■ AUSTRALIA
Police invade ‘cannabisville’
A Sydney suburb has been dubbed “cannabisville” after police found four homes were marijuana hothouses containing vast quantities of the illegal drug. While the homes appeared to be typical suburban residences, police raids found they used false walls and tunnels to hide cannabis plantations. Police seized 1,000 plants worth A$8 million (US$7.5 million) from four houses in Blair Athol.
■ MALAYSIA
Service may include sex ed
Authorities worried that high school graduates may not know enough about sex are considering sex education for teenagers when they undergo national service after leaving school, Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil, director general of the National Service Department, said on Wednesday. Tens of thousands of boys and girls around 17 or 18 years old are selected at random each year to participate in the government’s national service training. The Cabinet approved guidelines to teach sex education in schools two years ago, but activists say it has not been implemented.
■ CAMBODIA
Victim won't press charges
A mother-in-law who forced her son’s wife to live and even give birth in the family’s pig pen has avoided prosecution because the victim refused to press charges, police said yesterday. Deputy military police chief of Banteay Meanchey Province, Born Arun, said police stumbled on the abuse allegedly endured by Ieng Chan Thorn, 23, when they intervened to stop her husband beating her at a guesthouse after she ran away. “She said her husband frequently beat her with his mother’s blessing and she made Thorn live with the pigs,” he said. “She said her mother-in-law didn’t like her character because she used to be a singer.”■ AUSTRALIA
Robber goes postal
A man politely waited his turn in a line at a busy central Sydney post office before jumping over the counter, grabbing money from two tills and running off, police said on Thursday. Police said the man dropped some of the money and a large knife as he escaped, pursued by post office staff, following the Wednesday afternoon robbery in the heart of Sydney’s central business district. Police are hunting the man, said to be in his 20s.
■ INDIA
Two killed in bus fare row
A poor worker and his four-year-old daughter were crushed to death by a bus after the conductor pushed them off for not having the fare for the journey, police said on Thursday. The bus conductor, who collects the fares, was arrested and charged with unintentional murder, police officer Suresh Mishra said. A conviction would carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Sanschar Toppo, 40, was 10 rupees (US$0.25) short of the fare when he got on the bus with his daughter. He got into an argument with the conductor, which escalated until Toppo and the girl were pushed out of the moving bus, Mishra said. After the incident on Wednesday, angry passengers set the bus on fire near Jharsuguda, a village about 380km west of Bhubaneshwar, the capital of eastern Orissa state, Mishra said.
■ MALAYSIA
Man seeks fourth wife
A man with three wives and 18 children has asked an Islamic court to let him marry again — with the blessing of all his spouses. Mohamed Nor Awang, aged 51, filed a petition to take another wife in the Shariah High Court in eastern Terengganu state, a court employee said yesterday. His three wives told the court on Thursday they support Mohamed Nor’s decision, the court worker said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol. Mohamed Nor’s first wife, Wan Rukiah Mat Yusof, aged 52, was quoted by the Star newspaper saying he could “go ahead, I have no problems.” “We all could live blissfully under one roof,” his third wife, 40-year-old Noraini Daud, was reported as saying by the Star. Judge Sheikh Ahmad Ismail Hakim told Mohamed Nor to return to court tomorrow with a bank statement to show he can support another spouse, the court worker said. He is also expected to bring his prospective fourth wife, who is 35 years old. Mohamed Nor said he was a menial worker who earns about 1,500 ringgit (US$460) a month, the court employee said. The Shariah Court makes rulings on personal, family and religious issues for Muslims, who comprise nearly 60 percent of the country’s 27 million people.
■ HONG KONG
Grave robbers jailed
Two grave robbers who attempted to steal and hold for ransom the body of the late wife of one of the world’s richest men from a Hong Kong tomb were jailed yesterday. Brothers Liu Huihuang (劉惠晃), 36, and Liu Huizhi (劉惠志), 42, planned to steal the remains of the late wife of tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠). Together with two accomplices, they tried to break into Li Chong Yuet-ming’s (李莊月明) grave in January 2006 after entering the cemetery armed with knives and an electric drill and tying up two employees. They opened the grave of the tycoon’s late wife, who died in 1990 at the age of 55, but fled the Buddhist Cemetery without stealing anything. The brothers, both from China, admitted conspiracy to rob, blackmail, criminal damage and assault. The younger brother was jailed for five years and the older brother for four years and eight months.
■ ROMANIA
Bears stop traffic
A mother bear and her young cub stopped traffic and caused panic on Thursday in Brasov after they roamed through gardens in search of food and finally climbed the stairs of a four-story building and broke onto the roof. A rescue team tranquilized the mother after failing to steer her toward a nearby forest, officials said. Traffic was stopped for two hours as a team tried to get the animals back to the wilderness. The team took the pair to the zoo in an operation shown live on TV. Officials said the animals would be sent to a nearby bear reserve.
■ ICELAND
Men pledge penises
Sigurdur Hjartarson is missing a human penis. But he’s not worried: four men have promised to donate theirs to him when they die. Hjartarson is founder and owner of the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which offers visitors from around the world a close-up look at the long and the short of the male reproductive organ. His collection boasts 261 preserved members from 90 species. The largest, from a sperm whale, is 70kg and 1.7m long. The smallest, a hamster penis bone, is just 2mm and must be viewed through a magnifying glass. One species conspicuous by its absence is homo sapiens, but that may soon be rectified since a German, an American, an Icelander and a Briton have promised to donate their organs after death.
■ NORWAY
Money returned in village
Geir Johansen has 40,000 reasons to be glad that everyone seems to know everyone in Leknes, a village of about 2,700 people on Norway’s Lofoten islands in the Arctic. In December, Johansen put a leather folder with about 40,000 kroner (US$8,000) on the roof of his car, forgot it and drove off. When he got home, it was gone. The money was from tickets sold for a local concert with the Oslo Gospel Choir, and proceeds from his small music store, news reports said. Five months later a local sports club was doing some volunteer roadside cleanup. “I saw something in the ditch,” Arne Kristian Iversen, a friend of Johansen’s told the local newspaper Lofot Tidende. “I said it must be Geir’s folder.” The newspaper said the folder was full of soaking wet money.
■ ITALY
Inmates showcase designs
The models are strutting past and the celebrities are carefully eyeing the collections, but it’s not at every fashion show that you see prison guards by the catwalk. Security was tight as usual at Milan’s San Vittore prison on Wednesday, where female inmates, launching their own women’s wear line, showcased a collection of three white wedding dresses in a glamorous fashion show in the jail’s courtyard. The inmates learned tailoring skills from a local cooperative that aims to help women behind bars.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Hawking hails Mandela
Scientist Stephen Hawking hailed the peaceful end of South Africa’s apartheid era as one of the great achievements of his lifetime on Thursday as he met the first black president Nelson Mandela. “I am very pleased to meet you. I admire how you managed to find a peaceful solution to a situation that seemed doomed to disaster,” the British astrophysicist told Mandela who stood down as president nine years ago. “It was one of the great achievements of the 20th century. If only the Israelis and the Palestinians could do the same.” ■ UNITED STATES
Mom no help at all
A man trying to flee from Florida sheriff’s deputies phoned his mother for help and she obligingly rushed to the scene and rammed two lawmen with her SUV, deputies said on Thursday. Mother and son were arrested after the confrontation on Wednesday night in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Pompano Beach, Florida, the Broward County sheriff’s office said. Detectives said they tried to stop Joe Morgan, 25, on a traffic offense but he fled, phoning his mother, Carman Thompson-Wilson, as he drove away. Mother and son were charged, while the two injured deputies were treated at a medical center and released.
■ UNITED STATES
Landlord attempts murder
Prosecutors say a New York landlord who tried to kill a tenant with a bomb has been indicted on attempted murder and other charges. The tenant lost a leg in the blast. Prosecutors said on Thursday that 38-year-old Yung Tang placed the bomb in a bag next to Israel Halberstam’s minivan while it was parked outside his Brooklyn home in March 2002. The bag exploded when Halberstam tried to move it. They said Tang wanted his tenant dead because Halberstam owed him about US$100,000 in rent on a showroom for his electronics business. They said they didn’t know whether Tang had an attorney.
■ CANADA
Too much love hurts
A woman pleaded guilty to stabbing her boyfriend nearly to death in a botched sex game in which he asked her to carve a heart-shaped symbol on his chest, the daily Winnipeg Free Press said on Thursday. Catherine McCoubrey, 25, was sentenced to three years’ probation for the assault in February last year, the daily said. The couple had been drinking alcohol and were engaged in “rough sex” when the boyfriend egged her on, it said. She agreed, but accidentally pressed the knife too deep. The 24-year-old victim was rushed to hospital with a puncture wound to his heart and was not expected to live, but has since recovered.
■ EGYPT
Millionaire fraudster jailed
A man was sentenced to 1,000 years behind bars on Thursday after scamming hundreds of people out of about US$52 million, a court official said. The Giza criminal court sentenced Abdullah Kamel Mohammed, 42, for cheating 480 people out of their money over several years. “He would promise people that he would invest their money for them and bring them good profits, but he would take the money and disappear,” the source said. Mohammed was arrested in Cairo in November after a neighbor who had been conned recognized him and called the police.
■ AUSTRIA
Man hacks family to death
A man has confessed to hacking his wife, daughter, parents and father-in-law to death with an ax because he had money problems, police said on Wednesday. The suspect, identified only as Reinhard S, 39, by police at a news conference in Vienna, turned himself in on Wednesday, saying: “The bodies of my dead wife and child are lying in my flat.” Police found the body of the suspect’s wife Barbara, 42, in the bathroom, and of his daughter Natalie, seven, in a walk-in closet. The killing spree did not stop there. The suspect drove to Ansfelden, 180km west of Vienna, where he axed to death his mother Gabriela, 69, and his father Engelbert, 72. He then drove to Linz, where he murdered his father in law Heinrich R, 80, investigator Thomas Stecher told reporters.
‘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
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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