■ 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.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was