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■SINGAPORE

Mom charged after caning

A mother who allegedly stood by while her 10-year-old son was caned about 100 times by her husband has been charged, a newspaper reported yesterday. The 39-year-old is accused of handing two rattan canes to her husband, the boy’s stepfather, who beat the boy for two hours, the Straits Times said. It added that the boy was hospitalized for eight days after the beating, for which the stepfather was jailed for nine months. The boy has been placed in a home for abused and neglected children, the newspaper said.



■NEW ZEALAND

Four children die in fire

Four children died when a forgotten pan of potatoes burst into flames starting a blaze that gutted a house in an Auckland suburb yesterday morning, the Fire Service said. Three girls aged 15, 11 and 9, and an infant boy died of smoke inhalation. Two other children in the house survived and were taken to hospital while two other people sleeping in an outhouse at the back of the house were also reported safe. Two adults identified as Misi Sau and his wife Fetu were badly burned trying to rescue the children. Local fire chief Larry Cocker told reporters the blaze started when oil left in a pan on the stove ignited.



■AUSTRALIA

Parents gave baby ecstasy

A baby given half an ecstasy tablet by her parents went into cardiac arrest and needed to be put in a coma to save her life, a court was told yesterday. The couple, in their twenties, faced charges of grievous bodily harm and possession of a dangerous drug. Their two-month-old baby remains in a serious but stable condition in Cairns, Queensland.



■VIETNAM

Girl in hospital with bird flu

A five-year-old girl has been infected with bird flu, the first human case reported in the country this year, state-run television said yesterday. The patient from the northern province of Thanh Hoa was hospitalized after eating poultry, the Vietnam Television station said. Tests confirmed the girl had the H5N1 bird flu virus, it said.



■JAPAN

Taxi drivers killed

A string of taxi driver killings and other attacks in central Japan is being investigated by police. Two drivers were stabbed to death while three others were slashed and injured — all in the space of about a week in and around Osaka, police said. A 23-year-old man was arrested yesterday on suspicion of wounding a taxi driver with a paper cutter, a police spokesman said. The other cases were still under investigation.



■CHINA

Axe murderer kills eight

Police have launched a manhunt for a love-lorn junk collector suspected in the axe murders of eight people, including a two-year-old boy, state media reported yesterday. The eight victims were found on Monday in the city of Suizhou in Hubei Province with head wounds that indicated an axe attack, Xinhua news agency said. Police have named Xiong Zhenlin, a local junk collector, as the suspect in the killings, a police spokesman was quoted saying. Xinhua quoted local residents as saying Xiong, 35, may have been upset after recently divorcing his wife to marry another woman, who ended up rejecting him. The dead included the woman and her young grandson, Xinhua said. The bodies of six other people were found at Xiong’s junkyard, it said. Xiong’s whereabouts were not known, according to Xinhua.



■GERMANY

Tots try to elope to Africa

After mulling over their options in secret, six-year-old Mika and his five-year-old sweetheart, Anna-Bell, packed their suitcases on New Year’s eve and set off from Hanover to tie the knot under the heat of the African sun. The children left their homes at dawn while their parents slept and took along Mika’s seven-year-old sister, Anna-Lena, as a witness to the wedding. Donning sunglasses, swimming armbands and dragging a pink Lilo and suitcases on wheels packed with summer clothes, cuddly toys and a few provisions, they boarded a tram to Hanover train station and got as far as the express train for the airport before a station guard alerted police.



■ANGOLA

Border shut over Ebola

Angola closed part of its northeastern border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) on Monday to stop the contagious Ebola virus from spreading into the oil-rich African country, the health minister said. Jose Van-Dunem said Angolan authorities would ban all trade and movement of people from the diamond-rich province of Lunda Norte to the DR Congo where an outbreak of Ebola is suspected of infecting 40 people — including 13 deaths — since November. “We are suspending all movement of people and trade with the DR Congo in the province of Lunda Norte,” he told journalists, adding that no cases of Ebola had been diagnosed in the country.



