■ AUSTRALIA
School site vandalized
Two pigs' heads were found at the site of a proposed Islamic school on Sydney's outskirts yesterday, the school's backers said. An Australian flag was draped between the two heads, said Jeremy Bingham, spokesman for the Quranic Society. "Someone has put a couple of stakes in the ground with a pig's head on the top of each stake and an Australian flag inside," Bingham said. "The police are treating it as a crime scene and making investigations." Earlier this month about 1,000 people attended a meeting to protest against the proposed school in Camden, in Sydney's far southwest, while a cross was previously found on the grounds.
■ AUSTRALIA
Art held from lawmakers
Officials at Parliament House in Canberra yesterday took down valuable artworks to keep lawmakers dumped in weekend elections from stealing them as they began packing up offices. "We do make sure we take out all our artworks, all the Parliament House's art collection that are in people's offices, before too much disappears," said Hillary Penfold, the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services. Dumped ministers and lawmakers were yesterday vacating offices and removing classified files for disposal.
■ JAPAN
`Michelin Guide' sells out
The first Tokyo edition of France's Michelin Guide, which gave the city an unprecedented number of stars, has broken another record by selling out in 48 hours, the publisher said on Tuesday. Nearly all 90,000 copies of the influential red book's first version outside the Western world were sold out two days after the release last Thursday morning, Michelin said. "The big bookstores have been emptied out and there are now only a few small places that still stock the guide," a Michelin spokeswoman said. "Forty-eight hours is a sales record."
■ INDIA
Military personnel probed
Military personnel are under investigation for suspected human trafficking, senior officials said on Tuesday. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was called in after the defense ministry rejected the army's plan for an internal probe, said one official who asked not to be named. The affair came to light when four civilians were caught this month at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport trying to leave for Germany on military passports. "We declined the army headquarters' suggestion for an internal probe because a wider implication is suspected," the official said. CBI spokesman G. Mohanty declined comment.
■ PHILIPPINES
Clemency sought for maid
The government said yesterday it was hopeful a Filipina maid sentenced to death in Kuwait for murdering her employer would be spared after "blood money" was paid to the relatives of her victim. Vice President Noli de Castro, who is leading a special mission to seek executive clemency for Marilou Ranario, said he had met with the victim's family and they had granted forgiveness. "We are not losing any hope because we have already paid blood money to the mother and the victim's four siblings," de Castro told local television. He said according to Arab custom, a suspect can be spared if the aggrieved family agreed to receive payment of "blood money" and granted forgiveness. "In this case, the family has already forgiven her," he said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Firm sells cellphone Bibles
God moves not only in mysterious ways but increasingly in technological ones. British Christians, already able to get passages from the scriptures delivered as text messages on their cellphones, are being offered downloads of the entire Bible on to handsets. On Monday a South Africa-based company launched an offer of the Good News translation and the contemporary English version of the Old and New Testaments for download by text message for ?6 (US$12) each. The firm also intends to offer "daily inspirations" -- biblical passages -- by text message.
■ SUDAN
Boy defends British teacher
A seven-year-old boy has defended his British teacher, who stands accused of insulting Islam's prophet, saying that he had suggested calling the class teddy bear Mohammed. Police arrested Gillian Gibbons, 54, on Sunday after complaints by parents that she had acted blasphemously in allowing the toy to be called Mohammed. Gibbons, a teacher at the exclusive British-style Unity High School in Khartoum, had asked her pupils to name the bear as part of a project to teach them about animals and their habitats. "The teacher asked me what I wanted to call the teddy," the boy said. "I said Mohammed. I named it after my name." His suggestion was put to a class vote and was the clear winner. Gibbons spent her third night in jail on Tuesday.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Real IRA threatens police
An Irish Republican Army (IRA) group responsible for the deadliest bombing in the British province -- the 1998 Omagh attack -- threatened on Tuesday to shoot more police officers in a bid to undermine Catholic recruitment to the province's forces. A masked spokesman for the Real IRA gave a videotape to Ulster Television at an undisclosed place, the TV station said. "We will continue to target [British] crown forces at a time and place of our choosing," the man said, reading from a statement. The videotape depicted two masked men firing an assault rifle and a handgun. The Real IRA was founded in 1997 in opposition to the IRA ceasefire that year.
