■ INDONESIA
Earthquake hits near Aceh
An earthquake of magnitude 6 struck off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island, near Aceh, the country's meteorological agency said yesterday, but officials said there was no damage to nearby energy facilities and a tsunami warning was not issued. The quake struck 113km southwest of Banda Aceh in Sumatra and was at a depth of 16km, the agency said in a text message. An official at the country's oil and gas watchdog said that the natural gas production area in Arun operated by US Exxon Mobil had not been affected by the quake. The facility produces between 500 million cubic feet and 600 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and supplies an LNG plant in Arun.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Legislator faces 40 charges
A legislator and former government minister will face 40 charges of bribery and perverting the course of justice, police said yesterday. Taito Phillip Field, who resigned from Prime Minister Helen Clark's ruling Labour Party to become an independent legislator after accusations were made against him in 2005, has been charged with 15 counts of bribery and 25 counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Field is due to appear in an Auckland court on Monday for an initial hearing. The charges related to allegations he offered to help migrants with immigration problems in exchange for thousands of dollars of work on his houses in New Zealand and Samoa. Field's lawyer Simativa Perese said Field wanted to go to trial and clear his name before the national election due by late next year.
■ PHILIPPINES
Twenty-five people missing
Twenty-five Filipinos were missing after their vessel sank in the storm-tossed South China Sea, the Philippine Coast Guard said yesterday. Another 30 crew members were rescued by Chinese fishermen, said Vice Admiral Danilo Abinoja, the Filipino coast guard chief. Philippine authorities are trying to establish the identity, type, and registry of the vessel, and a coastguard patrol craft was en route to help search for the missing, Abinoja said. The incident occurred on Thursday amid turbulent weather in the area of the disputed Spratly islands. Tropical storm Hagibis is currently whipping the Spratlys after killing 13 people in the southern and central Philippines, the weather office in Manila said.
■ BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
Thief caught snoozing
A would-be thief took a nap while burgling a house in Bosnia -- and the owner found him sound asleep on the couch, police said on Thursday. The man, identified only as Edin M., 21, managed to snatch two bracelets and an earring before falling asleep, police in the central Bosnian town of Maglaj said. He confessed to breaking into the house. "He saw the couch and just sat to down to rest for a while and fell asleep," police said in a statement.
■ RUSSIA
Bus bomb kills five
A bomb ripped through a bus in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus region on Thursday, killing at least five people, including a schoolgirl, and injuring 13. About 19 people were on the bus when the explosion took place, near the Bratsk police checkpoint at the internal border between North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. Police sources said the blast was caused by about 300g to 400g of explosives packed with nails and pieces of metal. The bus was traveling to North Ossetia's capital, Vladikavkaz, from the southern Russian city of Pyatigorsk.
■ GERMANY
Police protest border plans
Hundreds of police officers marched through the center of the eastern town of Frankfurt on Oder on the Polish frontier on Thursday to protest plans to lift border controls next month. Carrying a banner reading "No free travel for terrorists and criminals," many of the police wore their duty uniforms. Some blew whistles and plastic horns, while others carried picket signs protesting an EU move to extend the bloc's border-free zone to nine more states on Dec. 21 and urged German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble to reconsider. The unusual protest by police reflects fears in Germany about a possible increase in crime or an influx of illegal immigrants with the border opening.
■ GERMANY
Oldest trapeze artist dies
A man widely thought to be the world's oldest active trapeze artist has died, a spokeswoman for his regular variety-show venue said on Thursday. He was 98. Konrad Thurano was with his family in Denmark, where he has been living, when he died of natural causes on Tuesday, said a spokeswoman. Thurano was born in Duesseldorf in 1909 and began his entertainment career with the variety show in 1924. In his 83-year career he performed around the world, rubbing elbows with celebrities including Charlie Chaplin. Each April for his birthday he would return to Duesseldorf to perform and this year was no exception, the spokeswoman said.
■ ITALY
`Pornoprof' suspended
A teacher has been suspended because of her extra-curricular activities as a porn star, local authorities announced on Thursday. The after-hours behavior of Anna Ciriani, who calls herself "Madameweb" in hardcore videos on the Internet and at erotic shows, was "not compatible with educational activity," the head of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia education authority said. Ciriani, dubbed the "pornoprof" by Italy's main newspapers, said she never let her hobby get in the way of her teaching. "My behavior at school has always been professional and irreproachable," she was quoted as saying by the AGI agency. She taught evening classes to foreign adult students near Pordenone.
■ UNITED STATES
Veteran asked to repay Army
A soldier whose injuries in Iraq forced him to leave the military early "inadvertently" received a letter from the US Army asking him to repay a portion of his sign-up bonus, the military said. In October Former private first class Jordan Fox got a letter asking him to repay US$2,800 of his US$7,500 enlistment bonus and officials were checking to see if other injured soldiers were sent similar notices, the Army said on Wednesday. Soldiers who are injured or become ill while on active duty can keep all sign-up bonuses due them, the Army said. Fox was partially blinded in one eye and sustained a back injury in May. After returning home, he got a letter seeking repayment of part of his enlistment bonus and a followup warning he could be charged interest if he didn't make a payment.
■ UNITED STATES
Bidder names butterfly
An anonymous bidder paid US$40,800 for the naming rights of a new butterfly to honor a woman who died in 1972. The butterfly's common name will be the Minerva owl butterfly, named after the late Margery Minerva Blythe Kitzmiller of Ohio. While the bidder's name was not disclosed, the payment was made on behalf of Kitzmiller's grandchildren. The scientific name will be Opsiphanes blythekitzmillerae. University of Florida researchers discovered the new species while looking through a collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History earlier this year. They found it was misidentified as another species.
■ CANADA
Taser deaths under scrutiny
Police are taking a closer look at the use of stun guns after two recent deaths, including one in which a man died about 30 hours after being shocked. While the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was asked to investigate the circumstances of Thursday's jailhouse death, a parliamentary public safety committee launched its own probe of last month's death of a Polish man who was shocked by RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport. The manufacturer of Taser guns has said they have never been conclusively linked to deaths in Canada.
■ BRAZIL
Police fight prison crime ring
Police on Thursday arrested the new wife of the country's most notorious drug baron and 10 others on suspicion of being members of a crime ring he ran from his cell in a maximum-security federal prison. Police said Luiz Fernando da Costa, also known as Fernandinho Beira-Mar or Freddy Seashore, continued to deal in drug trafficking, assassinations, arms smuggling and money laundering from behind bars. Beira-Mar was married eight weeks ago in the Campo Grande prison. His wife, Jaqueline, a lawyer whom he met years ago, was arrested in Rio with US$200,000, a police source said.
■ ISRAEL
Police arrested over attack
Five Israeli police officers are under arrest on suspicion of carrying out gangland style revenge attacks against a suspected organized crime family in the northern town of Nahariya, a police spokesman said on Thursday. The arrests were made last month but information was released only after a gag order was lifted. The officers allegedly planted a pipe bomb under the car of one of the country's biggest crime chiefs and lobbed a grenade into his house. They are also accused of breaking into the homes of suspects and damaging property. A police commissioner expressed outrage over the officers' behavior but said no external investigation will be launched.
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