■INDONESIA
Aussie pilots fined
PHOTO: EPA
The Australian pilots of an aircraft that landed illegally in remote Papua province have been fined, officials said yesterday. Five Australians — two women and three men — flew from Australia in a light aircraft and landed illegally on Friday at Mopah Airport in the Merauke district of Papua. Merauke airport chief Herson said the 28.6 million rupiah (US$3,000) fine was paid by the Australian embassy in Jakarta. “We impose an administrative penalty for any illegal flight in Indonesian territory,” he said. The Australians, who said they were on a private sightseeing trip to the restive eastern province, are being kept under tight police guard at a local hotel.
■INDIA
Jets deployed in Kashmir
Top fighter jets have been deployed in a part of disputed Kashmir bordering Pakistan, officials and a report said yesterday. At least six Sukhoi-30MKI jets, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, have been deployed at Avantipura air force base near Srinagar. The base is equipped with crash-prone MiG-21 jets. “The Sukhois had been held deep down our strategic corridor in [the western Indian city of] Pune, and their deployment in Kashmir will address any perceived threat,” an air force official said on condition of anonymity. “But this is a defensive stance,” the officer said.
■PHILIPPINES
Woman wins gender case
A woman who proved that her body was naturally turning male has been allowed to change her name from Jennifer to Jeff, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday. Jennifer Cagandahan, 27, proved to the court that she has a rare medical condition that means her body is producing male rather than female hormones. The court granted Cagandahan’s request to have her first name legally changed and to amend her birth details in the civil registry to say “male.” The ruling also covers her school records, voter’s list, baptism certificate and other public records, ending a legal bid that began in December 2003. Senior Associate Justice Leonardo Quisumbing wrote in the ruling that Cagandahan indisputably has the condition “congenital adrenal hyperplasia.”
■SOUTH KOREA
Worker’s family wins case
A gas station worker who was killed while rescuing a pet cat from under an oil tanker was involved in an industrial accident and his family should be compensated, a court has ruled. The Seoul Administrative Court ordered on Tuesday that a state worker compensation fund make a payment to the family of the late 62-year-old, the Korea Times reported. The victim had raised the stray cat at the station. When it crawled under the tanker, he asked the driver to stop and crept underneath to rescue it. But the vehicle moved off suddenly and killed him.
■PAKISTAN
Scores raped each day
Around 100 women are raped every day in Karachi, a leading police doctor was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Most are working women and aged 20 or under, the Daily Times quoted Deputy Police Surgeon Zulfiqar Siyal as saying. “I am saying with full authority that such a large number of rape cases happen in the city,” he told the newspaper on the sidelines of a discussion on sexual violence organized by a women’s rights organization, the Aurat Foundation.
“But very few rape survivors have the courage to come forward,” he said. Only 0.5 percent of cases are reported.
■NETHERLANDS
Python found in toilet
A guest at a hotel found a live, 2.5m-long python in the toilet, alerting authorities who arrested four people for illegally trading in rare animals, news agency ANP said on Tuesday. In Monday’s incident, the snake is believed to have slithered up the drain from a room below, where authorities discovered about 30 exotic animals, it reported. The animals included snakes, geckos, frogs, salamanders and a baby crocodile. Most were in boxes and bags, but two geckos were walking around freely in the room, where police arrested three men and a women, all from Rome.
■RUSSIA
Military kills 10 rebels
Special forces killed 10 suspected rebels yesterday in a shoot-out in the restive province of Dagestan, a law-enforcement official said. One policeman died in a gun battle after officers from Russia’s FSB special services surrounded the rebels, the official said. “At 1am Wednesday a counter-terror operation was launched. By morning 10 militants had been killed,” the official said. “One FSB special forces officer was seriously injured and died in hospital.” The gun battle erupted after the rebels were discovered near the village of Smurt, a law-enforcement official was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS news agency. Interfax reported that the rebels’ commander, Zakir Novruzov, was killed in the battle.
