■KYRGYZSTAN
Bakiyev to run again
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was nominated by his party yesterday for re-election amid growing tensions with the opposition, which has accused authorities of clamping down on critics ahead of the poll. Bakiyev will face opposition candidate Almazbek Atambayev, a former prime minister and ally. “The decision has been made unanimously. Kurmanbek Bakiyev has been nominated as a candidate,” Ak Zhol Deputy Chairman Avtandil Arabayev said at a party congress yesterday. Bakiyev came to power shortly after a disputed parliamentary election in 2005 triggered violent protests and forced long-serving leader Askar Akayev to flee the country.
■SOUTH KOREA
Suicide site owner nabbed
Police on Thursday announced the arrest of a Web site operator in a probe into a series of Internet-based group suicides that have left at least 14 people dead. Police said a 21-year-old man, identified only as Chung, was accused of opening a suicide cafe. Details on his background were not given. “He is the first to be arrested for operating a suicide Web site in our country,” an unnamed investigator told Yonhap news agency. Chung’s Web site was responsible for abetting suicide by four groups, police said, vowing to expand a crackdown on similar cafes. Aiding or encouraging suicide is punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
■AUSTRALIA
Politician ‘grows’ taller
A politician who had bone-stretching surgery to become taller has admitted to having the painful procedure done eight years ago, saying she was self-conscious about her size. Hajnal Ban, a local government representative in Queensland state, spoke to reporters about the procedure after local media linked her to God Made Me Small, Surgery Made Me Tall, a book she wrote under the pseudonym Sara Vornamen and which detailed her insecurities about her height.
■SRI LANKA
Army Web site hacked
The army’s Web site has been targeted in a “cyber terrorism” attack by Tamil rebels, the defense ministry said yesterday, and replaced with gruesome photos of apparent victims of the civil war. The www.army.lk site had been removed by hackers, who replaced it with photographs of civilians said to have been killed in military action in the northeast. Army technicians were working to remove the images, officials said, blaming the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The ministry accused LTTE of resorting to “cyber terrorism” and said in a statement that the attack was “another sign of the LTTE’s inevitable defeat.”
■SINGAPORE
Couple fined for naked walk
A Swedish man and a Singaporean woman have been fined for strolling naked through a busy upscale bar and restaurant area for a stunt after a few drinks, local media reported yesterday. Jan Philip, 21, an exchange student with a local university, and Eng Kai Er, a 24-year-old Singaporean studying in Sweden, were each fined S$2,000 (US$1,300) for committing an obscene act, the Straits Times said. In January, the two attracted much attention when they strolled naked through Holland Village, a place popular among expatriates for its bars and al fresco restaurants, apparently after drinking beer. The two were fully clothed and wore sunglasses when they appeared in court on Thursday.
■SAUDI ARABIA
Court grants child divorce
An eight-year-old girl who was sold into marriage by her father has been given a divorce after an international outcry over the case, media reported on Thursday. The marriage of the girl to a man in his 50s was annulled on Wednesday in an out-of-court settlement overseen by a new judge in Onaiza, after the original judge in the case refused to bend to pressure to grant the divorce, reports said. Riyadh newspaper said the settlement was reached after the intervention in the case by an unidentified “important personality.” The girl’s father had sold her last year to the man in exchange for a dowry. When her mother found out, she petitioned the court for a divorce for the girl. The judge twice rejected her case — though he stipulated that the marriage could only be consummated after the girl attains puberty.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Shoppers bring own bags
The introduction of charges for single use carrier bags has been a big success, figures from some retailers said. High-profile campaigns and fashion statement alternatives to plastic, combined with charges and incentives such as green loyalty points, helped some retailers cut bag use by as much as 85 percent. Since launching a £0.05 (US$0.07) charge for food bags in May last year as part of its scheme to reduce waste, retail giant Marks & Spencer said the number of bags taken home has fallen by 80 percent, from 460 million bags a year to 80 million.
