■AUSTRALIA
Gorilla escapes enclosure
A gorilla used an overgrown palm tree to escape from his enclosure at a zoo, and keepers said yesterday they used bananas to lure him back to captivity. The nine-year-old simian named Yakini swung over the wall of his enclosure using overhanging palm fronds at Melbourne Zoo on Thursday, keepers said. Visitors were held in the gift shop and other buildings while staff attempted for 20 minutes to recapture the gorilla. “Must have either been wind or some other factor which dropped this palm frond just far enough into the dry moat for him to get a hand on it,” said Dan Maloney, the zoo’s general curator. “These animals are very bright and he’s learned a lot in his nine years,” Maloney said. Using bananas as bait, staff managed to bring Yakini into the elephant barn, where he was shot with a tranquilizer dart and returned to his habitat, which he shares with his father and brother, Maloney said.
■AUSTRALIA
Croc kills swimmer
Relatives saw a 20-year-old man taken by a crocodile yesterday in the Daly River in the country’s far north in the third fatal crocodile attack in as many months. The stretch of the river the man chose for his dip is a well-known crocodile haunt. Northern Territory police spokesman John Emeny said crocodile catchers were searching for what they believe to be a killer croc in the Daly River, 150km south of Darwin. “We have received information that there was a crocodile sighting in the area, so there is a likelihood the person has been subjected to a crocodile attack, but that has yet to be confirmed,” he said.
■HONG KONG
Peeping Tom numbers soar
The number of peeping Tom photographers in rail stations has soared 30 percent, a news report said yesterday. Ng Shan-ho, railway police deputy district commander, said there were 117 cases of people caught taking photos up the skirts of women last year, compared with 88 cases in 2007, the Hong Kong Standard reported. In 104 cases, police were able to catch the culprits, a success rate of 90 percent. Ng said the culprits were usually aged 13 to 35 and ranged from students to bank staff and teachers.
■CHINA
Protesters target professor
About 30 protesters tried to force their way into Peking University yesterday to confront a law professor who said 99 percent of the people petitioning the government with grievances are mentally ill. Sun Dongdong’s (孫東東) comments, published in China Newsweek last month, triggered outrage. Sun quickly issued a public apology, but his critics have dismissed it as insincere and many are now demanding he be fired. Sun is head of the university’s judicial expertise center, which helps court authorities evaluate the mental health of defendants.
■CHINA
Party chief kills official
The Communist Party chief of a village in the north of the country suddenly stabbed another top official to death in a bizarre killing during an official meeting, state media reported yesterday. Liu Junwen (劉軍文), party chief of Qijiabao village in Shaanxi Province, had called the director of the village committee, Qi Junping (戚軍平), and other officials to a meeting at local government headquarters on Thursday, the Beijing News said. To the horror of onlookers, Liu then pulled out a knife and stabbed Qi, who had been seated around a conference table with other meeting participants, it said.
■SAUDI ARABIA
Man granted SMS divorce
A man has divorced his wife by text message, a newspaper said on Thursday. The man was in Iraq when he sent the SMS informing her she was no longer his spouse. He followed up with a telephone call to two of his relatives, the daily Arab News reported. A court in the Red Sea city of Jeddah finalized the split — the first known divorce in Saudi Arabia by text message — after summoning the two relatives to check they had received word of the husband’s intention, the paper said. Saudi Arabia practices a strict form of Shariah law, and clerics preside over Shariah courts as judges. Under the law a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” three times. The Saudi man was in Iraq to participate in “what he described as ‘jihad,’” according to the Arab News.
■FRANCE
‘Bossnapping’ case resolved
A “bossnapping” incident in which workers angry at plans to restructure a factory southwest of Paris held three managers came to an end late on Thursday, a union source said. The managers were released after several hours, according to the union source. The incident took place at French auto parts maker Faurecia in Brieres-les-Scelles. Recent polls show that up to half of French people believe workers are justified in taking executives captive to seek better redundancy packages during the economic crisis.
■AUSTRIA
Stalker mother fined
A woman who bombarded her son with phone calls over a two-and-a-half year period was fined by a court for stalking him, Austrian media reported on Thursday. The 73-year-old woman, who phoned her son up to 49 times a day, was fined 360 euros (US$478) by the court in the southern city of Klagenfurt. “I just wanted to talk to him,” the woman told the court, according to Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung. “I can’t talk to my son, nor my daughter. I’ve never seen my grandchild — who is already 15 years old,” she said.
