■ PAPUA NEW GUINEA
13-year-old tips off police
Two bank robbers were shot dead after the manager’s quick-thinking 13-year-old daughter raised the alarm by sending a mobile phone text message, police said yesterday. An armed gang of six men in security guard uniforms took the bank manager’s family hostage at their home in West New Britain Province, a central island region in the Pacific nation, on Sunday night. On Monday morning, half the gang took the manager with them and ordered him at gunpoint to unlock the safe, police said. While guarded by other members of the gang at home, the daughter managed to send an SOS text message to local police, West New Britain police commander Richard Mulou told the Post-Courier newspaper.
■AFGHANISTAN
UN: 350 women in jail
The country has some 12,500 prisoners, including 350 women, many of whom are being detained for “moral crimes” such as running away from home, the UN said on Monday. “In 2001 in this country, there were around 600 prisoners and today they are around 12,500 — 350 of them are women,” Christine Oguz, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul.
■INDIA
Bomb explodes on train
A bomb exploded in a train coach in the insurgency-hit northeast yesterday, killing at least two people and injuring another 30, a state government official said. The explosion occurred shortly after the train arrived at Diphu railroad station, about 300km south of Gauhati, the capital of Assam state, said District Magistrate M.C. Sahu. The train was heading from Lumding in central Assam to the eastern commercial hub of Tinsukhia, Sahu said. All the 30 wounded have been hospitalized, three of them in critical condition, he said.
■AUSTRALIA
Bad backs may stop toads
It seems a bad back might be the only thing that can stop the relentless spread of the nation’s poisonous cane toads, which are killing native animals as they hop across the nation, researchers say. Now an Australian scientist says evolution has seen the biggest and fastest cane toads interbreed, resulting in arthritis and bad backs, which could slow them down.
■HONG KONG
Astronaut tickets go fast
All 21,000 tickets to see three Chinese astronauts who performed the country’s first spacewalk were snapped up in a matter of hours yesterday. Thousands of people queued up at 21 distribution outlets to get the free tickets for the appearance by the astronauts at the Hong Kong Stadium on Sunday. The astronauts are due to fly into the city on Friday for a four-day visit, after which they will go to the gambling resort of Macau. The spacewalk by Zhai Zhigang (翟志剛), Liu Boming (劉伯明) and Jing Haipeng (景海鵬) in September generated patriotic fervor that Beijing appears keen to capitalize on.
■SINGAPORE
Reporter gets jail for drugs
A court sentenced Australian TV reporter Peter Lloyd yesterday to 10 months in jail for consumption and possession of methamphetamine. Judge Hamidah Ibrahim sentenced Lloyd to eight-month terms for convictions on consumption and possession, which Lloyd may serve concurrently. Ibrahim also added a two-month term for possession of a drug utensil. Lloyd, 41, pleaded guilty to the three charges after the government dropped drug trafficking counts.
■NETHERLANDS
Organ donors get discounts
Health care insurers are to give a discount to clients who are registered as organ donors, reports said on Monday. Four major health insurers said they would give a 120 euro discount (US$152) on the annual fee for basic health insurance, which will be 1,200 euros for adults next year. In November, Dutch broadcaster BNN won a US Emmy award for its television program The Great Donor Show, aired in May last year. In the hoax show, kidney patients tried to win a transplant to put the problem of organ shortages on the agenda.
