■HONG KONG
Policeman on trial
A policeman was on trial after being accused of beating up his girlfriend to stop her from following him into the police force because he could not stand her cutting her hair short, a news report said yesterday. Marine police constable Lau Chun-tat, 21, was accused of breaking his girlfriend Ho Mei-shan’s nose after she told him in May she had applied to join the force, the South China Morning Post reported. Lau was so upset that she had cut her hair that he bought her a wig and threatened her with a knife in an effort to stop her from enlisting, according to testimony at his trial on Monday in Hong Kong District Court.
■NEW ZEALAND
Lightning kills man, horse
A man and his horse were killed by a bolt of lightning as a storm battered the far north, but more than 80 other riders with him on a mass equestrian event survived, news reports said. Two other men and two women with the group riding on a farm at Mahuta, near Dargaville, were taken to hospital and detained for observation with what were described as minor symptoms of electric shock, TV3 channel news reported. The dead rider — reported to be a 61-year-old Auckland businessman — was part of a group of 85 who were just 15 minutes into a scheduled week-long trek in Northland when the lightning struck during a downpour. A doctor, nurses and paramedic with the group failed to revive the man who died instantly.
■AUSTRALIA
Thief steals police car
Police are searching for a burglary suspect who escaped custody by stealing a police car despite being handcuffed. Police say the 29-year-old man had been detained yesterday on suspicion of breaking and entering. Two officers handcuffed him and left him in the back of the unmarked police car while they examined a bag outside. The suspect then climbed into the driver’s seat and drove away. Police say the keys had been left in the car. The vehicle was found an hour later but the suspect is still at large. An investigation is under way.
■PHILIPPINES
Rice pilferers to be jailed
President Gloria Arroyo vowed yesterday to jail anyone who pilfers state-subsidized rice as the Philippines scrambled to avoid the kind of riots over soaring food prices that have hit other countries. “Anyone caught stealing rice from the people must be thrown into jail,” Arroyo said after a Cabinet meeting to discuss the rapid rise in the price of rice, the country’s staple cereal. Rocketing global prices and moves by many rice exporting countries to limit supplies have created shortages around the world, sparking protests.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Man forgets rare violin
A retired shipping consultant said he lost an expensive 17th-century violin after forgetting it on a train. Rob Napier said he did not realize the instrument, made by master Venetian craftsman Matteo Goffriller in 1698, was still on the train’s luggage rack until it began pulling out of the station. “I think you can imagine the awful, kind of pit-in-your-stomach feeling,” Napier, 67, said in a telephone interview on Monday. “My first instinct was: Can I jump on top of the train? But that was obviously stupid.” Napier said he was on his way home to Bedwyn, some 115km west of London, on Jan. 29 after retrieving the violin from an expert who had valued it at about £200,000 (US$390,000).
■UNITED KINGDOM
Eleven arrested for murder
Police in Liverpool arrested 11 people yesterday in connection with the murder of schoolboy Rhys Jones, a police spokesman said. Two teenage boys aged 16 and 17 and two men aged 24 and 25 were held on suspicion of murder in dawn raids in the Croxteth area of the city. Eleven-year-old Jones was shot dead in Croxteth as he walked home from soccer practice on Aug. 22 last year. His death fueled a national debate about rising youth crime and gang violence. Merseyside Police said they had also arrested a boy aged 16 on suspicion of assisting an offender, attempting to pervert the course of justice and possession of a firearm.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Iraqi receives compensation
An Iraqi who was mistakenly shot and seriously injured by a British soldier in the south of the country will receive £2 million in compensation, the Ministry of Defense said on Monday. A spokesman for the ministry said the “settlement follows a civil claim for negligence made through the High Court.” Sources within the ministry said that the man, who befriended guards at a British military base in Basra, southern Iraq, was accidentally shot when a soldier dropped his rifle, which went off. The man, who cannot be named, was taken to Britain for medical treatment and has been unable to return to Iraq since because of the extent of his injuries.
