■JAPAN
Snake bites keeper
A man who illegally kept some of the world’s most venomous snakes in his tiny Tokyo apartment was arrested after calling an ambulance when one of them bit him, reports said yesterday. Nobukazu Kashiwagi, a 41-year-old port worker, was arrested for keeping the dangerous reptiles without permission, police said. His secret got out after he was bitten by an eastern green mamba, a highly venomous southeast African snake among the 51 he kept. He was arrested after returning home from the hospital.
■MALAYSIA
Thieves steal mooncakes
Robbers ran off with a bag of cakes instead of 1.9 million ringgit (US$560,000) in cash in a botched heist that left a money changer wounded, reports said yesterday. Two masked gunmen fired 10 shots at a money changer at Penang airport, the Star daily reported. Security guard Zainol Othman accompanied the money changer as he got out of a van and placed personal bags on a trolley. “In the midst of the commotion, the robbers grabbed the [personal] bags, thinking that I had already placed the money bag onto the trolley,” he told the Star. The newspaper said the thieves sped off in a getaway car with the bags, one of which contained mooncakes.
■INDIA
Star launches party
Film star Chiranjeevi launched his own political party on Tuesday in the temple town of Tirupati, cheered on by an estimated crowd of 700,000 fans, news reports said. Chiranjeevi, one of the most popular stars of regional Telegu-language cinema, said he chose Aug. 26 to launch his new party — called Praja Rajyam, or Kingdom of Subjects — because it was the birth anniversary of Mother Teresa, whose life had inspired him to serve the poor and needy. The few thousand police at the venue had a hard time controlling the numbers of fans who kept pouring into the rally ground. The railways operated 18 special trains while the state-owned Road Transport Corp ran 1,500 buses to bring the actor’s supporters to the town, the NDTV news channel and IANS news agency reported. The actor, who belongs to Andhra Pradesh state’s disadvantaged Kapu community, said his party would dedicate itself to working for the poor and deprived sections of society.
■MALAYSIA
Party protests Lavigne
The nation’s conservative Islamic party has said it will mount protests at Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne’s concert in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, after failing to have it banned. The concert is an insult to Islam as the fasting month of Ramadan is due to start just a few days later, said Nasrudin Hassan of the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party PAS. “A concert of this nature is not conducive to teaching the younger generation to become good citizens, upright and competitive, but instead would weaken them morally and mentally,” he said in a statement.
■SINGAPORE
Tang pleads guilty
A retail magnate pleaded guilty yesterday to two charges related to the city-state’s first organ trading case, local radio reported. Tang Wee Sung, whose Tangs department store sits in the prime Orchard Road tourist and shopping belt, pleaded guilty to entering an illegal arrangement to purchase a kidney, 938Live reported. Tang could receive up to three years in jail and a fine. Sulaiman Damanik, 26, posing as a relative, had agreed to sell his kidney to Tang for 150 million rupiah (US$16,000), the report said.
■SOUTH AFRICA
MP sees crime close up
Member of Parliament Willie Spies got a first-hand look at violent crime when he drove for 15km with the victim of an assault clinging to the hood of his Mercedes, the Star reported on Wednesday. Spies, of the opposition Freedom Front Plus, was driving from Cape Town airport to parliament when he witnessed a man attack another with a baton near a township, the newspaper said. He stopped so the injured man could hop onto the hood of his car before speeding off with the man clinging to a windscreen wiper, the Star said. Spies stopped the car after a kilometer so the man could jump off but the man begged to remain aboard, saying he feared for his life after being robbed. So Spies continued to parliament, where the man was taken to a hospital. Spies said he hadn’t let the man inside the car for fear of being attacked.
■GERMANY
Cat survives entombment
A four-year-old cat called Bonny has survived after being walled in beneath a bathtub for seven weeks, its owner said on Tuesday. Bonny disappeared on June 19 while workmen were replacing pipes in the apartment block where owner Monika Hoppert lives. The black cat was last seen in a neighbor’s apartment. By the time the neighbor heard Bonny’s cries from behind the tiles on Aug. 8, the cat had lost 3kg.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Rushdie’s guard apologizes
Author Salman Rushdie received an apology in court Tuesday from a former policeman who libeled him in a book about his time in hiding from a fatwa threat. Evans claimed Rushdie had poor hygiene, bad relations with his police protection team and that the guards once locked him in a room after he irritated them. Evans made an apology through his lawyer for 11 counts of falsehood. Judge Nigel Teare also made a declaration of falsehood against him, ghost writer Douglas Thompson and publisher John Blake Publishing. A declaration of falsehood formally recognizes that an allegation is incorrect.
