■INDONESIA
Plane crashes in Papua
Authorities are searching for the bodies of 11 people presumed dead after a light plane crashed in Indonesia’s mountainous Papua Province, an airfield official said yesterday. Timika Air Base commander Easter Haryanto, who is coordinating search efforts, said search teams found the Mimika Air plane at a height of 3,474m on a steep slope on Mount Gergaji. Access to the wreckage was difficult because of foggy weather, he added. “The front portion of the plane is destroyed and the right wing is broken. The accident site is surrounded by fog so we will continue the process of evacuation Sunday,” Haryanto said. The plane was en route from Ilaga to the remote highlands town of Kota Mulia with 11 people on board, including a child, when it crashed on Friday. The secretary of the province’s electoral commission as well as a number of other officials were on board the charter flight, which was carrying ballot papers from April 9 national elections.
■BANGLADESH
Terrorism raid nets 31
Police have arrested 31 men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack, an officer said yesterday. Police chief Masudul Haque Nuruzzaman, from Kushtia district 100km west of the capital Dhaka, said the men were members of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. “Among the 31 arrested was the group’s chief of the Kushtia district who trained and fought in Afghanistan,” Nuruzzaman said. “The arrests were made on Friday during a raid on a meeting. We have intelligence to suggest they were preparing an attack.” Jihadi books, leaflets, gunpowder and bomb-making materials were seized during the meeting, he said. Hizb ut-Tahrir is a worldwide group that wants to combine all Muslim countries in a unitary Islamic state.
■SWEDEN
Glass found in food
Police have ruled out a targeted campaign of sabotage against Swedish poultry producers or other food companies despite numerous incidents of pieces of glass found in chicken and other food. “In our view this is not a coordinated attack against food supplies,” Anders Wretling of the National Criminal Police told the Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter. Police have found 80 instances of glass, needles and pieces of plastic in food in recent weeks, with 30 of them related to chicken.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Spinster untroubled by fame
Singing sensation Susan Boyle said on Friday that she’s untroubled by people drawing contrasts between her angelic voice and dowdy image after she was thrust into the international spotlight. The unlikely star, who sprung to fame after her appearance on a British televised talent competition became an online hit, said she loves the attention and isn’t bothered by those who poke fun at her unpolished appearance. “It goes with the territory,” Boyle said on Friday. “It doesn’t bother me.” In a telephone interview from her home in the Scottish town of Blackburn, Boyle did express some impatience with questions over her love life: The 47-year-old Scot raised eyebrows when she told a British television audience last Saturday that she’d “never been kissed.” “It was said as a joke, not an advert. Can we move on?” Boyle said, laughing. She has appeared on the US’ Larry King Show and a spokesman for Oprah had confirmed that she was being lined up as a guest. By yesterday, a video clip of Boyle’s singing debut on the Britain’s Got Talent television show last weekend had received nearly 23 million views on YouTube.
■RUSSIA
Tree removed from lung
The annals of medical anomalies bulge with stories from far-flung places where the idea of a reliable source is a chap sitting on a gate in a goatskin fleece who waves to passersby, even if there are none. And so to the Urals, where medics are reported to have removed a tiny fir tree from a man’s lung, after he complained of chest pains. Before doctors opened him up, they were convinced he had lung cancer. Now, they’re convinced he inhaled a seed, which sprouted inside him. Surgeon Vladimir Kamashev at Izhevsk hospital was about to remove a large part of 28-year-old Artyom Sidorkin’s lung, when he took a closer look, according to reports. He was stunned to see a 5cm-long spruce inside, Pravda news agency said. The gruesome photo released with the story claims to show the spruce jutting from a clump of Sidorkin’s lung tissue.
■GERMANY
Bus driver saves frog
A French bus driver working in Germany faced the sack after stopping her double decker to save a frog from being squashed under the wheels, press reports said on Friday. Passengers on the already 20-minute delayed bus were hopping mad when Christina Pommerel, 46, leapt from behind the wheel, rescued the frog, put it in a box and released it on the side of the road. “I couldn’t just squash it,” Pommerel, who has been driving buses for 13 years in the southern city of Regensburg, told daily Die Welt. “I did my job and saved a life,” she said. But the irate passengers took a dim view of the rescue mission and one of them complained to the bus company, which suspended the driver.
■GAZA STRIP
Egypt opens border
Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip yesterday for limited numbers of humanitarian cases, a Hamas spokesman said. Spokesman Adel Zourob said the Rafah crossing point will be open for two days for patients, students and Palestinians who are holders of residency permits in other countries. The names of the individuals who would be allowed to leave Gaza appeared on the website of Hamas’ interior ministry. The militant movement is in control of the Gaza Strip. The spokesman slammed Egypt’s procedures on the crossing, saying that “the policy of long-waits and piling up the travelers on the crossing would increase the suffering of 1.5 million Palestinians.” Israel and Egypt closed their border with the Gaza Strip in 2007 after Hamas took over the territory by force. Since then, Egypt has periodically allowed the departure and return of humanitarian cases.
■ZIMBABWE
US scraps travel warning
The US has scrapped an advisory warning Americans against travel to the country, but this does not signal a shift in US policy toward the unity government, the US State Department said on Friday. US officials said there were no immediate plans to lift targeted sanctions or give any substantial aid to help rebuild Zimbabwe until there is firm evidence that President Robert Mugabe is serious about sharing power with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. “We can’t seriously decide to take decisions on aid or lifting sanctions until much, much more is done,” said a State Department official, who declined to be named as the issue is under review and his comments were sensitive. US State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters the travel warning was canceled on April 8 because of a return of “basic” medical, food and fuel services to the country.
■UNITED STATES
Bronx pans underbelly tour
The founder of a civilian patrol group wants to show off New York’s criminal underbelly, but tourism officials are suggesting a trip to the zoo. Community leaders in the Bronx are objecting to a new “Underbelly Tour” by Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa. The tour focuses on both the tumultuous 1970s and lingering crime problems in the borough. The Bronx Tourism Council says it’s disappointed that Sliwa’s tour capitalizes on false stereotypes. It recommends visitors instead go to the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Garden, Yankee Stadium, museums and restaurants.
■UNITED STATES
Mother kills daughter, fetus
Fang Chi-xue’s neighbors in Quincy, Massachusetts, didn’t know her well. Once in a while, they would see her outside with her children. She would wave and say hello politely in Mandarin. On Friday, Fang lay in a hospital bed after she allegedly killed her nine-year-old daughter, tried to strangle her 14-year-old daughter and stabbed herself in the abdomen, killing her unborn fetus. Fang, 38, who was seven-months pregnant, was charged with one count of first-degree murder and assault with intent to murder.Authorities were awaiting the results of an autopsy before deciding whether she would be charged with a second count of murder in the death of her unborn baby. David Traub, a spokesman for District Attorney William Keating, said the violence appeared to have been sparked by an argument Fang had earlier in the evening with her husband. Neighbors said the family had moved in several years ago to the neighborhood just south of Boston. The neighborhood is made up largely of Chinese and Vietnamese families.
■UNITED STATES
Woman survives head shot
A woman who was shot in the head not only survived but made herself tea and offered an astonished deputy something to drink, authorities said on Friday. Tammy Sexton, 47, remained hospitalized three days after being wounded by her husband, who killed himself after he shot his wife. A bullet struck her squarely in the forehead, passed through her skull and exited through the back of her head, authorities said. She is expected to fully recover. Court records show her husband was put on probation for six months on April 9 for domestic violence. He showed up at their home in rural Jackson County in Southeast Mississippi about 12:10am on Tuesday and confronted his wife as a relative ran next door to call police, the sheriff said. A deputy was greeted by the woman when he arrived minutes after she was shot with the slug from a .380-caliber handgun. “When the officer got there she said, ‘What’s going on?’ She was holding a rag on her head and talking. She was conscious, but she was confused about what had happened,” he said. “She had made herself some tea and offered the officer something to drink.” Byrd said the bullet apparently passed through the lobes of the woman’s brain without causing major damage.
■UNITED STATES
Plane splits house in two
A small plane sputtered and dove into a house in Oakland Park, Florida, shortly after taking off from a local airport, slicing the home down the middle into two charred pieces. The pilot was killed. The twin-engine Cessna 421 crashed around 11:20am on Friday, and the house burst into flames. The owner’s nephew barely escaped the catastrophe, leaving just before the aircraft hit to visit his aunt.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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