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■ HONG KON

Woman kills baby, self

A woman killed her 14-month-old baby and then jumped to her death with the child in her arms from the 37th floor of her apartment in Hong Kong, police said yesterday. The 31-year-old woman is believed to have killed herself and the child because her husband was having an affair. Police were called to the scene on Friday by the woman’s father, who said his daughter had told him she had killed the baby and was going to kill herself. They arrived to find the bodies of the mother and child on the pavement below her apartment. The woman had knife wounds to her wrist. Police said they found six suicide notes written to her husband and relatives.



■CHINA

Workers freed in Nigeria

Kidnappers have released three employees of a Chinese construction firm in Nigeria, China’s foreign ministry said yesterday, two days after they were abducted following a dispute over wages and working conditions. The brief statement on the foreign ministry Web site said the three Chinese men were safe but did not give further details of the release. A driver for China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC) was suspected of acting in collaboration with other Nigerian employees of the firm when he abducted the men, including the company’s finance manager, on Thursday, Nigerian officials said. They were returning to the firm’s residential compound from a site near the remote southeastern state capital of Calabar. A Cross River state spokesman, Patrick Ugbe, had earlier told reporters that Nigerian staff of CCECC had given a protest letter to Governor Liyel Imoke on Tuesday, when he visited a site where the company is building a bridge, complaining about poor wages and welfare.

■ PAKISTAN

Attackers kill three Shiites

Gunmen shot dead three Shiite Muslims in suspected sectarian violence yesterday in a northwestern Pakistani town, police said. The attackers opened fire on a shop in the main bazaar of Dera Ismail Khan town and fled on a motorbike, local police chief Abdul Ghaffar Qaisarani said. The shopkeeper, his salesman and a visitor were killed in the attack, Qaisarani said. The dead were members of the Shiite community, he said. Shiites account for 20 percent of the population of Pakistan.



■PHILIPPINES

British man goes missing

Police in the southern Philippines are searching for a British national who went missing after leaving his hotel, authorities said yesterday. James David Rowe, described as an automotive spare parts businessman, had been staying at the Amil Hotel in the port city of Zamboanga when he left with an unnamed Filipino man on Thursday, an employee of the hotel said. He has not yet reappeared, the employee said. “The foreigner left with a Filipino man and never returned ... His things are all still inside the room,” said the hotel employee without elaborating. Last month, the US embassy received information that extremists might be planning to kidnap Americans or other foreigners in Zamboanga.



■MALAYSIA

Video authentic, panel says

A royal inquiry has identified a former chief judge as the man involved in a video clip allegedly showing a senior lawyer brokering judicial appointments, reports said yesterday. In a front page headline, the influential New Straits Times newspaper said the inquiry panel identified former chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim as the man on the other end of the line with senior lawyer V.K. Lingam in the 2001 clip. The five-man inquiry panel found the clip to be authentic and the conversation to be true, the paper reported, quoting commission sources. Former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim unleashed a furore last year by releasing the clip, which apparently showed the lawyer telling a judge over the phone that he would put him forward for a top job.



■AUSTRALIA

Man survives shark attack

A 37-year-old swimmer lost “great big chunks” of his leg when he was attacked yesterday by a 4m shark at a popular beach on the west coast. Police said the man was just 80m off Albany beach and amongst dozens of other swimmers. He is now in a stable condition in Albany hospital. Fellow swimmer Jo Lucas told the West Australian newspaper she was shocked that a shark would come so close to shore. “I just saw someone thrashing in the water and saying ‘Help me, Help me,’” Lucas said. “I grabbed him and swam back into shore.” Lucas said there were “great big chunks missing” from his leg but that he remained calm and didn’t appear to have lost a lot of blood.



■SINGAPORE

Dengue plan finalized

Health officials from the Asia-Pacific region have finalized a plan to combat dengue following a five-day meeting in Singapore. National plans will be guided by 38 specific recommended activities under the regional initiative, participants said. The regional plan, which was finalized on Friday, will be submitted to a meeting of health ministers in September. WHO figures show some 2.5 billion people are at risk of dengue globally. More than 70 percent live in the Asia-Pacific region.

■ITALY



T-shirt row with Libya over

Libya yesterday accepted an apology from a newly appointed Italian minister from an anti-immigrant party who wore a T-shirt that offended Muslims in 2006, and withdrew previous threats of “repercussions” against Italy. Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League was named this week as a member of the new government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. A statement from the Libyan embassy in Rome said Libya noted “with satisfaction” the “public statement of regret” by Calderoli and, after further contacts with the Italian authorities, considered that “the case is closed.”



