■ HONG KONG
Policeman shoots himself
A police officer assigned to an elite anti-gangster squad has been found dead after shooting himself with his handgun, news reports said yesterday. Yau Chak-ping (邱澤炳), 39, who worked for the organized crime and triad unit, was found unconscious by his wife on Friday. He was lying on the floor of his study with his gun next to him, had a gunshot wound to his chest and was confirmed dead at a hospital. Police said yesterday that investigations into his death were ongoing, but news reports said Yau had shot himself.
■ NORTH KOREA
Pyongyang decries attacks
Pyongyang has condemned the attacks in India’s financial capital that have claimed more than 150 lives. Kim Yong-nam, the country’s No. 2 leader and ceremonial head of state, has expressed deep condolences for the victims of the attacks in Mumbai and their families, according to a Friday report by the North’s Korean Central News Agency. It said Kim sent a message to India’s president saying Pyongyang opposes “strongly condemns this inhuman terrorist deed.”
■ NEW ZEALAND
No activist, whaler rescues
Wellington will not be able to quickly rescue anyone who gets lost or hurt if clashes erupt between activists and Japanese whalers off the north Antarctic coast, the foreign minister said yesterday. The fleet left Japan earlier this month and is expected to focus its hunt in the Ross Sea, where the country is responsible for search-and-rescue missions under international law. Animal rights group Sea Shepherd has vowed to disrupt the hunt. If someone is hurt in a confrontation between whalers and protesters, they will have to depend on other ships in the area for help, Foreign Minister Murray McCully said.
■ GERMANY
Russian sailors detained
Police say they have they arrested two Russian sailors at the Frankfurt airport after they drank an entire bottle of vodka and harassed passengers on a flight from Houston, Texas. Frankfurt police say the two men smoked cigarettes in the plane’s bathroom and frightened fellow passengers before the flight crew ordered them to stay in their seats. The sailors responded by polishing off the two-liter bottle they bought in Texas and repeatedly attempting to use their mobile phones — forbidden during flight. Police arrested the men on the tarmac on Tuesday. One was promptly released after paying a fine and admitting that he caused a disturbance. The other refused and was ordered before a judge. Police would not say which airline operated the flight.
■ EUROPE
Romanian gang arrested
French and Romanian police said on Friday they had arrested five people in a probe into the killing of a son of Chadian President Idriss Deby. Four people were arrested in the Paris region on Wednesday, a Paris police official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of agency policy. The four were being presented before a judge in Nanterre, east of Paris, on Friday and were expected to be handed preliminary charges in an investigation for “murder in an organized gang,” judicial officials said.
■ KENYA
Elephant victim wins claim
The high court on Friday awarded a British woman 65 million shillings (US$820,000) in damages after she was attacked and seriously wounded by an elephant in a local ranch in 2000. Wendy Martin, 48, was repeatedly gored by the rogue elephant in Il Ngwesi Ranch while she, two friends and a guide were taking part in a bush run. She was initially left for dead. “Its tusks went into her body with the full weight of it on her,” judge Mary Ang’awa said in her judgement. “The elephant struck her with its tusks twice. She fell and the tusks went directly through her torso, twice through her right leg. Her kidney was removed. The tusk went through her back.” Anga’wa said that Martin’s pelvis was crushed as the elephant dragged her.
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