Print

Mail

wiki links

World News Quick Take

■PHILIPPINES

Typhoon leaves 10 dead

At least 10 people were killed and hundreds displaced overnight as Typhoon Chan-hom raked the northern part of the country, rescuers said yesterday. The typhoon blew out into the Philippine Sea off the northeast coast of Luzon island early yesterday after unleashing landslides, floods, and power cuts across the north. Among the worst-hit areas was the mountain town of Kiangan, where nine villagers were crushed to death by large boulders that rolled down slopes on Thursday night, Olive Luces of the civil defense office said. The rocks hit homes and one truck, killing the driver, she said.



■NEW ZEALAND

Gunman kills self

A gunman suspected of killing a police officer committed suicide yesterday after refusing to surrender during a two-day siege at a suburban house, an unconfirmed report on the TV3 channel said. The man was named earlier as Jan Molenaar, 51, an ex-army reservist described by friends as a “total Rambo” and a “gun nut.” Asked by Television New Zealand to confirm his death, Police Superintendent Sam Hoyle said: “Jan is still at the address — we can’t confirm his status right now.” Two other policemen and a civilian, who reportedly tried to wrest a rifle away from Molenaar when he fired at them, remained in a critical condition in hospital with gunshot wounds.



■HONG KONG

Teacher in sex trial

A primary school teacher appeared in court yesterday over allegations that he had sex with a pupil 280 times over a two-year period and persuaded her to have an illegal abortion. Chu Chi-wah, 38, met the girl, now 17, while teaching her math and physical education from third to sixth grade at the Catholic school she attended. He began having sex with her in 2004. At the time she was 12 and had moved to a secondary school but was going to Chu’s home daily for private tuition, a court report in the Hong Kong Standard newspaper said yesterday.



■AUSTRALIA

Rudd ‘mad’ over hair dryer

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday denied accusations he lost his temper at troops in Afghanistan because he could not find a hair dryer ahead of a frontline photo opportunity. A rival conservative parliamentarian, just back from Afghanistan, said Rudd threw a “wobbly” during a secret dash into Afghanistan just before Christmas, with troops at the Australian base of Tarin Kowt “going on and on about it.” The alleged incident was widely reported in newspapers yesterday and used by conservative opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull to attack Rudd. “This particular allegation by Turnbull is absolutely ridiculous and absolutely false and designed,” Rudd told local radio.



■AUSTRALIA

Officials vow better help

Officials promised yesterday to overhaul emergency call procedures after a coroner faulted the system in a teenager’s 2006 death from thirst while lost in a forest despite making multiple calls to a help line. David Iredale, 17, called the “000” emergency line seven times from his mobile phone after getting lost during a school-organized hike in thick forest in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. He got through to ambulance officials five times, but each time was repeatedly asked for a street address if he wanted an ambulance sent to him. Coroner Carl Milovanovich said in a report on Thursday that ambulance call center staff lacked empathy and the ability to gather information during the calls that could have helped Iredale.



■UNITED KINGDOM

Bulletproof turbans wanted

Sikh police officers want special bulletproof turbans to be developed so they can serve in firearms units, the new British Police Sikh Association said. The Sikh religion requires its male followers to wear the turban, but existing police safety helmets do not fit on top. Inspector Gian Singh Chahal, vice-chairman of the British Police Sikh Association, said the Home Office needed to make provision for Sikhs and to recognize that Sikhs had a role to play.



■UNITED KINGDOM

Large bras cost less

A department store was forced to change the way it prices underwear yesterday after almost 13,000 people signed an online protest against its policy of charging customers more for oversized bras. The campaign on Facebook was started by Beckie Williams, 26, who wears a 30G bra, after Marks and Spencer failed to respond to her complaints about £2 (US$3) extra charge on bras bigger than a DD cup. The group, Busts 4 Justice, condemned the policy as “criminally unfair” and urged “busty ladies” to “join forces to end this blatant discrimination.”



■ITALY

Piece of Rome returns

Remorseful and anonymous, a US couple has mailed back a chunk of ancient Rome to Italian authorities about 25 years after their Roman holiday. Janice Johnsen, 52, of Greensboro, North Carolina, said on Thursday she never felt comfortable keeping the terra cotta fragment, but her eldest son’s death prompted her to set things right. She decided “if we get in trouble, we get in trouble, but I need to return it.” The couple was visiting the Mediterranean country about 25 years ago while on a business trip. Her husband bent over and picked up the fist-sized fragment of a slab of terra cotta near the Colosseum, putting it in his pocket.



■ITALY

American suspect arrested

A 24-year-old American studying in Florence was detained on Thursday for questioning in the death of a local man, police and news reports said. The American was found “covered with blood” about 200 yards [meters] from where the body of the victim, 62-year-old Riccardo Nistri, was discovered in a storefront on a quiet Florence street, said Carabinieri police Lieutenant Colonel Ferdinando Musella. The ANSA news agency, quoting unidentified investigators, named the American as Johnathan Robert Hindenach of Michigan. Nistri’s son alerted police after he tried calling his father on the cell phone and heard an American in a “confused state” pick up, Musella said. A friend of the victim’s called police with a similar story and told police Nistri kept a second apartment on the street. ANSA said Hindenach had left his hotel on Wednesday night in a confused state, shouting that people wanted to kill him.



■UKRAINE

Ministry denies allegations

The Interior Ministry hit back on Thursday at German police allegations that its minister had been prevented from boarding a plane because of drunken behavior, saying he was innocent and entitled to his privacy. The opposition said Minister Yuri Lutsenko was an embarrassment and demanded his resignation. A Frankfurt police spokesman said on Wednesday Lutsenko had been kept off a flight to Seoul after becoming enraged at suggestions that he and his son were drunk. He said four officers, three men and a woman, were injured in the altercation.



■UNITED STATES

Polanski appeal rejected

A Los Angeles judge on Thursday rejected an attempt by fugitive film director Roman Polanski to have a 1978 sex case against him dismissed because of misconduct by prosecutors. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza said he could not consider the case unless Polanski, who fled the US for France after pleading guilty to rape, showed up in his court. Lawyers for the Oscar-winning director made clear this week that Polanski would not return to the US to contest his conviction in person because he would be immediately arrested. He cannot be extradited from France. Polanski had sought to have his 1978 guilty plea to having sex with a 13-year-old girl thrown out on the grounds that the judge at the time was improperly coached by a prosecutor.



■UNITED STATES

Nazi guard’s court bid fails

Accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk on Thursday lost a bid for the US Supreme Court to stop his deportation to Germany, where he faces charges for the deaths of 29,000 Jews. US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens rejected a request from the 89-year-old retired Ohio autoworker for a stay of deportation while Demjanjuk pursues his legal appeals. It was not known what other legal steps Demjanjuk’s lawyer might take to try to stop the deportation, the subject of a legal battle with the US Justice Department that has lasted decades.



■VENEZUELA

Chavez nationalizes oil firms

The government will quickly take control of hundreds of small boats and other assets belonging to oil service companies, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday, tightening his grip on the industry. Earlier in the day, the legislature approved a law allowing the nationalization of a group of oil service companies. Chavez said the takeovers would start yesterday in the Lake Maracaibo oil heartland. “Tomorrow [Friday] we will start to recuperate assets and goods that will now belong to the state, as social property, as they should always have been,” Chavez said, adding that thousands of workers would be taken on by state oil company PDVSA.



■UNITED STATES

Diner served snake’s head

A diner at a restaurant in upstate New York says he got a little something extra with his broccoli — a severed snake head. Jack Pendleton told the Times Union of Albany that he was at the TGI Friday’s restaurant in the town of Clifton Park on Sunday when he spotted something gray mixed in with his vegetables. He realized it was a snake head the size of his thumb, with part of the spine still attached. Pendleton said he snapped a photo with his mobile phone camera and called the waiter over. He said he has no plans to sue. A spokeswoman for the Carrollton, Texas, chain said it was investigating. Pendleton and his girlfriend weren’t charged for their meals.



■UNITED STATES

Wesleyan in photo blunder

Cornell University professor Stephen Morgan thought it was bad enough that he shares the name of a man accused of murder. But then an assistant showed him a Web site with a photo supposedly of the suspect. What he saw was a decade-old picture of himself. The sociology professor’s photo was posted on Wesleyan University’s Web site along with details of Wednesday’s fatal shooting of 21-year-old Johanna Justin-Jinich, the Hartford Courant reported. The image was then broadcast nationally. Wesleyan says it got the photo from police. Police said they never released the image.


This story has been viewed 1016 times.