Print

Mail

wiki links

World News Quick Take

■ JAPAN

Missile interceptor deployed

The government deployed its third advanced missile interceptor system yesterday, just south of Tokyo near a major naval base, a defense official said. Air Self-Defense Forces personnel installed the land-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 system at the Takeyama base in Yokosuka, a defense ministry official said on condition of anonymity. Yokosuka is the site of the country's largest naval base and the homeport of the US Seventh Fleet. The system includes an unspecified number of launchers, a special vehicle equipped with radar and another that serves as a control station. PAC-3 systems were installed at two other bases near Tokyo last year.



■ MALAYSIA

'Anti-Islam' books banned

The government has banned 11 books for allegedly giving a false portrayal of Islam, such as by linking the religion to the mistreatment of women and terrorism, an official said yesterday. It ordered the books -- most of them released by US publishers -- to be blacklisted earlier this month "because they are not in line with what we call the Malaysian version of Islam," said Che Din Yusoh, an official with the Internal Security Ministry's publications control unit. The banned books include eight English-language ones, such as The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and its Role in Terrorism, Secrets of the Quran: Revealing Insights Into Islam's Holy Book and Women in Islam.



■ SRI LANKA

Rebels blame army for blast

Tamil Tiger rebels blamed troops for a roadside bomb that killed 17 people, most of them children, on a school bus on Tuesday, but a military spokesman denied the accusation. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said the blast occurred in the northwestern district of Mannar. They said in a statement on the group's official Web site that the dead included a school principal and two teachers, one of them a Catholic nun. Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara denied the allegation, calling them "fabricated stories."



■ JAPAN

Nuisance caller arrested

A lonely, single and unemployed man has been arrested for allegedly calling directory assistance thousands of times because he liked to be scolded by female operators, police and reports said yesterday. Takahiro Fujinuma, 37, reportedly would whisper "darling" as he tried to start a conversation and then pleaded with operators not to hang up. He was arrested on Tuesday in Tokyo on charges of obstructing the business of service operator NTT Solco. He placed 2,600 calls to directory help between early June and mid-November, a police spokesman said. However, media reports said he was suspected of starting his habit in 2004 and calling the service more than 10,000 times.



■ AUSTRALIA

Retiree wins lotto case

A retiree won a seven-figure lottery prize, lost it and then won it again yesterday via a court ruling. Werner Reinhold bought the lottery ticket at a newsstand in Sydney on Sept. 19, 1995. His original ticket did not print correctly, so he asked for a new one, which turned out to be the winner. But when Reinhold, now 73, went back to claim the jackpot of A$2 million (US$1.8 million), he found that the replacement ticket had been canceled and was unable to claim the prize. He sued NSW Lotteries and the newsstand which sold him the ticket.



■ SYRIA

Political dissident arrested

A prominent political dissident has been rearrested in a new crackdown on opposition figures by President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Riyad Seif was taken away on Monday night by security agents, the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said in a statement. The government had previously banned Seif from travel abroad. Last summer, the US state department urged the authorities to allow him to leave the country to receive treatment for prostate cancer. In the past year, six prominent government critics and human rights campaigners have been convicted and sentenced to up to 12 years in prison. Among them were the lawyer Anwar al-Bunni and one of Syria's most respected writers, Michel Kilo.



■ UNITED KINGDOM

Robbers get jail sentences

Five men were jailed for a total of at least 70 years on Tuesday after being convicted of kidnapping and robbery in Britain's biggest cash heist, a £53 million (US$105.4 million) raid on a cash depot in Tonbridge, Kent. Four members of the gang, Stuart Royle, 49, Jetmir Bucpapa, 26, Lea Rusha, 35, and Roger Coutts, 30, were each sentenced to a minimum of 15 years' jail. Ermir Hysenaj, 28, will serve a minimum of 10 years. All were convicted at the Old Bailey criminal court on Monday of conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to possess firearms.



■ DENMARK

Vintage beer launched

Carlsberg ASA has launched an up-market beer so expensive, at 2,008 kroner (US$398) a bottle, that it is reserved for those with a champagne budget. The company on Tuesday said its new Vintage No. 1 beer is probably the most expensive beer in the world. Brewmaster Jens Eiken, of Carlsberg, said that only 600 of the bottles will be made and most will be sold through three of Copenhagen's most exclusive restaurants.



■ DENMARK

Library to house cartoons

The national library is to risk re-opening an international political storm by housing the cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed that provoked violent convulsions throughout the Islamic world two years ago. The royal library in Copenhagen -- founded in the 17th century by King Frederik III and home to many historic treasures -- has declared the drawings to be of historic value and is trying to acquire them for "preservation purposes." The library, widely acknowledged as the most significant in Scandinavia, has agreed to take possession of the caricatures on behalf of the museum of Danish cartoon art, a spokesman told the Art newspaper.



■ UNITED KINGDOM

Terrorist pleads guilty

The accused mastermind of a terror plot pleaded guilty to plotting to kidnap and behead a Muslim soldier, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Parviz Khan, 37, of Birmingham, concocted a plot to lure an unnamed British Muslim soldier into a trap using cocaine, prosecutors said at Leicester Crown Court. "He would be taken to a lockup garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig," prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt said. "This atrocity would be filmed ... and the film released to cause panic and fear within the British armed forces and the wider public." Khan had asked another man, Basiru Gassama, 30, to identify a victim.



■ UNITED STATES

Sex offender bill proposed

New York state lawmakers proposed legislation on Tuesday to provide new protection from convicted sex offenders hanging out on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. The bill would require sex offenders to register e-mail and instant messaging addresses, which would then be passed to the networking sites. The sites could then block access to sex offenders. MySpace and Facebook have said they will block access to such offenders.



■ BRAZIL

City violence dropping

Homicide rates are on a downward trend in big cities but rising in the countryside, a report released on Tuesday says. Nationwide the murder rate dropped on average almost 3 percent per year between 2003 and 2006, according to the "Map of Violence," prepared by the Latin American Technological Information Network. Conducted in 556 cities, the study found that after peaking at just over 51,000 in 2003, killings have dropped steadily each year to reach 46,660 in 2006. Big urban areas were responsible for most of the decline, which the report's author attributed to increased police presence.



■ UNITED KINGDOM

De-mining Falklands mulled

Clearing the tens of thousands of land mines in the Falklands Islands is feasible, London said on Tuesday, although it warned that the operation would be challenging and expensive. Britain faces a 2009 deadline to clear all land mines on its territories, but officials have blamed complicated negotiations with Argentina, which claims the South Atlantic islands as its own, for the failure to clear the devices there.



■ UNITED STATES

Sextuplet faker sentenced

A Missouri woman who faked the birth of sextuplets to tap the generosity of neighbors was sentenced on Monday to four years in prison for violating her probation. Sarah Everson, 47, and her husband, Kris, 35, were living in the Kansas City suburb of Grain Valley in March 2006 when they made up the story. They were sentenced in August 2006 to four years of probation after each pleaded guilty to felony stealing by deceit but Sarah's whereabouts were unknown until last month.



■ UNITED STATES

Margaret Truman dies at 83

Margaret Truman Daniel, the only child of president Harry Truman who was known for her series of crime novels, died on Tuesday in Chicago at age 83, the Truman Library said. Daniel, a long-time resident of New York City who had a brief singing career, died in a care facility from complications from an infection, the library in Independence, Missouri, said in a statement. She had been brought to Chicago to be closer to her son Clifton, one of her four children, a library spokeswoman said.



■ BRAZIL

Twins can study together

The family of six-year-old twins was celebrating yesterday after a judge said the girls could study together at a prestigious primary school despite only one of them having won a place, the daily O Estado de S. Paulo reported. The father of Susy and Sandy de Sousa Dutra had sued to ensure Sandy continued to learn alongside her sister on the grounds of "preserving family unity" and the siblings' close bond. A judge ruled that Sandy could join Susy in first grade at an institute that is part of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, whose places are distributed by lottery to qualifying candidates.
This story has been viewed 1322 times.