■ PHILIPPINES
Bombing suspect out on bail
An Egyptian teacher accused of plotting a Christmas bomb attack was freed on bail on Thursday, Filipino officials said. Sheikh Mohammed al-Sayyid Ahmed Mussa, described by Cairo as an envoy of Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, posted a 200,000 peso (US$4,800) bond and was released into the custody of the Egyptian embassy, a court clerk said. Mussa was arrested on Dec. 18 during a raid on an apartment in the Majad Islamic School where he was a visiting professor. He allegedly planned to detonate an explosive device that was seized in his room on Christmas Day.
■ PHILIPPINES
Arroyo fires prison chief
President Gloria Arroyo has sacked the Philippine prisons chief over the premature release of a politician serving 16 years for having sex with a child, officials said on Thursday. Philippine former House of Representatives member Romeo Jalosjos walked out of the national prison in Manila under unexplained circumstances on Saturday, after the justice department rejected a parole board recommendation for his early release. Bureau of Corrections chief Ricardo Dapat was sacked on Wednesday after Jalosjos was recaptured in the southern city of Dapitan. Jalosjos, a 67 year-old ally of Arroyo, was convicted in 1996 for having sex with an 11-year-old girl.
■ CHINA
Lottery winner drops out
A college student withdrew from school after winning the 5 million yuan (US$683,000) jackpot in a lottery in Nanjing, media reported on Thursday. The Jiangsu Maritime Institute sophomore, surnamed Yong, was the sole first-prize winner in the "Double Color Ball" issued by the China Welfare Lottery on Tuesday. "After winning the lottery, Yong told his roommates that he would share 2,000 yuan with each of them," a report said. Yong told school authorities of his winnings and returned home.
■ JAPAN
Prisoners dislike pajamas
Prisoners dislike their unstylish pajamas, a survey has found. In a poll of inmates who left prison in the year to March, almost 70 percent of respondents who shared cells with others said they had too little space, while 44 percent of those in solitary confinement said their cells were too small, the justice ministry said in a report issued on Wednesday. The former inmates also found their vertically striped grayish pajamas to be unfashionable. Close to half said the colors were bad and 44 percent said the design was ugly.
■ UNITED STATES
Alleged nose-wiper charged
A woman in Dunbar, West Virginia, was charged with battery on a police officer after the officer said she wiped her nose on the back of his shirt. Officer S.E. Elliott said he had arrested the 36-year-old woman last week after seeing her slap a man, bite him on the elbow and spit in his face. Elliott said the woman wiped her nose on him as he led her into the police station for booking on a charge of domestic battery. Battery on a police officer is defined as intentionally making physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with an officer.
■ UNITED STATES
Cougars freed from zoo
Two cougars freed from a zoo by vandals were captured without injuring anyone, the mayor of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, said. Vandals cut a chain-link fence overnight at the Lincoln Park Zoo to free the two animals. Both were found on Thursday inside the zoo's outside fence, tranquilized and returned to their cages. Mayor Kevin Crawford said he did not know whether the vandals were influenced by a Tuesday incident at the San Francisco Zoo in which a tiger escaped from its enclosure, killed one person and critically injured two others. Police are seeking the vandals, he said.
■ UNITED STATES
Chihuahua finds fugitive
A 135g Chihuahua mix named Tink helped police put a fugitive in the clink. The dog's Christmas Day adventure began when four suspects who were fleeing police crashed a stolen minivan into a hillside east of Sacramento, California, and one of them fled. Tink, a Pomeranian and Chihuahua mix, found him hiding under a neighbor's motor home and chased him into the woods, Wendy Anderson said. The dog belongs to her son. Her son and husband directed a law enforcement helicopter to where the 20-year-old man was hiding. "The Chihuahua gave him up," California Highway Patrol officer Jeff Herbert said.
■ UNITED STATES
No Web for sex offenders
Convicted sex offenders who used the Internet to help them commit their crimes will be banned from using the Internet in New Jersey under a measure signed into law on Thursday. The bill applies to people who, for example, lured a potential victim through e-mail or other electronic messages. It also affects paroled sex offenders under lifetime supervision, but exempts computer work done as part of a job or search for employment. "We live in scary times," said Acting Governor Richard Codey, who signed the bill because Governor Jon Corzine is vacationing. No federal law restricts sex offenders' Internet use.
■ RUSSIA
Government bans Santa ad
The government has ridden to the rescue of children by banning a television ad that declares Father Christmas does not exist, the daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta announced on Thursday. The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service ruled that the ad run by a network of electronics stores called Eto breaks a law against discrediting parents, the government-run newspaper said. The ad says bluntly "that Father Frost does not exist," according to the report. "It means that parents are not telling the truth to children when they say Father Frost exists. In that way the ad induces negative relations between children and their parents," the service's deputy director, Andrei Kashevarov, was quoted as saying.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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