■ PHILIPPINES
Store bombs kill two
Bombs ripped through two department stores in the southern city of Iligan yesterday, killing two people and injuring at least 36, police and hospital officials said. Police swarmed the bloodied, upturned baggage check-in counters of the Unity store and the neighboring Gerry’s Shoppers’ Plaza in downtown Iligan to collect evidence shortly after the early afternoon blasts. Local police investigators and witnesses said the bombs went off within 15 minutes of each other.
■SWEDEN
Latvians invite invasion
An online petition in favor of a Swedish invasion of Latvia is proving a seasonal hit — among Latvians. Fed up with a government that failed to prevent the Baltic state lurching into a serious recession and unimpressed by belated efforts to get out of it, Latvian Roberts Safonovs took the matter into his own hands and set up an online petition calling on Sweden to take over. “We, people of Latvia would like to ask Sweden to occupy Latvia. We consider the Latvian state has no reason to exist. We would like to become Swedish citizens and promise that we will comply with Swedish laws; in exchange we would like to get Swedish citizenship and share the same rights that Swedish people have,” the petition says. Word of mouth and local media reports have spread awareness of the petition, attracting more than 10,000 signatures by Wednesday.
■GERMANY
Budgie birds rule roost
Berlin city officials, summoned by complaints over the noise, found a 60-year-old man sharing his two-room flat with 1,700 budgerigars. The budgies were living on perches installed along the walls, while the floors were saturated with droppings, veterinary services said on Wednesday. The pensioner told officials he had adopted two birds because he felt lonely and that nature had done the rest. About 1,000 of the birds were evacuated on Tuesday. The tenant was also having to move as the flat was deemed no longer fit for human habitation.
■JAPAN
Man dies at retirement party
A 60-year-old man who was thrown into the air in celebration at his retirement party died after his colleagues failed to catch him and he fell to the floor, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. The case came to light after the man’s wife filed a police complaint against colleagues who threw the man up into the air, accusing them of gross negligence, the Mainichi Shimbun paper reported on its Web site.
■EGYPT
Shoe-thrower offered bride
An Egyptian man said on Wednesday he was offering his 20-year-old daughter in marriage to Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush in Baghdad on Sunday. The daughter, Amal Saad Gumaa, said she agreed with the idea. “This is something that would honor me. I would like to live in Iraq, especially if I were attached to this hero,” she said by telephone.
■FRANCE
Nude models protest pay
Artists’ models in Paris stripped naked on Monday, braving freezing temperatures to protest against a ban on tips and to demand better pay and recognition. More than 20 male and female models, some posing nude while others were draped in a colorful array of shawls, sheets and fur coats, took part in the protest that had the backing of two of France’s biggest labor unions.
■UNITED STATES
Father admits to rape
A man accused of raping his daughter and posting the film on the Internet before later fleeing to China pleaded guilty at hearings in Washington state, justice officials said. Kenneth Freeman, a former policeman and bodybuilder, admitted counts of producing child pornography and transportation of a minor across state lines for sex at a Federal Court hearing in Spokane. He later pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree rape at a state court hearing on Wednesday. Freeman, 46, was extradited to the US from Hong Kong in September last year after more than a year on the run which saw him becoming one of the US’ most wanted fugitives. The former reserve sheriff’s deputy faces life in prison at a sentencing hearing on March 25.
■UNITED STATES
NY state mulls MP3 tax
New Yorkers who download music to their MP3 players may soon see the cost rise, after New York Governor David Paterson on Wednesday proposed a 4 percent tax on the practice as part of a plan to ease a massive state budget crisis. The charge, nicknamed “the iPod tax,” will also cover e-books and other “digitally delivered entertainment services,” such as videos and photographs. It is one of 137 additional fees the state aims to exact from residents in its budget for next year if approved by the state legislature.
■UNITED STATES
Women prefer Web to sex
A new survey sponsored by computer chip giant Intel has found that about half of US women would prefer to go without sex for two weeks than manage without the Internet for the same period of time. Titled “Internet Reliance in Today’s Economy,” the poll found that 49 percent of women aged 18 to 34 would opt to forgo sex for two weeks rather than do without the Internet, while 52 percent of women ages 35 to 44 made the same choice. The results among men were less tech-friendly. Among males ages 18 to 34, about 39 percent selected Internet time over sex, while just 23 percent of those between 35 and 44 preferred the Internet.
■UNITED STATES
Teen punished in public
Dennis Baltimore’s punishment for vandalizing his school was to take his confession to the streets. His father made the 16-year-old walk the streets of Long Beach, California, for five hours on Tuesday wearing a sandwich board that said: “I am a juvenile delinquent who should be punished. I have wasted your tax money with dumb acts of vandalism in the public schools.” The 10th-grader painted graffiti from a fictitious gang on property at Wilson Classical High School. His father, Dennis Baltimore Sr, got a telephone call on Monday from the school and was told his son had caused US$875 in damage. “In a time of this uncertain economy, I’m sure the public is not going to like it,” the father said.
■PERU
Cocaine hidden in dung
Traffickers hid 2.8 tonnes of cocaine in thousands of kilograms of smelly bird droppings, police said on Monday after uncovering the latest ruse to conceal drug shipments. Cocaine exporters in the world’s No. 2 producer after neighboring Colombia counted on the stench of the dung, which is sold as a high-end organic fertilizer, to trick dogs trained to find drugs at ports of entry.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese