■ UNITED STATES
Santa-groper in rehab
A woman accused of groping Santa Claus at a mall in Danbury, Connecticut, won't have to serve any jail time if she stays out of trouble. Sandrama Lamy has been sentenced under an accelerated rehabilitation program that will wipe her record clean if she completes two years of probation. Danbury Superior Court judge Susan Reynolds on Wednesday also ordered the 33-year-old to stay away from the Danbury Fair Mall. In December, Lamy was charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and breach of peace for allegedly touching Santa inappropriately while sitting on his lap at the mall.
■ PERU
Floods kill 16 people
Torrential rains and floods have killed 16 people, left 24 missing and destroyed highways and homes since last month, the civil defense agency said on Thursday as the government declared a state of emergency in four districts. Nearly half a million people have been affected by the rains, which started two months ago and have fallen hardest in the interior and on the nation's northern coast. Emergencies were declared in the districts of Tumbes, Piura, Lambayeque and Ucayali. The floods have wrecked some 300 homes, destroyed 63km of highways and washed away 262 hectares of crops, the agency said.
■ MEXICO
Brothers get 26 years in jail
A judge has sentenced two brothers to 26 years in prison for their participation in the 1997 massacre of 45 men, women and children in southern Chiapas state. Brothers Antonio and Mariano Pucuj were also ordered to pay more than US$70,000 in compensation to the victims' families, the human rights group Fray Bartolome de las Casas said on Wednesday. Karla Banos, a spokeswoman for state prosecutors, said the brothers had appealed the judge's decision. Pro-government villagers armed with guns and machetes killed the 45 on Dec. 22, 1997, in the Acteal massacre, named after the town where it occurred.
■ UNITED STATES
Man faces delayed trial
A Pennsylvania man who shot and wounded a police officer more than 41 years ago will stand trial for his murder following the officer's death last year, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Prosecutors say the victim, Walter Barclay, died of injuries directly linked to the 1966 shooting. William Barnes, 71, who already served around 20 years in prison for the shooting and other offenses, was rearrested last year and charged with murder following Barclay's death. Prosecutors say a urinary tract infection that afflicted Barclay was a direct result of his paralysis. That in turn was caused by a shot in the spine by Barnes during an attempted break-in on Nov. 27, 1966.
■ UNITED STATES
School to replace building
The classroom building at Northern Illinois University where a gunman killed five students and himself this month will be demolished and replaced, state officials said on Wednesday. "Symbolically, the gesture is that we are moving on and we are healing," said Melanie Magara, a spokeswoman for the university in DeKalb. The building, Cole Hall, was outdated and in line for major renovation or demolition anyway, Magara said. The new building will be erected slightly away from the footprint of Cole Hall, where the university plans to build a memorial. Governor Rod Blagojevich said he would ask state lawmakers to approve US$40 million to pay for the demolition and rebuilding project.
■ CHINA
Power crisis worsens
Guangdong Province will face the worst power crisis in three decades this year as a result of rising demand and damages to transmission lines caused by prolonged cold weather, state press said. Demand for power in the province is sharply higher since local companies resumed production after the Lunar New Year holidays, the Xinhua news agency reported late on Thursday. But the cold weather that started in January and has been described as the worst in 50 years has damaged transmission lines that bring power from the west, it said.
■ BANGLADESH
Ferry death toll hits 39
Rescuers in Bangladesh yesterday wound up a search and rescue operation following a ferry accident after the death toll reached 39, police said. A salvage team worked through the night with divers to raise the sunken vessel, which capsized in Dhaka's Buriganga River on Thursday following a collision with a cargo boat. The ferry, which was carrying about 150 people, was hit from behind by a boat transporting sand and quickly sank in 15m deep water. Army, fire and coast guard personnel took part in the search as thousands of people looked on, including distraught relatives.