■SOUTH AFRICA

Storm death toll rises to 18

The death toll in a storm that struck KwaZulu-Natal Province over the weekend has risen to 18, the news agency SAPA said, citing government officials. Officials called the storm monstrous. Its victims included five people — including a family of four — killed by lightning. Another four were washed away in a car in Durban’s Kwa-Mashu area. Other dead included a person washed away in Inchanga, three dead in Umzimkhulu, three more in Richmond and one each in Pietermaritzburg and Dalton. The freak storm wreaked havoc in the province.



■NIGERIA

Pirates seize French ship

Pirates seized a ship belonging to French maritime services company Bourbon off the coast of the country during the weekend and are holding nine crew members hostage, the company said on Monday. “Bourbon confirms that the Bourbon Leda and its nine crew members [five Nigerians, two Ghanaians, one Cameroonian and one Indonesian] were seized off the coast of Nigeria during the night of Saturday Jan. 3 to Sunday Jan. 4,” a statement said. “Bourbon received Sunday, Jan. 4, a call which allowed it to be in contact with the commander of the Bourbon Leda who confirmed that all crew members were safe and in good health.”



■SPAIN

Police seize shamanic drug

Police have raided a house in a Madrid suburb, arrested two people and seized 40,000 doses of a psychoactive substance traditionally used by South American shamans. The substance yaje — or ayahuasca in Quechua, the ancient Inca language — is derived from a hallucinogenic jungle vine used for centuries in religious and healing ceremonies. Investigators were alerted to its suspected distribution by an organization in the Las Rozas suburb, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday. Three minors were among 21 people taking part in a ceremony when police raided the house in late December.



■UNITED STATES

‘Shoe throw’ raises money

A gallery in Ashland, Oregon, opened an exhibit with a “shoe throw” at an image of President George W. Bush. City Councilor Eric Navickas — who opened the MAda Shell Gallery with partner Amy Godard — slathered red paint on sneakers, boots and sandals before people fired them at a 2.4m image of Bush. Godard said the exhibit was a “statement of solidarity” with Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi journalist who was arrested after hurling two shoes at Bush during a news conference. One contributor was 91-year-old Marjorie Mather. “Wow, I didn’t know that was going to be so much fun,” she said after smacking a shoe into the Bush image.



■UNITED STATES

Polanski alleges prejudice

An attorney for fugitive movie director Roman Polanski is seeking to have the Los Angeles County Superior Court removed from his notorious sex case, accusing the court of bias and prejudice against Polanski. Polanski has been a fugitive in France for 30 years after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles. In a motion filed on Monday, attorney Chad Hummel sought removal of Polanski’s case to the California Judicial Council for resolution. Hummel wants the council to appoint a judge from another county to hear the case.



■CANADA

Explosion erupts gas line

A seemingly deliberate blast ruptured a gas pipeline over the weekend, but there were no injuries or leaks, police said on Monday. “The site of what appears to be a deliberate explosion was discovered on Sunday after Encana gas line workers located the partial destruction of a metering shed at a well head site near the community of Tomslake,” federal police said. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, the Explosives Disposal Unit and Forensic Identification are now investigating. The blast is likely the fourth deliberate explosion in three months directed at Encana natural gas facilities in the Tomslake area of British Columbia.



■CANADA

Dementia cases may double

Alzheimer’s disease does not only affect the elderly, said a study on Monday that found 14 percent of the estimated 500,000 people countrywide suffering from the condition are under the age of 65. The Alzheimer Society warned of an expected doubling of cases in the coming two decades, as the population ages and diagnosis is made earlier. “As it stands today, the number of Canadians living with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia will double within a generation,” Ray Congdon of the Alzheimer Society said in a statement. “This new data only reinforces the fact that Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are a rising concern in this country, an epidemic that has the potential to overwhelm the Canadian health care system.”



■MEXICO

Wheelchair ploy revealed

Police say a woman who begged from a wheelchair was caught running from a crime scene in Monterrey. Police spokeswoman Sidlayin Robles said 30-year-old Ana Victoria Perez fled on foot after she and her husband threw a stone through the window of a furniture store. Perez was a regular fixture on a Monterrey road, asking for change as she sat in a wheelchair pushed by her husband. Robles said the couple apparently planned to rob the furniture store but were scared off by a guard. Police arrested the couple when they returned for the wheelchair.


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