at Sotheby's in London in June.
■ UNITED STATES
Trains become billboards
Amtrak, the financially struggling railroad, has found a new way to make money -- by turning an entire train into a moving billboard. A train used on the Acela Express, the railroad's premium Boston-Washington service, will be wrapped in an advertisement for the History Channel's 1968 with Tom Brokaw, a two-hour special scheduled to air on Dec. 9. The wrapped train will feature recognizable images from 1968, including the faces of Martin Luther King Jr, Bob Dylan, Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, Arlo Guthrie and Goldie Hawn, said Steve Feder, president of Corporate Image Media, which helps Amtrak market advertising opportunities.
■ UNITED STATES
Woman killed in brawl
A pregnant woman who had just returned from her grandfather's funeral was killed when another woman deliberately rammed her car into a crowd during a street brawl involving nearly three dozen women, authorities said. Shontae Treniece Blanche of Los Angeles, was killed and two other women were injured in a fight over a "lovers' quarrel," Officer Matthew Gares saidon Tuesday. The driver of the car, Unique Bishop, 21, fled after Monday afternoon's fight but later turned herself in and was booked for investigation of murder, police said. Witnesses reported two groups of women shouting at each other and fighting at a discount store parking lot.
■ UNITED STATES
Sex line called from church
Isn't the 11th Commandment thou shalt not use the church's telephone to call a sex hot line? A homeless man in Clarkstown, New York has been charged with breaking into a Valley Cottage church by picking a lock so he could dial up some sex chat. The man, James Macnair, 35, was arraigned on Monday night before Justice Scott Ugell on charges of burglary and petty larceny. He admitted he had sinned before, breaking into the Elim Alliance Church days earlier for the same reason, the judge said. A church treasurer found Macnair on the phone both times, police said.
■ UNITED STATES
Pet pig sitter charged
A pet pig whose weight tripled while it was in the care of a sitter has been placed on a diet -- and an animal cruelty charge has been filed against the caretaker. The five-year-old animal, Alaina Templeton, has lost 10 percent of her 68kg and is recovering from surgery to remove a collar that had become embedded in her overly fat neck, owner Michelle Schmitz said. Schmitz had left Alaina with the sitter, a co-worker, while she was on medical leave to recover from ankle surgery. A misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty has been filed against Mary Beesecker, 52, of Houston, Minnesota, Winona County Sheriff David Brand said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not