■GERMANY
Beer comments stir trouble
Bavaria’s already embattled premier found himself in trouble on Tuesday after saying that driving is okay after 2 liters of beer at the Oktoberfest starting this week. “It is no problem if you drink one Mass [a 1 liter glass of beer], and if you are around for a couple of hours, even two,” Guenther Beckstein, the southern state’s conservative premier, told a newspaper. Beckstein qualified his comments but stuck to his guns in a radio interview on Tuesday, saying: “If for example you are drinking for five, six, seven hours at the Oktoberfest, it is still okay with two Mass.” The comments, which drew criticism from politicians, police and doctors alike, come at a sensitive time for Beckstein, less than two weeks before state elections on Sept. 28.
■SERBIA
Thieves caught in a lift
The Serbian daily newspaper Blic reported yesterday that two thieves were captured because they got stuck in an elevator after a robbery. The paper said the pair burgled an apartment in a residential part of Belgrade. The apartment’s owner called police when he realized the two were stuck, and the thieves were arrested after authorities freed them from the elevator.
■UAE
Drunk passenger sentenced
A Briton who sparked a bomb alert on a flight from Manchester to Dubai in July while he was drunk was sentenced to four months in prison in the Gulf emirate yesterday. Mark Winterbottom, 37, will be deported after serving his sentence and has also been fined 1,000 dirhams (US$272), presiding judge Fahmi Munir Fahmi said. Winterbottom, who said he had been “joking” when he triggered the bomb alert, appeared briefly in the dock to hear the sentence in a Dubai court. During a hearing on Tuesday last week, Winterbottom, who caused panic by claiming he had a bomb that would explode in seven minutes, pleaded not guilty to attacking a civilian airliner. “I was drunk. I was unaware of what I was doing,” the local press quoted him as saying.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez painting raises cash
A prison-cell painting by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been auctioned for US$255,000 to raise money for his socialist party. Chavez ally and congresswoman Hiroshima Bravo says three Venezuelan businessmen bought the work, called The Yare Moon last week. Chavez painted it while serving a two-year sentence in the Yare prison after leading a failed coup in 1992. It depicts a full moon through a jail cell’s barred window, and a message written in red letters on the wall below the window reads: “The mill of the gods grinds slowly!” About 40 people joined the bidding, which opened at around US$14,000, Bravo said on Monday.
■GUATEMALA
Mob kills suspect
An official says an angry mob beat to death a man suspected of helping to rob a bus and rape two passengers. Government spokesman Nery Morales says townspeople in San Pedro Yepocapa captured the man hours after the Tuesday bus attack, pummeling him with sticks and metal tubes until he died. Morales says the mob also beat a police officer who tried to intervene and set fire to the local police station. Crowds often seek vigilante justice in Guatemala. Officials estimate more than 300 people have died in similar incidents there since 1996.
■CANADA
Teen shot outside school
A teenage student was shot and critically injured during a fight outside a Toronto high school on Tuesday, police said. Police locked down the Bendale Business and Technical Institute and several other nearby schools. They said they had a description of the gunman, who fled along with several witnesses. Police chief Bill Blair said the teenager was shot in the abdomen during a fight involving several young men just outside the school building.
■COSTA RICA
Drug sub captured
The US coast guard captured a submarine-like vessel equipped with sophisticated navigation equipment and stuffed with 7 tonnes of cocaine, Costa Rican authorities said on Tuesday. In a difficult nighttime operation during the weekend, US officials arrested four Colombian smugglers on board the 18m steel and fiberglass vessel in international waters before the smugglers could sink it.
■UNITED STATES
‘Fashion police’ struck down
A Florida judge has deemed unconstitutional a law banning baggy pants that show off the wearer’s underwear, local media reported on Tuesday. A 17-year-old spent a night in jail last week after police arrested him for wearing low pants in Riviera Beach, southeast Florida. The law banning so-called “saggy pants” was approved by city voters in March after supporters of the bill collected nearly 5,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot. “Your honor, we now have the fashion police,” said public defender Carol Bickerstaff, who asked the law be declared “unconstitutional.” The judge agreed with Bickerstaff immediately, media reported.
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