■CHINA
Model murderer confesses
A young Chinese man confessed to killing a Canadian model during a robbery at her apartment, police in Shanghai said on Friday. Diana O’Brien, 22, arrived in the city to work as a model less than two weeks ago and friends said she was unhappy and planned to return home early. Chen Jun (陳軍), 18, was arrested on Friday in Anhui Province. He was in possession of O’Brien’s laptop and other belongings, a police statement said. Chen told police he followed O’Brien into her shared apartment on Sunday night, it said without giving further details. O’Brien’s friends did not believe her death was work related.
■INDONESIA
Militant may be in Indonesia
A suspected Islamic militant believed to be heading a Singapore cell of regional network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) may be hiding in Indonesia, where language and cultural similarities would allow him to blend in more easily, Indonesia’s police chief said yesterday. Mas Selamat bin Kastari escaped from a Singapore detention center in February, where he was being held for allegedly plotting to crash a plane into Singapore’s airport. Indonesian police chief Sutanto told reporters police were still investigating a network of suspected militants detained recently in Palembang on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island. The group of 10 was detained in raids by Indonesia’s anti-terrorism unit and a large cache of bombs was found.
■CHINA
Red Cross hacker sentenced
A Chinese man has been sentenced to two years in jail for hacking into a Red Cross Web site and asking for earthquake relief donations to be sent to his bank account, state media reported yesterday. Yang Litao, 23, was found guilty of fraud and sentenced on Friday by a court in eastern Jiangsu Province, the Xinhua news agency reported. He hacked into the Red Cross’s local site in Kunshan, near Shanghai, six days after the May 12 quake in Sichuan Province, the report said. Yang stole the site administrator’s identity and password and then posted a fake notice asking for donations to be deposited in his account, the report said.
■JAPAN
Two held over whale meat
Greenpeace said on Friday that two of its activists had been indicted by Japanese prosecutors for stealing whale meat in a bid to uncover alleged corruption in Japan’s controversial whaling program. The Aomori Prosecutors’ Office on Friday indicted Junichi Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, who are both still in custody, Greenpeace said. Greenpeace has said it intercepted one box of meat and handed it to prosecutors in Tokyo as evidence of an alleged embezzlement ring. The group was aiming to prove that whalers on the taxpayer-backed hunt had sold whale meat on the black market. The state-backed Institute of Cetacean Research, which commissions the whaling, said that crew members were given meat as a “gift.” Prosecutors opted not to pursue the allegations against the crew members and instead arrested the two members of Greenpeace.
■BANGLADESH
Wild elephant kills four
A wild elephant straying into a village trampled four members of a family to death and injured another in southeastern Bangladesh, witnesses said on Friday. The elephant attacked the villagers on Thursday night in the Bandarban hill district’s Lama area, 350km from the capital Dhaka. It damaged several shops and three houses before returning to the forest, villagers told reporters.
■CYPRUS
Sexual curse discovered
An unexpected sexual curse has been uncovered by archeologists at Cyprus’ old city kingdom of Amathus, on the island’s south coast near Limassol, according to a newspaper on Friday. “A curse is inscribed in Greek on a lead tablet and part of it reads: ‘May your penis hurt when you make love,’” Pierre Aubert, head of Athens Archaeological School in Greece told the English language Cyprus Weekly. He said the tablet showed a man standing holding something in his right hand that looks like an hour glass. The inscription dates back to the 7th century AD when Christianity was well established on the island, leading the French professor to surmise that it referred to the activity of witchcraft or shamans surviving from the pagan era.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Stabbing deaths reach 50
Two more fatal stabbings in London have taken this year’s grim toll past 50 but Scotland Yard said on Friday the city is not suffering an epidemic of knife crime. A 20-year-old died from stab wounds on Thursday afternoon in Leyton, east London, and a man in his 20s was killed in Walthamstow later in the evening. Up to July 7, 49 people had died from stab wounds in London this year. Police were unable to provide comparative figures for last year, though between April last year and March there were 160 homicides, 70 of which were stabbings. The Metropolitan police have said tackling knife crime has overtaken terrorism as their number one priority.
■SWEDEN
Police observe ‘Ninja Man’
A Danish man dressed like a Japanese ninja warrior made news in Scandinavia on Thursday by barging into a small newspaper and ranting about Sweden’s popular Crown Princess Victoria. “Ninja Man,” as the Swedish media are calling him, turned up at the local newspaper Olandsbladet dressed in a black leather tunic decorated by chains, and with a Bedouin scarf wrapped around his head, police said. Police spokesman Christer Klasson said the man, whose name was not released, is now being watched by the Swedish security police after barging into the newspaper.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Man questioned in theft
British police said on Friday they were quizzing a man over the theft of a rare collection of works by William Shakespeare stolen from a university in northern England 10 years ago. The first folio edition of the Shakespeare works, published in 1623 and said by police to be worth £15 million (US$29 million), was among items taken during a break-in at Durham University library in December 1998. Thieves had forced open glass-top display cases during an exhibition of English literature dating back to the Middle Ages. There was no news of the books and documents taken until police were alerted two weeks ago by the British embassy in the US.
■ISRAEL
Wedding hall takes plastic
Guests at an Israeli wedding hall can now insert a credit card into a machine at its entrance, tap in a sum and leave a gift for the bride and groom. “It’s new in Israel and the world,” Aya Alon Kaufman of the Gan Oranim hall in Tel Aviv said on Israel’s Channel 10 television. “It’s very convenient ... guests can give a gift even if they forget their checkbooks.” She said couples pay 500 shekels (US$155) to rent the device, which resembles an automated teller machine, and the recorded funds are transferred into their bank account the next day.
■PERU
Metal-eating man rescued
Doctors in a coastal northwestern town rescued the innards of a 38-year-old man by removing 17 metal objects — among them nails, a watch clasp and a knife — that he ate. Luis Zarate was taken to the regional hospital of Trujillo earlier this week by his family after complaining of sharp stomach pains. Doctors took X-rays of his chest that showed his insides littered with screws. The black-and-white scans showed Zarate’s skeleton interlaced with things like bolts, barbed-wire and pens.
■UNITED STATES
Devout man sues church
A man says he was so consumed by the spirit of God that he fell and hit his head while worshipping. Now he wants a Tennessee church to pay US$2.5 million for medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering. Matt Lincoln says he is suing after the church’s insurance company denied his claim for medical bills. The 57-year-old has had two surgeries since last year’s injury but still feels pain in his back and legs. He says he was asking God to have “a real experience” while praying. Lincoln says he has fallen from the force of the spirit before but has always been caught by someone.
■UNITED STATES
Sting nets poisonous snakes
The pastor of a Kentucky church that handles snakes in religious rites was among 10 people arrested by wildlife officers in a crackdown on the venomous snake trade. More than 100 snakes, many of them deadly, were confiscated in the undercover operation after Thursday’s arrests, said Colonel Bob Milligan, director of law enforcement for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. Most were taken from the Middlesboro home of Gregory James Coots, including 42 copperheads, 11 timber rattlesnakes, three cottonmouth water moccasins, a western diamondback rattlesnake, two cobras and a puff adder. Handling snakes is practiced in a handful of fundamentalist churches across the Appalachia region, based on the interpretation of Bible verses saying true believers can take up serpents without being harmed.
■UNITED STATES
New laws ban drug mugs
Starting next year, doctors may start to see a problem they’ve yet to experience — a pen shortage. New guidelines released on Thursday by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) prohibit drug makers from giving out pens, as well as other “non-educational” items such as mugs, to healthcare providers and their staff. As part of its revised marketing code, the pharmaceutical trade organization determined that such items may foster misperceptions that these interactions with healthcare professionals “are not based on informing them about medical and scientific issues.”
■CUBA
Castro warns of tough times
Residents braced themselves for new hardships yesterday after President Raul Castro told them to expect difficult times because of economic instability in the world, dashing many Cubans’ hopes of greater political and economic openings. Speaking on spiraling fuel costs, Castro said: “We can’t avoid some impact on certain [basic] products and services,” explaining that the same amount of food the country imported in 2007 will cost an additional US$1.1 billion this year. He called on Cubans to increase farming activities. “In other words: We must go back to the land! We have to make it work!” Castro said.
Agencies
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