■ CHINA
Foreign leprosy ban lifted
The government has lifted a ban on foreigners with leprosy being allowed into the country, but people with sexually transmitted diseases and mental illnesses remain unwelcome, state media reported on Thursday. The ban on leprosy sufferers was removed this week after the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution aimed at eliminating discrimination against people with the disease, Xinhua news agency said. Xinhua highlighted the fact the ban was lifted just ahead of next month’s Beijing Olympics, an event that is expected to see hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists descend on the city.
■ INDIA
Airliner catches fire
A plane taking off from New Delhi’s main airport caught fire, forcing all 252 passengers and crew to escape through an emergency exit, airport officials said yesterday. The Air Mauritius pilot apparently braked suddenly as the plane prepared for takeoff, and this might have sparked a fire that spread to the jetliner’s undercarriage, Indira Gandhi International Airport spokesman Arun Arora said. Rescue workers and firefighters rushed to evacuate the plane and put out the blaze on Thursday afternoon. All 241 passengers and 11 crew on the New Delhi to Mauritius flight escaped safely.
■ CAMBODIA
Sex workers pray at Angkor
Sex workers prayed for divine intervention at the ancient temple of Angkor Wat to draw attention to their objections to new laws they said equate sex work with trafficking, local media reported yesterday. The English-language Mekong Times daily pictured a group of more than 20 sex workers brandishing Barbie dolls and lotuses in prayer at the temple in Siem Reap Province, more than 300km northwest of Phnom Penh. Thousands of sex workers have been rounded up by authorities since a revised anti-trafficking act that made soliciting sex illegal went into effect earlier this year.
■ CHINA
Mosque collapse kills eight
At least eight people were killed and three seriously injured after a mosque being built in northwest China collapsed, state media reported yesterday. The mosque collapsed in Taer, a town of 38,000 people mainly from the ethnic Hui minority in Qinghai Province, on Thursday afternoon, Xinhua news agency said, citing local authorities. Rescuers said 31 people were in or near the building when the mosque collapsed, Xinhua reported. One of the dead was a young boy, it said. “The child was an eight-year-old village boy who was playing around the construction site, when the mosque suddenly collapsed,” said Han Lutai, an imam who raised the funds for the new building, Xinhua said. Police have detained a building contractor in connection with the collapse, the report said.
■ AFGHANISTAN
Coalition kills 40 Taliban
International forces killed 40 Taliban militants in an air strike during an operation to retake a district captured by the Islamist rebels, local officials said yesterday. Afghan and NATO-led ground forces supported by international military air support launched an offensive on Wednesday to retake Ajristan, 200km southwest of Kabul, after rebels stormed in on Monday. Fifteen militants were killed on the first day of the operation by joint Afghan and international forces, Jahangir said earlier. Ajiristan was also captured by Taliban insurgents in October last year and was retaken the following day, when about 300 security forces moved into the small district center.
■ NIGERIA
Tanker accident kills eight
A state security official in Lagos said at least eight people were killed and two injured when an oil tanker caught fire early on Thursday. Security agent Daramola Samuel says the tanker lost control before colliding with a barrier on the side of a road and bursting into flames. He says two passenger buses collided with the burning vehicle and also caught fire and that several shops were damaged in the blaze.
■ IRELAND
Waiter: ‘Je ne regrette rein’
A French waiter who threw an egg at the car carrying French President Nicholas Sarkozy during his visit to Dublin said on Thursday that he was ready to do the same again. Michael Audron, 35, was charged on Monday with “threatening, insulting and abusive behavior,” but a judge in Dublin district court threw out the indictment after he agreed to pay 150 euros (US$240) to charity. Audron, who was among 1,800 demonstrators who took to the streets during the visit over Ireland’s rejection of a new EU treaty, has acknowledged he has more eggs on standby for any return visit by Sarkozy. “I have absolutely no regrets and, if he is coming back again, I will be there with more than a dozen eggs,” he told the Irish Times. He is using eggs to pay his fine by making crepes every night this week at a street festival in Drumshanbo, County Leitrim, where he has lived for several years.
■ GERMANY
Novelty ice cream is no treat
Beer-flavored ice cream and similar novelties have failed to catch on, gelato makers said on Thursday. “Beer flavor attracted more attention from the news media than from customers,” said Anna Lisa Carnio, spokeswoman for the Italian Ice-Cream Manufacturers’ Association of Germany in Seligenstadt, south of Frankfurt. “The big sellers remain the familiar ones: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, stracciatella and yogurt flavor,” she said. But the gelato makers are not giving up: novelties out this summer include the flavors carrot and chocolate-cum-chilli.
■ SWEDEN
Dwarf leaps out of luggage
Airport staff were not amused when a team from a TV comedy show tried to check in a suitcase with a dwarf inside. Employees at Bromma airport called police when the dwarf hopped out of the suitcase at the check-in counter. Police soon found that it was a stunt being filmed by a hidden camera for a program on private TV network Kanal 5. Police spokesman Mats Eriksson says airport staff decided against filing charges even though they were “shocked and humiliated” by Wednesday’s stunt. Kanal 5 spokesman Dan Panas told Swedish news agency TT that the show was meant to be “provocative and entertaining.” He said the stunt was aimed at making entertainment out of “extreme situations.”
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Cameron’s bike disappears
Conservative leader David Cameron appealed on Thursday for the return of his bicycle after a thief stole it from outside a supermarket in west London. Cameron, who regularly rode the bike to parliament, had chained it to a post while he popped into a store in Portobello Road to buy groceries on Wednesday evening. “Someone must have just picked it up and walked off with it,” he said. “If anyone has seen this bicycle I would like it back.” He said he had reported the theft on Scotland Yard’s online crime reporting site, but said he was pessimistic about its return. “I am not holding my breath.”
■ UNITED NATIONS
New rights chief appointed
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday named South African judge Navanethem Pillay as the world body’s new human rights chief, despite initial US concerns about her background. Pillay, who would succeed outspoken Canadian Louise Arbour, is a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. UN diplomats and officials said the US initially resisted the idea of appointing her because of concerns about her views on abortion and other issues, but eventually agreed to drop its opposition. The UN General Assembly will meet on Monday to discuss the confirmation of Pillay’s appointment to one of the highest-profile and most controversial UN jobs.
■ SPAIN
Prehistoric insects found
The remains of several unknown insect species that became extinct long before dinosaurs stopped roaming the earth have been discovered in pieces of amber 110 million years old found in Spain, researchers said on Thursday. Paleontologist Enrique Penalver said the amber discovered in the El Soplao cave in the northern province of Cantabria was in “exceptional” condition. “The conservation is incredible. You can study the details,” he told a news conference in Santander. Several types of arachnids, as well spider webs and plant remains, were found fossilized in the amber discovered at the site.
■ UNITED STATES
McCain to meet Dalai Lama
Republican presidential candidate John McCain was scheduled to meet with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, yesterday. The two were due to meet in Aspen, Colorado, where the Dalai Lama planned to address a symposium on Tibetan culture and its impact on global issues, the McCain campaign said on Thursday. Campaigning in Columbus, Ohio, the Arizona senator said he had arranged yesterday’s meeting. “I have been a great admirer of the Dalai Lama,” McCain said. He called him a “transcendent national role model.”
■ UNITED STATES
‘Pothead’ teen goes to jail
A teenager shown on a video coaxing his two and four-year-old nephews into smoking marijuana was sentenced on Thursday to eight years in prison. Demetris McCoy, 18, pleaded guilty to two charges of injury to a child and agreed to testify against his co-defendant, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported online on Thursday. The video shows one teen lighting a marijuana cigarette in the two-year-old’s mouth, then laughing as the toddler coughs. One teen then tells him to pass it to his brother, who also smokes it and coughs. Parts of the video showed someone calling the children “potheads” and asking if they “have the munchies.” Drug tests showed the youngsters had marijuana and cocaine in their bodies.
■ BRAZIL
Attacked boy bites back
An 11-year-old boy is enjoying a flash of fame in Brazil after biting a pitbull that attacked him as he played in his uncle’s back yard, local media reported on Thursday. Gabriel Almeida, who lives on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais, broke a canine tooth when he bit into the dog’s neck to fend off an attack. Since then, he has been pampered in the studios of several TV stations, where he has been recounting his ordeal. “I grabbed him by the neck and bit,” he told O Globo newspaper. “It’s no big deal. It’s better to lose a tooth than to lose your life.” He was freed when bystanders pulled the dog off him.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
A Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than a half-century after its failed launch to Venus. Its uncontrolled entry was confirmed by both the Russian Space Agency and EU Space Surveillance and Tracking. The Russians indicated it came down over the Indian Ocean, but some experts were not so sure of the precise location. The European Space Agency’s space debris office also tracked the spacecraft’s doom after it failed to appear over a German radar station. It was not immediately known how much, if any, of the half-tonne spacecraft survived the fiery descent from orbit. Experts said ahead of time
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