■SERBIA
Union leader eats finger
A union official who chopped off his finger and ate it in a protest over wages that in some cases have not been paid in years, said on Monday he did it to show how desperate he and other workers were. “We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example,” Zoran Bulatovic said. “It hurt like hell.” Bulatovic, a union leader at the Raska Holding textile factory in Novi Pazar, used a hacksaw to cut off most of his left-hand little finger on Friday. Bulatovic said he decided to act after his deputy, “a single mother of three, was the first to say she would cut off her finger. I could not allow her to do that,” he said.
■ISRAEL
Six questioned on draft tips
Police questioned six people on Monday who allegedly gave tips over the Internet on how to avoid the draft. The six are members of New Profile and Objective 21, which advocates refusal to serve in the Israeli military. They were released after questioning. Documents were also seized from their homes. Military service is compulsory for Israelis over 18, with most Arabs exempted. Anyone found guilty of instigating refusal to serve in the army can be jailed for up to 15 years.
■SENEGAL
Amnesty urges protection
Amnesty International on Monday urged the government to ensure the safety of nine men freed last week after a court overturned jail convictions for homosexuality, saying they were at risk of homophobic attacks. “The decision of the court of appeal in Dakar to release them after they initially received an eight-year sentence is welcome. But it needs to be followed by concrete action from the authorities to ensure the men are safe from possible homophobic attacks,” Veronique Aubert, deputy director of Amnesty’s Africa Progam said in a press release.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Lockerbie appeal set
The Libyan jailed for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was to begin appealing his conviction yesterday. Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year, has spent 10 years behind bars for the 1988 terrorist attack that killed 270 people. Al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were prosecuted in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2001 for the bombing. Fhimah was acquitted. Al-Megraphi has always said he had nothing to do with the attack, and while he lost an appeal in 2002 he was granted another two years ago following a major legal review.
■EUROPEAN UNION
Cyber security touted
The European Commission urged member governments on Monday to jointly beef up defenses against cyber attacks to protect large computer networks that run energy and water distribution, air and road traffic control systems, banking and other critical services. “Cyber attacks have become a tool in the hands of organized crime, a means of blackmailing companies and organizations [and] an instrument of foreign and military policy” that can threaten democracy and economies, Commissioner for Information Society Viviane Reding said. Reding called for the appointment of an EU “Cyber Cop” in a video message marking Monday’s opening of a two-day meeting in Talinn, Estonia, on cyberspace security cooperation.
■VENEZUELA
Formal ties with Palestine
Palestinian officials established formal ties on Monday with Caracas and opened a diplomatic mission in the South American country. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki thanked President Hugo Chavez’s government for its support during the recent Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which prompted the Chavez administration to break off relations with Israel. The country’s relations with Palestinians have warmed as tensions have grown between Chavez’s government and Israel. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said the Palestinian cause was “like our own,” while al-Malki praised Chavez as “the most popular leader in the Arab world,” in part for his staunch support of Palestinians.
■ISRAEL
Not swine, but Mexican flu
The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, a health official said on Monday. Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital. Both Judaism and Islam consider pigs unclean and forbid the eating of pork products. Scientists are unsure where the new swine flu virus originally emerged, though it was identified first in the US. They say there is nothing about the virus that makes it “Mexican” and worry such a label would be stigmatizing.
■UNITED STATES
Chihuahua takes flight
Tinker Bell has been reunited with her owners after a 113kph gust of wind picked up the 2.7kg Chihuahua and tossed her out of sight. Dorothy and Lavern Utley credit a pet psychic for guiding them on Monday to a wooded area nearly 1.6km from where eight-month-old Tinker Bell had been last seen. The brown long-haired dog was dirty and hungry but otherwise OK. The Utleys, of Rochester, Michigan, had set up an outdoor display on Saturday at a flea market in Waterford Township, 40km northwest of Detroit. Tinker Bell was standing on their platform trailer when she was swept away. Dorothy Utley told the Detroit News that her cherished pet “just went wild” upon seeing her.
■UNITED STATES
Stripper stands in at reunion
Comedy writer Andrea Wachner hated the idea of going to her 10-year high school reunion so much that she hired a stripper to go instead and what followed, she says, was a comical study in human nature. Her story is detailed in a nearly 40-minute documentary directed by Wachner that, because of issues surrounding its length and getting approval to show it from former classmates, may never be seen — not even by her parents.
■UNITED STATES
Hijacking trio sentenced
Life stopped smelling rosy for a New York gang sentenced on Monday to lengthy prison sentences for hijacking trucks loaded with perfumes and cosmetics. A court in White Plains, New York, sentenced the three men to 55, 37 and 26 years for a series of armed hijackings in the New York region between September 2006 and January 2007, prosecutors said. In one hit the gang stormed a truck carrying more than US$500,000 worth of perfume, pistol-whipped the drivers, then drove the truck to New Jersey for unloading. In another attack, two of the convicted men took part in the hijacking of a tractor-trailer containing more than US$150,000 worth of Elizabeth Arden cosmetics in Pennsylvania, prosecutors said.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in