■ AUSTRALIA
Ex-husband sentenced
A man who stabbed his ex-wife's partner to death, cutting off the man's penis and leaving it in her bedside drawer, was sentenced to 24 years in jail yesterday. Gabor Ziha, 57, was ordered to serve at least 18 years without chance of parole for the August 2006 murder of Barry Corbett, the Australian Associated Press news agency reported. The Supreme Court heard that Ziha broke into the Sydney apartment of his estranged wife and stabbed Corbett 30 times as he slept alongside her. Judge Graham Barr said Ziha had wanted to punish Corbett "for stealing another man's wife."
■ AUSTRALIA
Violent stranger goes to jail
A woman who pushed a stranger in front of a train after being told off for coughing without a handkerchief was jailed for 12 years on Thursday. Sydney's District Court was told Suzanne Kiloh was drunk while waiting for a train at the city's Circular Quay station on Dec. 1, 2006, when Margaret Schestopalov admonished her for coughing and spitting. Kiloh shoved Schestopalov in the back with both hands, sending her off the platform and into the path of an oncoming train. The driver managed to stop the train just in time, but Schestapalov suffered a broken neck and leg. The once independent 59-year-old now has to live in residential care.
■ SRI LANKA
Bomber injures seven
A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew himself up yesterday, injuring seven people as police tried to search his house in the heavily guarded capital, police and military officials said. The blast went off when police and soldiers approached the house in Colombo's commercial district of Kotahena, a police official said, adding that the huge blast was heard across the city. Two policemen and a female officer were among the seven admitted to the Colombo National Hospital, spokesman Anil Jasinha said. "We had information from a man we arrested the previous day about a possible arms storage location of the Tigers," a policeman at the scene said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Dave Clark Five singer dies
Dave Clark Five lead singer Mike Smith died from pneumonia on Thursday, his agent said. He was 64. Smith died at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital outside of London less than two weeks before he and his band mates were due to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, Margo Lewis said. Smith provided vocals, keyboards and song-writing for the Dave Clark Five, one of many British rock acts whose music swept across the US in the 1960s during the so-called "British Invasion." The Dave Clark Five claimed a string of US billboard hits, including Because, Glad All Over and I Like it Like That.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Prince Harry in Afghanistan
Prince Harry has been deployed to fight Taliban forces in one of Afghanistan's most lawless and barren provinces, Britain's Ministry of Defense said on Thursday. British military officials had attempted to keep his deployment secret until he had returned safely. But after a leak on the US Web site the Drudge Report, video and interviews recorded with the young royal in Afghanistan's restive Helmand Province were released. "I got here on Christmas Eve and going from bullet magnet to anti-bullet magnet, most of the guys were pretty bummed that I was here because nothing was happening for the first few days that I was here but things are picking up again now," Harry said after he arrived.
■ IRAQ
President OKs execution
The presidency has approved the execution of "Chemical Ali," executed dictator Saddam Hussein's most notorious henchman, a top official said yesterday. "The presidency has approved Chemical Ali's execution," the official said on condition of anonymity, adding the timing is still not decided. Ali Hassan al-Majid, the former defense minister under Saddam, was nicknamed Chemical Ali after he ordered gas attacks on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s. He was convicted on genocide charges over the slaughter and initially sentenced to hang in June last year. Majid and two others convicted for the so-called Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988 were supposed to have been executed by October, but legal wranglings have held up the process.
■ GREECE
Walkway of tombstones
When the names of the dead started appearing on a pedestrian walkway in the Cretan capital Herakleion, city officials were shocked to discover that stolen marble tombstones had been used in its construction. "This small pedestrian walkway in the city ... was created about 20 years ago, but until now we did not know this material had been used," Herakleion deputy mayor Konstantinos Mamoulakis said on Thursday. Cretans realized the slabs of marble were tombstones when the tread of many feet wore away dirt to reveal the names.
■ ITALY
Pssst! Want a fake Ferrari?
Italians are used to buying bogus Gucci bags or Rolex watches, but police found a new height of craftsmanship and cunning when they broke up a ring selling fake Ferrari cars for a fraction of the real price. Police accused 15 people of building the sports cars and selling them to car fanatics on a budget. Body workers who police called "very able" cobbled together mostly fake parts and a few original components. Some of the cars sold for about 20,000 euros (US$30,380), about a 10th of the going price for some versions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
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
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing