■PHILIPPINES
Frenchwoman murdered
A 54-year-old Frenchwoman was shot dead, and three suspects were arrested for alleged involvement in the murder, police said yesterday. Genevieve Sonia Mas, who arrived in the country last December, was killed while riding a tricycle in San Carlos City in Negros Occidental province, 540km south of Manila, on Tuesday. The suspected gunman, Melchorito Alcala, 31, was arrested shortly after the shooting. Police later arrested Abdullah Benamirouch, a French national, and his Filipina wife, Rose, who allegedly hired Alcala to kill Mas.
■NEW ZEALAND
Opera keeps vandals at bay
Opera star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has been credited by a local mayor with keeping vandals away from his city center because they find her singing “bloody hideous.” Bob Harvey, the mayor of Waitakere City, said classical music has been playing through speakers in an area between the city’s transport hub and council offices for the last three years. There has been no defacing or damaging of art works in the area since the music was switched on. “We have been playing ... Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky and a dash of Dame Kiri,” Harvey was reported as saying in the New Zealand Herald yesterday.
■PHILIPPINES
Arroyo slammed over pardon
The family of assassinated Philippine opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr yesterday accused the president of denying them justice by pardoning 10 soldiers convicted of the 1983 murder. Aquino was gunned down at Manila airport as he was returning from US exile. President Gloria Macapacal Arroyo on Wednesday commuted the sentences of the last 10 convicted murderers. They were freed on Wednesday. Senator Benigno Aquino III suggested Arroyo was hitting back at his mother, former president Corazon Aquino, for joining calls demanding Arroyo step down.
■INDONESIA
Couples ordered to buy trees
A cash-strapped Indonesian district in West Java has ordered couples planning to get married to provide 10 trees to local authorities for a reforestation program, an official said on Wednesday. Anyone filing for divorce in Garut in West Java would also have to fork out for at least one tree, district secretary Wibowo said.
■AUSTRALIA
‘Amnesty’ drug bins offered
Last-chance disposal bins for illicit drugs will be offered following the overdose death of a schoolgirl at a rock concert, police said yesterday. Friends of 17-year-old Gemma Thoms claim she quickly swallowed three ecstasy tablets at the entrance to the Big Day Out festival in Perth last month when she spotted police with sniffer dogs. She died in hospital of organ failure after collapsing at the festival. In a bid to prevent similar incidents, so-called “amnesty bins” would be trialed for the first time this weekend at the Rock-it concert in Western Australia state, police said.
■INDIA
Party buys rights to ‘Jai Ho’
Aiming to spice up its election campaign, India’s ruling Congress party has bought the rights to Jai Ho, the Oscar-winning song from Slumdog Millionaire. The world’s largest democracy will hold a general election between April 16 and May 13 in a mammoth logistical exercise in which 714 million people will cast their votes. Congress leaders said the song, whose title is Hindi for “Let there be victory,” will be played during rallies in rural towns, villages and cities.
■UNITED KINGDOM
‘Potter’ stabber convicted
A London court on Wednesday convicted a 22-year-old man of the frenzied murder of a teenage actor who stars in the latest Harry Potter film. Karl Bishop, who had been convicted for a previous knife crime, was found guilty of the killing of 18-year-old Rob Knox outside a bar in Sidcup, southeast London, last May. The actor was stabbed after stepping in to protect his younger brother, Jamie, who he heard had been threatened by Bishop. Knox had finished filming for his part as student Marcus Belby in Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, which is set for release in July.
■AUSTRIA
Police crack drug ring
Police said on Wednesday they seized heroin and cocaine worth 15 million euros (US$18 million) after a three-year international investigation that led to 174 arrests. Operation Leopold also led to the recovery of 150kg of illegal drugs, federal police spokesman Erich Zwettler told a press conference. Zwettler said Austrian police had worked with counterparts in several countries including Britain, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Turkey, the US and Venezuela. The majority of the suspects arrested were of west African origin, police said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Charles tops best-dressed
Prince Charles has beaten off competition from US President Barack Obama to be named the world’s best-dressed man by Esquire magazine. “He is perfectly turned out in a double-breasted suit. Admirably, the prince keeps his wardrobe in appropriate style: We’re told he has a room laid out like a tailor’s shop,” the men’s magazine said. London Mayor Boris Johnson — renowned for his slightly chaotic appearance — was criticized for having “jacket pockets like second-hand bookshops, and hair the result of an encounter with a ghost in a wind tunnel.”
■UNITED KINGDOM
Two convicted for theft
Two men were found guilty on Wednesday of involvement in a bid to steal hundreds of millions of pounds from a Japanese bank in what would have been the biggest theft of its kind. Hugh Rodley and David Nash were linked to a failed attempt to transfer £229 million (US$323 million) from accounts at the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. Rodley, 61, was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to transfer criminal property between Jan. 1 and Oct. 5, 2004. Nash, 47, who ran a sex shop in London’s Soho district, was cleared of conspiracy to defraud but found guilty of transferring criminal property. Prosecutors said the scheme involved an insider letting conspirators into the bank’s London offices, where they tampered with its computer system, gaining access to the holdings of companies including Toshiba International and Nomura Asset Management.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Couple drive with cobra
Gordon Parratt and his wife drove for 170km aware that a deadly spitting cobra was in their car — but not knowing exactly where, it was reported on Wednesday. Parratt felt the 85cm snake against his leg several times during the drive from the Kruger National Park, and at one point “the snake wound itself around my left leg and ankle — its head came up to my knee,” Beeld newspaper quoted him as saying. The Pretoria couple made several stops to remove the snake but could not find it, until it wrapped itself around Parratt’s leg. The couple eventually called in a snake expert to find it.
■UNITED STATES
Debit card foils robber
Would-be robbers take note: Don’t use your debit card during a holdup. A West Virginia man who police said attempted to rob a convenience store instead ended up buying a soft drink with his debit card — ultimately leading to his arrest, WCHS-TV reported. Shawn Thomas Lester, 33, told the store clerk on Monday that he had a gun and wanted all the money in the register, police said. But the suspect got flustered when a customer walked in and the clerk told him to pay for the soft drink. Lester handed over his debit card, then signed the receipt “John Doe” and left without any cash. Police traced the debit card and found Lester, of Charleston.
■UNITED STATES
Fake guard rips off church
Police say a man posing as an armored car guard made off with more than US$145,000 from a church. Police Officer Katie Flood said on Wednesday that a man dressed as a guard walked into the financial office of the Berean Church on Tuesday and told an employee he was there to pick up the weekly deposit. The employee said the man appeared to know what he was doing, so she gave him the deposit of more than US$145,000 in cash and checks. The real armored car and driver arrived about 15 minutes later and church employees realized they had been robbed. Flood said no one saw what vehicle the fake guard used.
■UNITED STATES
Defendant stabs judge, shot
A man on trial for murder in California was shot dead on Wednesday after leaving the witness stand and stabbing the judge hearing his case, police and local media reports said. David Paradiso, 29, was killed after attacking Judge Cinda Fox shortly after being cross-examined during his trial in Stockton, east of San Francisco, San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department said. It was not clear what Paradiso used to carry out his attack, but local media cited Paradiso’s family as saying they had warned authorities their relative may try to take a weapon into court during the trial. Paradiso was reportedly shot dead by the detective who had led his murder investigation.
■COLOMBIA
Cocaine kingpin extradited
Bogota extradited one of its most-wanted drug lords to the US on Wednesday to face charges of running an armed cocaine-smuggling gang with his twin brother, police said. Ex-paramilitary leader Miguel Angel Mejia Munera was handcuffed and wearing a bullet-proof vest before he boarded a US Drug Enforcement Administration plane in Bogota bound for the US, which had offered a US$5 million reward for information leading to his capture. Mejia, 49, had been held in a high-security prison since his arrest last May.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Kennedy knighted
He won’t be allowed to call himself Sir Ted, but US Senator Edward Kennedy has been awarded an honorary knighthood. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the honor on Wednesday during an address to a joint session of Congress in Washington. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, did not attend Brown’s speech. Brown said Kennedy had helped bring peace to Northern Ireland, expand health care for Americans and improve access to education for children around the world. Brown referred to the senator as “Sir Edward Kennedy,” although unlike British knights he is not entitled to use the honorific “Sir” before his name.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
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