■ITALY
Priest drops nun contest
The Reverend Antonio Rungi said on Tuesday he has backtracked on regarding his idea to organize an online beauty pageant for nuns, saying he had been misunderstood and had incurred the protests of faithful and religious authorities. Rungi had thought a beauty contest would give nuns more visibility and fight the stereotype that they are all old. The “Miss Sister 2008” contest was supposed to start next month on the priest’s blog. “I wanted to create a showcase for the pastoral experience of nuns … Instead, they made it look like it was a catwalk a la Miss Italy.”
■UNITED KINGDOM
Soldiers fail drug test
Five soldiers from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery have failed a routine drugs test, the Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday, with media reports saying they had been sacked. A ministry spokesman declined to confirm the soldiers had been dismissed. The Daily Mirror Web site said the five had tested positive for cocaine.
■TURKEY
Emperor’s parts found
Archeologists have discovered parts of a 4.5m-tall marble statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who ruled between 161AD and 180AD, a local official said on Tuesday. The remains of the statue were uncovered in a Roman-era bath in Salagassos by a team of Belgian and Turkish excavators last week.
■UNITED STATES
Voting dog case dropped
A judge has decided that a Seattle woman who registered her shepherd-terrier mix to vote has spent enough time in the legal doghouse. Jane Balogh had been charged with making a false statement but entered into a plea agreement last year. A King County judge dismissed the charge on Monday after Balogh showed that she had paid US$240 in court costs and completed community service. Balogh said she registered her dog Duncan to protest a loophole in the law that she said makes voter registration so easy a nonexistent person could be added to the voter rolls. She said she made no secret of her action after the fact, telling a number of elected officials she had registered her dog. Duncan never voted.
■MEXICO
Horses, watchman drown
A watchman and at least 50 horses drowned after heavy rain flooded an equestrian club in Mexico City, rescue services said on Tuesday. Two other people also died in overnight storms, media reports said. The 71-year-old watchman drowned at the La Barranca club as he tried to rescue the horses. In a night of fierce storms, a 13-year-old boy died after being swept away by a current as he crossed an avenue in Ecatapec, while a man died after being swept away in a stream in Zacatecas State, press reports said.
■EGYPT
Hotel serves alcohol again
Cairo’s Grand Hyatt hotel is serving alcohol again after a compromise was reached between the international management company and the Saudi owner who declared it a dry venue earlier this year. The owner’s decision in April to follow Islam’s ban on alcohol at one of the city’s swankiest tourist landmarks shocked many in the country’s tourism industry. All of Cairo’s international hotel chains serve alcohol. Cairo Grand Hyatt spokeswoman Sally Khattab said on Tuesday that the Hyatt company reached a compromise with Sheik Abdelaziz al-Brahim that alcohol could be served in a restaurant at the top of the hotel. The revolving restaurant at the top of the hotel will be managed by a subsidiary of Hyatt Hotels.
■ROMANIA
Police deploy in south
Police have deployed about 600 officers in a southern city where a gang leader was killed in a poker game. Police spokeswoman Florentina Popescu said officers were sent to Craiova to keep rival gangs apart after 41-year-old Mihai Parvu was shot early on Tuesday by another poker player over suspicions of cheating. Another man suffered stab wounds in the altercation and is reported in stable condition. Parvu died in a hospital west of Bucharest. Dozens of rival gang members gathered outside the building. There have been several clashes in Craiova between members of the underworld.
■COLOMBIA
Top police officer resigns
A police general resigned on Tuesday after prosecutors started investigating suspected ties between regional law enforcement officials and a cocaine ring. The scandal has underscored the struggle the country faces to stamp out cocaine corruption after the interior minister’s brother lost his job as a regional prosecutor over the probe into ties to wanted drug trafficker Daniel “Don Mario” Rendon. Police General Marco Antonio Pedreros, who commanded police in four provinces, stepped down after his name appeared in excerpts from tapes a local magazine said were contacts between Rendon and the Antioquia prosecutor’s office.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number