■JORDAN
Prison inmates killed in riot
Three inmates were killed and scores injured at a prison when riots broke out, leading to widespread ransacking and prisoners lighting fires, security sources said on Monday. They said the clashes at al-Muaqar prison, southeast of the capital, were in protest at poor conditions and a new system of classifying prisoners. Details of the incident were sketchy, but a police officer said the rioting erupted among hundreds of prisoners after a fire broke out in the prison, which holds 1,200 inmates.
■KENYA
Mungiki members killed
Police shot dead two people when the dreaded Mungiki gang took to the streets again yesterday, presenting a brazen challenge to the new coalition government on only its second day in office. Two people who police had shot dead in Nairobi’s Industrial Area, where witnesses said Mungiki members were stoning cars. The gang, drawn from the majority Kikuyu tribe, has said it is protesting against the beheading of its jailed leader’s wife last week, which it blamed on police. Police deny that. Mungiki the country’s version of the mafia and has provided muscle-for-hire to politicians in the past.
■UNITED STATES
Man buys Monroe sex clip
A 15-minute film clip of late movie legend Marilyn Monroe giving oral sex to an unidentified man was sold on Monday to a businessman, who chose to remain anonymous, for US$1.5 million, the New York Post said. The film is a copy of a 1950s 16mm clip owned by the FBI, whose first director J. Edgar Hoover tried but failed to prove the man in it was then-US president John F. Kennedy. Kennedy, who was rumored to have had a sexual relationship with Monroe at some time, was assassinated in 1963.
■UNITED STATES
Boy noses toward record
A 13-year-old boy hopes to win a balloon-blowing record by a nose. Blowing through one nostril at a time, Andrew Dahl inflated 213 balloons within an hour in Blaine, Washington, on Friday — a feat that has been submitted for review by Guinness World Records. His father, Doug Dahl, measured the balloons to make sure each was at least 20cm, the minimum diameter, and his mother, Wendy Dahl, kept the tally. At one point he asked: “Does this count as practicing my trumpet?” His mother replied: “Only if you can play that with your nose.”
■UNITED STATES
Dentists leak mercury: study
Dental practices may be a source of a dangerous form of mercury contamination in the water supply, a small study suggested. In tests of wastewater from two dental practices, researchers at the University of Illinois found high levels of methylated mercury — a chemically altered form of the metal that is toxic to the brain and nervous system. Mercury is part of the silver dental fillings that have long been used to treat cavities; in this form, mercury is believed to be safe. But when dentists use drills to remove the fillings, tiny mercury particles that end up in dental wastewater are exposed to sulfate-reducing bacteria that convert the particles into methyl mercury. The findings, published in Environmental Science & Technology, raise concern that dental offices may be a source of methyl mercury in the public water supply.
■GUATEMALA
Strong quake shakes homes
A strong 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the Pacific coast of Guatemala on Monday, sending residents into the streets in panic, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries. The quake shook homes in the capital for up to a minute and residents in the city of about 2 million people reported paintings fell from walls. Small landslides hit rural roads, Guatemalan radio said. The fire department said the worst damage reported was cracks in eight houses in San Marcos. The US Geological Survey reported the quake struck at 9:03pm with an epicenter 73km south-southeast of Escuintla.
■BRAZIL
Riflemen attack prison
A gang of 10 men attacked a maximum security prison holding a notorious Colombian drug trafficker but were fought off by guards, authorities said on Monday. The assault, by a group firing rifles, occurred on the Campo Grande prison in the central-western state of Mato Grosso do Sul late on Sunday. The facility is holding Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, allegedly the ex-chief of Colombia’s Valle del Norte cartel. He has been sentenced to 30 years for money-laundering and criminal association, and is the subject of a US extradition request to face murder and drug trafficking charges. The prison’s director, Wilson Damasio, said 100 prison officers were scrambled to fend off the attack. The assailants managed to flee into the surrounding jungle.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in