■ AUSTRALIA
Court orders jail for rapists
An appeal court yesterday overturned a judge’s ruling allowing three men and two boys who raped a 10-year-old girl in an Outback community to avoid prison time. The Queensland state Court of Appeal ordered three men and two teenagers who pleaded guilty to the rape in a remote Aboriginal community in mid-2006 to serve jail sentences. The three adults were sentenced yesterday to six years in prison. They will be eligible for parole on June 13, 2010. The two teenagers were ordered detained in juvenile detention. One is to serve 18 months and the other a year. Four other teenagers who also pleaded guilty to the crime were given three years probation.
■ PHILIPPINES
Rebels free TV cameraman
Suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants have freed a cameraman for ABS-CBN, but his two colleagues remain captive, officials said yesterday. Popular anchor and senior reporter Ces Drilon and cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion were still being held by suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels, officials said. Isnaji Alvarez, mayor of Indanan township on troubled Jolo island and one of the negotiators, said by telephone yesterday that Angelo Valderama was freed late on Thursday. He said he turned over Valderama to authorities after the abductors were paid a “minimal amount” for the hostages’ food expenses.
■ JAPAN
Boost immigration: panel
The government should deal with a dearth of young people by boosting the number of immigrants to 10 percent of the population, said a ruling party panel report set to be presented to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda next week. The nation faces a bleak future as its population ages faster than that of any other country and is set to shrink by a third in 50 years if current trends continue. Foreigners made up less than 2 percent of the nearly 128 million population in late 2006, government statistics show, but many have expressed concern that crime could rise if more immigration was allowed. The report also called for Japan to accept more refugees. Asylum seekers are currently admitted to Japan only in very rare cases.
■ JAPAN
Police probing 'copycats'
Police said yesterday they were probing a number of Internet postings warning of copycat crimes after a stabbing spree in Tokyo’s Akihabara area on Sunday by a distraught young man who had foretold of his plans online. After a tipoff by Tokyo police, authorities in northern Yamagata Prefecture on Thursday arrested a man who had written the name of a musical instruments shop in a chatroom, saying: “I will ram into the store with a truck!” The suspect, Takuya Oki, 29, later told investigators he “sent the posting to imitate the Akihabara incident after watching it on the news.” Tokyo police received more than 100 calls about suspicious Internet postings in the four days from Monday, 10 times more than usual, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
■ SINGAPORE
Jail for armpit fetish
A man with a fetish for smelling womens’ armpits has been sentenced to 14 years in jail and 18 strokes of the cane, legal officials said yesterday. A court employee confirmed the sentence, issued on Thursday, against Mohammed Ismail Ariffin, 36. Ariffin had a fixation for touching or smelling women, particularly their armpits, and was convicted of molesting 23 women, his lawyer Noor Mohamed Marican said. “He’s got this problem. Poor chap,” Noor said in a brief interview.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Couple accused of murder
A couple have been accused of murdering a man who died after he was assaulted in a supermarket in southwest London, police said yesterday. Kevin Tripp, 57, died in hospital late on Wednesday night after suffering a head injury during an incident at the Sainsbury’s store in Colliers Wood, Merton, on Tuesday evening. Media reports said Tripp had been attacked in a case of mistaken identity after a row about jumping the line. On Thursday Tony Virasami, 37, appeared at Wimbledon magistrates court charged with his murder. He was remanded in custody until Sept. 18. His partner, Antoinette Richardson, 37, has also been charged with murder and was due to appear before Sutton magistrates court later yesterday.
■ CHAD
Rebels down helicopter
Rebel forces said on Thursday they shot down one government helicopter and hit another in a fresh offensive from the east aimed at overthrowing Chadian President Idriss Deby. The army said a helicopter made a crash landing after technical problems during training. Irish troops stationed in east Chad as part of an EU protection force for UN-run refugee camps said they had received reports of combat at Modeina near the Sudan border, 70km northeast of the Irish base at Goz-Beida. “I can confirm that a Chadian helicopter has been taken down just outside Abeche near the airfield in what appears to be a controlled crash-landing due to damage sustained from ground fire from 23mm anti-aircraft weapons,” Commandant Stephen Morgan said.
■ SPAIN
Child phone addicts treated
Two children are being treated for addiction to mobile phones, in what is thought to be first case of its kind in the country. The children, 12 and 13, were admitted to a mental health clinic by their parents because they could not carry out normal activities without their phones. The children were failing at school and, behind their parents’ backs, were deceiving relatives to try to get money to pay for the phone cards. Both spent an average of six hours a day on the phone, talking, texting or playing video games. Maite Utges, director of the Child and Youth Mental Health Center in Lleida where the children are being treated, said: “It is the first time we have used a specific treatment to cure a dependence on the mobile phone. They both had serious difficulties leading normal lives.”
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Bomber's partner jailed
The partner of a failed suicide bomber was jailed for 15 years on Thursday for not telling police about his plans to carry out an attack on the London underground system. Judge Paul Worsley told Yeshi Girma, 32, that it was clear she knew of plans by her partner, Hussain Osman, to set off explosions on the transit system on July 21, 2005. The bombs failed to explode fully and no one was injured. “You could have done much more to prevent the terrorist threat to the public had you revealed what you knew,” Worsley said.
■ SPAIN
Police detain 18 after raids
Spanish police detained at least 18 people in swoops on Russian money launderers and arms traffickers yesterday, media reported. The judge who ordered the operation had issued a total of 25 arrest warrants, police sources said. The detainees reportedly included at least four ring leaders. More than 300 police participated in the swoops in Malaga, on the southern Costa del Sol, Barcelona, Madrid, Alicante and the Balearic Islands.
■ UNITED STATES
Obama, McCain condoms
An entrepreneur has decided to “have fun” with the US presidential campaign by marketing condoms featuring images of the candidates, Democrat Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain. Benjamin Sherman, who created the company Practice Safe Policy, says the Obama condom carries the slogan “Use With Good Judgment.” The McCain version says “Old But Not Expired.” McCain condoms “are battle tested, strong and durable, for those occasions when you just need to switch your position!” As for the Obama condoms, it’s certain “that without wearing one, there’s likely to be an Obama-Mama in your future.”
■ UNITED STATES
More bhang for your buck
Marijuana sold in the US today is on average more than twice as strong as it was 25 years ago, increasing the threat of serious mental impairment in users, US officials said on Thursday. The average level of THC — marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient — in seized samples is 9.6 percent, compared with just under 4 percent in 1983, the Office of National Drug Control Policy said.
■ MEXICO
Viagra for Father's Day
Men in the northern town of Escobedo are likely to have a happy Father’s Day, thanks to a mayor who is handing out free Viagra and condoms. Mayor Margarita Martinez says the handouts are part of a campaign aimed at raising awareness about male health problems. Martinez say a strong family “requires a healthy man, and a healthy sex life is part of general health.” The campaign includes four doctors and a team of nurses who give free health exams and determine which men could be given the pills, donated by pharmacies. Thursday’s handout continues through Father’s Day tomorrow. Security guard Jose Isabel Rico was among the lucky 100. “Of course I’m going to use the pills,” he said. “We’ll see what they do.”
■ BRAZIL
Robbers stage bold art heist
A gang of armed robbers on Thursday stole two Picasso engravings and two Brazilian paintings from a Sao Paulo museum in a bold daylight heist, officials said. The Pablo Picasso engravings stolen Thursday were Minotaur, Drinker and Women (1933), and The Painter and the Model (1963). The two Brazilian works were Women at the Window (1926), by Emiliano Augusto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque Melo, and Couple (1919), by Lithuanian-born Brazilian artist Lasar Segall. The robbery occurred around midday on the second floor of the museum, when three men carrying firearms and wearing masks rounded up the guards.
■ CANADA
Lawmaker sorry for remark
A Conservative lawmaker apologized on Thursday for a remark he made about Aborigines on the same day the prime minister offered an historic apology to the community. Pierre Poilievre said his comments that native people need to learn the value of hard work more than they need compensation were hurtful and wrong. “I accept responsibility for them and I apologize,” he said. Poilievre, a member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tory government, questioned the value of compensation for former students of the schools on a radio show on Wednesday, just hours before Harper delivered the apology. The Aboriginal community won a C$5 billion (about US$5 billion) class action settlement in 2006 — the largest in the country’s history — between the government, churches and 90,000 surviving students.
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