■POLAND
Pistol shipment intercepted
Customs agents intercepted an illegal shipment of 8,000 semi-automatic Spanish-made Astra 6.35 handguns destined for Asia, a statement said on Thursday. “The arms were described in the transport documents as sports weapons” instead of regular handguns, the customs statement said. A businessman from Zielona Gora that was in charge of the shipment had a permit for weapons trading inside the EU only, the statement said. It did not identify the suspected gun smuggler.
■UNITED NATIONS
Sudan mandate extended
The Security Council extended the UN mandate for southern Sudan by a year on Thursday and called for strict implementation of an agreement between Khartoum and southern rebels the UN force is in charge of overseeing. In a resolution adopted unanimously, the council stressed “its firm commitment to the cause of peace and stability throughout Sudan and the region, noting the importance of the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.” The UN Mission in Sudan, which has some 10,000 troops, was deployed to help oversee the implementation of the agreement, signed in January 2005 between Khartoum and the Sudan’s People Liberation Movement.
■KENYA
Judge frees arson suspects
A high court judge threw out a case against four men accused of helping burn to death 33 people in a church during post-election violence in January last year. Justice David Maraga said the prosecution had failed to make its case and blamed poor police work in the ruling. The burning of the church by a mob in the northern town of Eldoret was one of the most horrific incidents in the ethnic violence that broke out after disputed presidential elections. Over 1,000 men attacked the Kenya Assemblies of God church on New Year’s Day. They set fire to it and blocked the doors to prevent the occupants, most of whom had fled there to seek refuge from the violence, from escaping.
■UNITED STATES
Telescope spies distant ray
Astronomers tracking a mysterious blast of energy called a gamma ray burst said on Tuesday they had snapped a photograph of the most distant object ever seen by humans — a smudge 13 billion light years away. Hawaii’s Gemini Observatory caught the image earlier this month after a satellite first detected the burst. “Our infrared observations from Gemini immediately suggested that this was an unusually distant burst, these images were the smoking gun,” said Edo Berger of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Distortions in the light signature of the object show it is 13 billion years old. This makes it easily the most distant object ever seen by humanity, Berger said.
■UNITED STATES
No name change for ‘Sinner’
He may have broken the law, but a Nebraska inmate still can’t change his name to “Sinner Lawrence Bilskirnir.” Court documents say 23-year-old Jonathan L. Thomas cited his Norse religion in seeking the name change to Sinner Lawrence Bilskirnir. He says he “is a heathen and Thor is his ‘High God.’” But Lancaster County District Judge Steve Burns denied the request. He said government agencies will need to closely track Thomas because of his criminal record and three child-support cases.
■UNITED STATES
Accused agent pleads guilty
An accused sleeper agent for al-Qaeda held in isolation in a US Navy brig for six years pleaded guilty in court on Thursday to a terrorist conspiracy charge, and could face up to 15 years in prison. Ali al-Marri, a 43-year-old with dual citizenship in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, entered the guilty plea to conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda before US District Court Judge Michael Mihm. As part of the plea agreement, a second charge of providing material support for terrorism will be dropped when he is sentenced on July 30. Prosecutors said Marri, who had previously been held without charge as an “enemy combatant,” had his first contacts with al-Qaeda in 1998. They said he was doing research on poisons consistent with the group’s terror training, and he had acquired information about US dams and tunnels.
■IRAQ
Three killed in Anbar
Three Americans have been killed in fighting in the former al-Qaeda stronghold of Anbar Province, the US military said in a statement yesterday. “Two marines and one sailor were killed while conducting combat operations against enemy forces here April 30,” it said. No details were provided. The fatalities bring the number of US military deaths since the March 2003 invasion to 4,281, icasualties.org figures showed.
■UNITED STATES
Stanford tries to surrender
Allen Stanford, accused by federal regulators in a civil complaint of running an US$8 billion investment fraud, tried to turn himself in to federal marshals in Houston, but they didn’t take him into custody because there was no warrant out for him. The Houston Chronicle reported in its online edition on Thursday that Stanford and his lawyer marched the few blocks from the lawyer’s office to the federal courthouse to “surrender.” DeGuerin said they were taking those measures to show that Stanford wasn’t running and to show Stanford is available to authorities. The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused him of running a pyramid scheme. Stanford has denied the allegations.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number