■FRANCE
Sarkozy mailed more bullets
A letter containing threats and two bullets arrived at President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office on Thursday, a judicial source said. The letter, posted on Wednesday in southern France, was similar to previous ones received in recent weeks by Sarkozy and members of his government, the source in the Paris prosecutor’s office said. Last month police arrested and then released without charge a man on suspicion of sending Sarkozy, several of his ministers and other politicians envelopes containing a 9mm cartridge and identical letters with threats including “you are all dead men walking.”
■UNITED KINGDOM
Officer suspended over push
London’s police force says it has suspended an officer caught on camera pushing a man who later died at a G20 protest. Video footage filmed by a bystander shows an officer appearing to hit Ian Tomlinson, 47, with his baton before shoving him to the ground. Tomlinson, who was walking home from work when he got caught up in the protest, later died of an apparent heart attack. The Metropolitan Police said on Thursday that the officer, a constable, had been suspended. His name was not released. Britain’s police watchdog has ordered a second autopsy to see whether police behavior contributed to Tomlinson’s death. Thousands of people took part in protests against a meeting of the G20 nations in London last week.
■UNITED STATES
One dies in swordplay
A 77-year-old woman in Indianapolis suffered a fatal stab wound while trying to break up a sword fight on Thursday between her grandson and brother-in-law, police said. An autopsy determined Franziska Stegbauer died of a wound from one of the swords, police Sergeant Matthew Mount said. Both men were hospitalized with stab wounds and one was critically hurt. “We’re unsure yet who started this fight, how the swordplay got involved,” Mount said. One of the weapons was a World War II-era Japanese officer’s sword with a thin blade, and the other had a thicker blade, Mount said.
■UNITED STATES
Springsteen accused
A New Jersey man who is divorcing his wife has accused rock star Bruce Springsteen of having an affair with her. Springsteen, who is married to singer Patti Scialfa, was accused by Arthur Kelly of Red Bank, New Jersey, of having an affair with his wife, Ann Kelly, in papers filed in Monmouth County Superior Court on March 27. A spokesman for Springsteen told local media the musician stood by a statement he posted on his Web site in 2006 following rumors of infidelity. In the statement, Springsteen wrote of his marriage that “our commitment to one another remains as strong as the day we were married.”
■CANADA
Spears: ‘Don’t smoke weed’
The new and improved Britney Spears apparently isn’t a fan of cigarette smoke — or any other kind of smoke, for that matter — while she’s performing. The 27-year-old pop star left the stage for about 30 minutes during a concert in Vancouver on Wednesday night, apparently because of smoke in the audience. The Vancouver Sun said Spears’ concert was halted about 15 minutes into her performance and an announcer told concertgoers to put out their cigarettes. Some audience members grew impatient while waiting for Spears and her troupe to return to the stage, the Sun reported. After she returned and ended the show, Spears — who has been to rehab and is on the comeback trail after a long stretch of troubles — told the crowd: “Don’t smoke weed.”
■MEXICO
Water rationing begins
Some 2 million residents of Mexico City on Thursday began 36 hours without water under an emergency plan over Easter vacation to respond to a record drop in water supply and to work on repairs. The cuts in the city of some 20 million that once sat on lakes coincide with Semana Santa, Mexico’s second-most important holiday season when many leave the city. They are part of a five-month emergency rationing plan announced in January and include repairs to stop massive leaks in the distribution network of one of the main water supply systems. The Cutzamala supply system is at 47 percent capacity, its lowest ever level, because of low rainfall last year and serious leaks, national water commission Conagua said.
■UNITED STATES
Man steals 66-year-old bike
A thief in Maine stole a 66-year-old bicycle that belonged to an 83-year-old woman. Ruth Slovenski got the blue Huffy bicycle as a gift when she was a teenager in 1943. The bike was stolen after she left it unlocked on Saturday during a visit to a nursing home in Lewiston, a southern Maine city of about 35,000 residents where Slovenski lives. Police say Slovenski had left the bike near a mailbox. When she went back to it two hours later, the bike was gone.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion