■ INDIA
City denies manhole threat
Mumbai officials are upset by a US warning about the risks of falling into manholes during the monsoon season. An item posted on the US consulate Web site said that workers in Mumbai sometimes open manholes at times of flooding and then leave them unmarked. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation rejected the statement, and said it had e-mailed the US consulate on Wednesday. Jairaj Phatak, the municipal commissioner, estimates that 10 people or fewer have died in such a manner in recent years.
■VIETNAM
Aussie jailed for drugs
An Australian man has been jailed for 22 years after he was found guilty of storing and trafficking ecstasy, the Vietnam News said yesterday. Nguyen Tuan Khanh, 49, an Australian of Vietnamese origin, and six Vietnamese were charged and convicted at a court in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday. According to the court verdict, the group supplied bars and dance clubs with 3,700 amphetamine pills and more than 45g of ketamine from October 2006 to March last year.
■MALAYSIA
Police arrest lawmakers
Three members of parliament from opposition figurehead Anwar Ibrahim’s party were arrested outside the royal palace yesterday and held briefly, they said. The gathering was organized by ethnic Indian rights group Hindraf, which is seeking the release of its leaders who enraged the government in November by mounting a rally alleging discrimination. The arrests came a day after 2,000 protesters marched in the largest of a series of demonstrations against last week’s steep fuel price hike. The lawmakers were freed after about three hours of questioning.
■ AUSTRALIA
‘Cowcam’ keeps out pests
Facial recognition systems are already being used on humans and now it is the turn of animals to have their muzzles and snouts identified for security purposes. Scientists have launched technology that uses video cameras to differentiate between species. They say the “cowcam” will keep unwanted animals out of remote watering and feed points in the outback and allow farmers to monitor their stock from home or office. “We use the unique side profile that every animal has and a software program similar to facial recognition technology that allows us to identify animals to a species level,” said Neal Finch, the joint inventor of the product and a researcher at the University of Queensland. “The camera can tell the difference between sheep and cattle and feral pests such as goats, horses, pigs, kangaroos, camels and emus.” When animals come to feed they will be forced to pass through a lane with the camera. “You could have a cattle station that has feral populations of horses or camels. The watering points are there for the cattle, so the camera would let the cattle through, but if a goat or a pig tried to get in the gate would shut against it,” he said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Dolls, dogs can’t beat cops
Drivers in Auckland are turning to inflatable passengers to try to beat transit lane rules. Blow-up dolls, shop mannequins and dogs dressed as children have all been used to try to justify driving in lanes where vehicles are required to have at least three occupants. “There were some odd people that tried these antics,” North Shore city council traffic safety manager Andre Dannhauser said. Drivers caught trying to beat the system are fined. Enforcement officers taking pictures of offending cars in transit lanes have been treated to a wide range of excuses from caught-out motorists, Dannhauser said.
■INDIA
Rebels kill four soldiers
Separatist rebels killed four soldiers, including two senior officers, and their driver in an ambush in Kashmir on Friday, an army official said. “They were returning to their base camp when their vehicle was ambushed by the militants,” said the official, who asked not to be named. “All of them were killed on the spot after militants opened heavy and indiscriminate fire,” he said. No militant has claimed responsibility for the ambush. Those killed were a lieutenant colonel, a major, two soldiers and a driver, he said. An army spokesman said the attack took place 200km northeast of Jammu. Earlier on Friday, suspected separatist militants threw a grenade near a crowded market in Baramulla town to the north of Srinagar. At least 12 people were wounded, police said, adding the grenade was aimed at an army patrol.
■PHILIPPINES
Troops kill three rebels
Three communist rebels were killed yesterday in a clash with government troops in a southern province, a military report said. Three soldiers were wounded in the fighting that erupted when government troops raided before dawn a large guerrilla camp in Quezon town in Bukidnon Province, 900km south of Manila. The fighting lasted for more than three hours before the soldiers overran the camp and forced the guerrillas to escape into the jungle. Troops recovered three assault rifles, eight land mines, three sacks of bomb-making materials, one heavy-duty power generator, one computer printer and one laptop computer left behind by the fleeing rebels. More troops have been dispatched to the area to conduct pursuit operations.
■ SPAIN
Judge jails Islamic suspects
A judge on Friday jailed six Algerians on provisional charges of aiding terror groups linked to al-Qaeda in North Africa. Judge Baltasar Garzon said the six helped recruit people, raise money and provide logistical support for a group called al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb. The six were charged with membership in a terrorist group. Garzon said one of the six, Abdelghani Himmouri, had two timers ready to be used in bombs. The judge also issued international arrest orders for four others. Three other Algerians detained in police raids on Tuesday have been released. The nine men were arrested in the provinces of Barcelona, Navarra in the north and Castellon in the east on orders from the National Court, the Madrid-based tribunal that handles the nation’s terrorism cases.
■IRAN
Police kill traffickers: report
Police killed three armed Afghan drug traffickers and arrested three of their accomplices in the town of Khaf in the eastern province of Khorassan Razavi, Khaf police chief colonel Ali Asghar Mokhtari said on the state TV’s Web site on Friday. He did not elaborate on the nationality of those arrested, but added that police confiscated around 102kg of opium, a military rifle and a satellite phone.
■FRANCE
Bruni song riles Colombia
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s knack for metaphors and publicity has made her new album notorious in South America even before anybody has heard it. The French president’s model-turned-singer wife has angered Colombia’s government with lyrics that reportedly appear on an album scheduled for release on July 21. Le Figaro daily reported that a song included the lines: “You are my drug/ More deadly than Afghan heroin/ More dangerous than white Colombian.” Whether this was a reference to her husband Nicolas Sarkozy or a former lover was unclear — but it was enough to rile Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo, who felt cocaine was an inappropriate metaphor for ardor given the mayhem the narcotic breeds. The Afghan government has not commented on the lyrics. There was no immediate response from Bruni-Sarkozy.
■NETHERLANDS
Friday 13th ‘not so unlucky’
Dutch statisticians have established that Friday 13th is actually safer than an average Friday. A study published on Thursday by the Dutch Center for Insurance Statistics (CVS) showed that fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays. “I find it hard to believe that it is because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home, but statistically speaking, driving is a little bit safer on Friday 13th,” CVS statistician Alex Hoen told the Verzekerd insurance magazine.
■Italy
Soldiers to help fight crime
Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said on Friday that 2,500 soldiers would be deployed to some of the cities to back up police in anti-crime duties to safeguard citizen safety. After six months, the deployment’s usefulness will be evaluated. Some of the soldiers will be deployed in Naples, where they will guard plants processing mountains of garbage. Neapolitans have taken to burning garbage in the streets to protest uncollected trash in their city and have blocked the opening of dumps near their homes.
■ CANAD
Ottawa asked to help Celil
Supporters of a Canadian imprisoned in China on terror charges say US government support for his release is beginning to outpace that of the Canadian government. World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer said on Thursday that Ottawa must immediately assign a special envoy to look after the case of Huseyin Celil. Celil was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was arrested in Uzbekistan two years ago and handed over to Chinese officials. Beijing accused him of terrorism and sentenced him to life in prison in April last year. US legislators have been backing Celil’s release.
■PUERTO RICO
Dozens arrested
Federal officials said they arrested 65 alleged drug and weapons traffickers in the south, following a grand jury indictment of more than 100 people. The suspects are accused of running drug distribution points at five public housing projects in the cities of Ponce and Juana Diaz since 2003. Police Chief Pedro Toledo said that 52 of those charged are responsible for 20 killings related to drug and arms trafficking. The US Attorney’s Office said the indictment late last month of 111 suspects linked to the network is the second-largest ever issued in the federal district court.
■UNITED STATES
Contract killing trial begins
A former math professor at a historically black university will go on trial tomorrow, charged with arranging the contract killing of his black daughter-in-law because she was not Indian. As prosecutors prepare to try the death penalty case against Chiman Rai, their challenge will be to prove that Rai was so enraged over his son’s marriage to a black woman that he paid US$10,000 to have her killed in Georgia. Rai, a native of India, brought his family to the US in 1970. He taught math at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, later ran a supermarket and then bought a hotel in Louisville, Kentucky.
■UNITED STATES
California fire burns on
Strong, erratic winds that had been complicating efforts to fight wildfires in northern California calmed down on Friday, but firefighters were still struggling to get the upper hand on one stubborn fire that scorched about 93km² and destroyed at least 50 homes. The fire was the most dangerous of northern California’s many wildfires because it was moving toward the town of Paradise, about 145km north of Sacramento, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Officials ordered precautionary evacuations for 4,500 of the town’s 30,000 residents. About 9,000 resident evacuated the area a day earlier, but officials had reopened roads to some of those homes on Friday.
■OUTER SPACE
Pluto gets consolation prize
Pluto, demoted from planet status in 2006, got a consolation prize on Wednesday — it and other dwarf planets like it will be called plutoids. The International Astronomical Union said in a statement that its executive committee meeting in Oslo, Norway, decided on the term. Plutoids will be defined as celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun farther away than Neptune. They must have near-spherical shape and must not have swept up other, smaller objects in their orbits, said the organization, which names newly discovered planets and other celestial bodies. The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris, but astronomers expect to find more.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was