■NETHERLANDS
Ex-UN employee to be tried
A former spokeswoman for the UN’s Yugoslav war crimes court will stand trial before her former employer in February for allegedly divulging confidential information in the trial of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the court said on Monday. Florence Hartmann, a French national, stands accused of contempt before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Hartmann, the spokeswoman of former ICTY prosecutor Carla del Ponte, stands accused of disclosing information about confidential appeal chamber decisions in a book.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Six sacked in toddler death
A local authority responsible for a toddler who died of abuse suspended six members of staff on Monday after a damning report into the case. The 17-month-old boy, known only as Baby P, died last year, despite being on the child protection register and being seen by social workers 60 times. The boy’s mother pleaded guilty and her boyfriend and a lodger have been convicted of charges relating to the death. Councilor Lorna Reith, deputy leader of Haringey Council, confirmed a director, a deputy director, a senior team manager and three social workers had been suspended on full pay.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Bond car sold at auction
The classic white Lotus sports car driven by Roger Moore in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me was sold at auction in London on Monday for US$165,900. Bonhams auctioneers said the 1976 Lotus Esprit, which was driven on land and under water in the 1977 film, was bought by a private US collector who was bidding by telephone.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Mother loses libel case
A woman lost a libel case on Monday against her daughter, a lawyer who wrote a book accusing her mother of childhood abuse that drove her to attempt suicide. In Ugly, 51-year-old Constance Briscoe accused her mother of cutting her deliberately and beating her for wetting the bed. Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, 74, disputed the claims. The court action was rejected by London’s High Court.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Sex tops list of hobbies
People may be tightening their belts amid the credit crunch, but their favorite free leisure activity involves whipping off their clothes, a poll showed on Monday. In the YouGov Web poll, 37 percent of respondents ranked sex at the top of their list of free activities. That was more than gossiping with friends (18 percent), window shopping (9 percent) and going to a museum (6 percent). “During the credit crunch our famed British upper lip might not be as stiff as before but other parts still are,” said Lisa Power, head of policy at the Terrence Higgins Trust, which commissioned the poll.
■ VENEZUELA
Lawyer jailed over suitcase
A lawyer dispatched by President Hugo Chavez’s government to help cover up a cash suitcase scandal was handed a two-year prison sentence on Monday by a US judge who commended his prompt guilty plea and testimony against others. US District Judge Joan Lenard imposed the sentence on Moises Maionica in Miami, Florida, after prosecutors recommended prison time even as they lauded his willingness to cooperate. The case involved the Miami cover-up of a suitcase stuffed with nearly US$800,000 in Venezuelan oil money intercepted at an Argentine airport in August last year.
■MEXICO
Prize for women launched
Three Nobel laureates on Monday threw their support behind a prize to be awarded to Spanish-language women writers 35 or younger living in the US or Mexico. Gabriel Garcia Marquez from Colombia, Toni Morrison from the US and Seamus Heaney from Ireland offered their support for the Aura Estrada Prize in memory of a Mexican writer who died last year at age 30. The first Aura Estrada Prize will be awarded at the Guadalajara Book Fair next year. The award targets “women 35 years old or younger who are beginning their literary career and live in Mexico or in the United States, writing a fiction or non-fiction essay, short story or novel in Spanish,” Mexican writer Gabriela Jauregui said.
■MEXICO
Soldier replaces police chief
Tijuana’s anti-corruption police chief was fired and replaced with an army officer on Monday, following three days of violence that left 37 people dead in this border city plagued by warring drug gangs. Mayor Jorge Ramos’ office said in a statement that putting army officers in charge would help “regain security” in Tijuana, where weekend attacks included nine beheadings and the death of four children caught in shootouts.
■UNITED STATES
Prostitute raffle probed
An Ohio State University academic adviser and a real estate agent held a US$10-a-ticket raffle that offered an evening with a prostitute who is also a child sex-abuse caseworker, police said. Christopher Johnson, 33, an academic adviser at the School of Nursing in Columbus, organized the raffle through a Craigslist chat board, police said. Real estate agent Rusty Blades, 42, held the invitation-only raffle at his house in October. Both Johnson and Blades were charged with promoting prostitution. A university spokesman said Johnson was placed on unpaid leave and that the school would investigate whether he improperly used his computer.
■PERU
Riots follow soccer match
Soccer fans angered by their team’s elimination from Peru’s second-division playoff stormed the pitch and clashed with police in riots that reportedly injured at least 100 people. Businesses were also vandalized and three police cars were destroyed late on Sunday in Huamanga, capital of southern Ayacucho Province, officials said on Monday. Fans at the Cumana Stadium started the riots after visiting Sport Huancayo eliminated Sport Huamanga from the Copa Peru tournament 5-4 on aggregate. Police tried to control the crowd by launching tear gas into the stands, but the fans then stormed the field and tried to attack the Huancayo players and referee Alejandro Villanueva. Villanueva and the players took refuge in the locker rooms for the duration of the riots, and were then escorted by police out of the stadium.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not