■ EGYPT
Police jailed for beating
A court sentenced three policemen to seven years in prison on Tuesday for beating a man to death in a police station in the Nile Delta town of Mansoura, judicial sources said. The trial was one of the few successful prosecutions of policemen for abusing detainees in Egypt despite a spate of accusations in the past two years. Prosecutors said the man, Nasr Abdullah, died in August in the police station when policemen banged his head against the wall while trying to extract information about the whereabouts of his brother, a suspect in a drugs case.
■ AUSTRIA
Kosovo talks stall
An attempt by mediators to negotiate a settlement on the future status of Kosovo ended in a stalemate yesterday, with neither Serbia nor the breakaway province's ethnic Albanian leaders willing to budge. Kosovor President Fatmir Sejdiu, said that the rival sides "were unable to reach agreement" on the province's quest for statehood. The deadlock raises the stakes before Dec. 10, the deadline for envoys from the US, EU and Russia to report to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Serbia says resistance to Kosovo independence is also intended to preserve peace in the fragile Balkans.
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■ UNITED STATES
Fat leak causes crashes
A waste truck leaked poultry fat along 32km of roadway on Tuesday, causing car crashes. Virginia State Police said a truck hauling a waste product of poultry grease from a Perdue Farms plant leaked fat onto US Route 13. At least four crashes and several spinouts were reported on Tuesday morning on northbound Route 13, police said. One injured person was taken to a hospital. Crews were sanding the road surface to help drivers get traction, but the gunk was sticking to the tires and spreading onto secondary roads in the region.
■ UNITED STATES
Son accused of duping mom
The 83-year-old son of one of New York's most renowned society figures was charged on Tuesday with duping his mother out of millions of dollars. Socialite and heiress Brooke Astor died in August at the age of 105, leaving a fortune of US$200 million. Her son Anthony Marshall was accused before her death of swindling money out of the aging philanthropist. "Marshall abused his power of attorney and convinced Mrs Astor to sell property by falsely telling her that she was running out of money," the indictment said. The indictment also said Marshall induced Astor to change her will to make him the sole heir and drop her plan to leave her fortune to charity.
■ ARGENTINA
`Dr Death' may be alive
Notorious German war criminal Aribert Heim, 93, known as "Dr Death," is believed to be hiding in South America, Nazi-hunters said on Tuesday. "We have elements that lead us to believe Aribert Heim is alive ... probably in Chile or maybe Argentina," said Efraim Zuroff, who heads the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Heim is wanted for the murder of hundreds of inmates at an Austrian concentration camp. Germany, Austria and the center have put up a reward of US$459,000 for information leading to Heim. Heim was arrested by US troops in 1945 but was released two-and-a-half years later in what the Wiesenthal Center calls suspicious circumstances.
■ PUERTO RICO
Beauty pageant turns ugly
Police were trying to figure out on Monday who doused pepper spray on the gowns of Ingrid Rivera, who defeated rivals to become the island's 2008 Miss Universe contestant, despite breaking out in hives. Rivera said she presented a formal complaint to police, who will now give her around-the-clock protection. "What happened with me is unfair," Rivera said. Organizers said they found traces of pepper spray on Rivera's make-up and clothes during the pageant, after she broke out in hives repeatedly. Despite what she said was intense discomfort, Rivera won the competition on Sunday, defeating 30 rivals.
■ UNITED STATES
Canadian fights execution
A Canadian facing the death penalty in Montana is taking Canada's government to court over its decision not to object to his execution. Lawyers representing double-murderer Ronald Allen Smith submitted an application on Tuesday to the Federal Court of Canada for judicial review of a government decision last month to no longer ask democratic countries not to execute Canadian citizens. Smith and his Canadian legal team said the government's decision was a tacit approval of executions, a violation of Canadian constitutional rights and international law. "We believe our government has an obligation to seek clemency," lawyer Lorne Waldman said.
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
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
CARTEL ARRESTS: The president said that a US government operation to arrest two cartel members made it jointly responsible for the unrest in the state’s capital Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday blamed the US in part for a surge in cartel violence in the northern state of Sinaloa that has left at least 30 people dead in the past week. Two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan in what appears to be a fight for power after two of its leaders were arrested in the US in late July. Teams of gunmen have shot at each other and the security forces. Meanwhile, dead bodies continued to be found across the city. On one busy street corner, cars drove
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to