■GERMANY

Book lifts lid on first Dracula

The first screen portrayal of Dracula was so eerie, some critics asked whether the actor himself could be a vampire. But since his death, little has been done to resurrect Max Schreck’s reputation — until now. Schreck is best remembered for playing the cadaverous vampire Count Orlok in F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, the first, unauthorized cinematic adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. “Whoever hopes to discover a vampire will be disappointed, but they will find an actor of real skill and versatility,” said German author Stefan Eickhoff, who has written what he says is the first biography of Schreck. “Yet he himself remains somewhat shrouded in mystery.”



■SWITZERLAND

Royal jewels to test market

Auction houses offering royal jewels and rare luxury watches in Geneva next week shrug off any suggestion that the global economic downturn will dampen what they say is still a strong market for high-end pieces. Christie’s and Sotheby’s are holding their spring jewelry sales in the Swiss city after two huge diamonds were stranded on the block at respective Hong Kong sales last month. Senior jewelry experts at the companies voiced confidence that collectors and traders remained hungry for unique items, especially colored diamonds or historic gems, following world-record prices set for rare polished diamonds last year.



■SWITZERLAND

Iran a threat: five states

The world’s five main atomic powers issued a joint statement on Friday — the first in five years — warning that Iran’s nuclear program was a proliferation risk of “ongoing serious concern.” “We call for Iran to respond to the concerns of the international community through prompt and full implementation of the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and the requirements of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency],” said British Ambassador John Duncan, speaking on behalf of the five, which also includes China, France, Russia and the US.



■SPAIN

Journalist killed by troops

Spanish journalist Ricardo Ortega was shot dead by foreign soldiers in Haiti in 2004, said a court order from Haiti, the contents of which were made public by Ortega’s family on Friday. Ortega died while covering a rally pitting supporters and detractors of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in March. Spanish media had reported that Ortega was killed by gunfire from Aristide’s supporters during a protest in Port-au-Prince. But Ortega’s mother, Charo Fernandez, said her son and his translator died more than 90 minutes later, hit by fire after coming out from a patio where they had been sheltering. The court order said there was no evidence to try the nine Haitians accused of Ortega’s murder, and asked that they be freed, Fernandez said.

■UNITED STATES

‘SpongeBob’ vandals sought

The US Forest Service is looking for “SpongeBob fanatics” who painted the cartoon character on the chimney of a historic building. The 3m tall painting of Nickelodeon character SpongeBob SquarePants is on a cabin in the Pike National Forest in Colorado that used to be the Forest Service’s tree nursery until it was abandoned in the 1930s. Forest Service law enforcement officer Tom Healy says the incident is part of an increase in vandalism in the area. Officials say whoever painted the cartoon on the chimney brought four colors of paint and that it was a time-consuming venture. Healy says it will cost several thousand dollars to wipe the animated yellow sea sponge’s image from the site.



■UNITED STATES

Skull dug up, used as bong

Authorities in Texas have filed corpse-abuse charges against two men who allegedly removed a skull from a grave and used it as a bong. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office confirmed on Thursday that misdemeanor abuse of corpse charges have been filed in the case. One of the men allegedly told police they dug up a grave in an abandoned cemetery in the woods, removed a head from a body and smoked marijuana using the skull as a bong. Police found the cemetery and a grave that had been disturbed, but are still investigating.



■UNITED STATES

Wallet found after 35 years

Sandy Baumberger of Alton, Illinois, says she never expected to see her wallet again when it was stolen 35 years ago. But it has been found by a 30-year-old dental student who tracked her down and returned it. Eric Wherley said he found the wallet in a bathroom stall at school after a water pipe broke and loosened some ceiling tiles. The thief who stole the wallet apparently had hidden it in the drop ceiling. The dark-blue patent leather wallet contained Baumberger’s driver’s license and library cards. It also had her student identification, a grocery list and cloth swatches from her bridesmaids’ dresses.



■UNITED STATES

Police quell school brawl

A high school in California was locked down after about 600 students fought in a lunchtime brawl that had to be quelled by police in riot gear. The apparently gang-related fight started around noon on Friday at Locke High School in Los Angeles, school district spokeswoman Nadia Gonzalez said. Four students were arrested. Several students were injured but nobody was hospitalized, officials said. Music teacher Reggie Smith described to the Los Angeles Times a chaotic scene that made it hard to distinguish between the trouble makers and those trying to avoid the mayhem. “The kids were crazy, running from place to place jumping on other kids,” Smith said. “The officers on campus were overwhelmed.” The Times reported school officials separated Latino students from black students. Campus police were overwhelmed and called on the Los Angeles Police Department for help.



■DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Chief calls for marriage law

The leader of the last remaining pre-Columbian tribe in the eastern Caribbean says outlawing marriage to outsiders can save Dominica’s dwindling indigenous population, but legislators are balking at deciding who can marry whom. Chief Charles Williams has asked legislators to pass a law requiring that ethnic Kalinagos marry only each other for self-preservation. He also requested that foreigners be barred from living on the 1,500-hectare reserve in the island’s northeast.


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