■SOUTH KOREA
Man dies of swine flu
A man who returned from a trip overseas has died from swine flu, becoming the country’s first reported death from the virus, the health ministry said yesterday. “A man in his 50s died from the new flu after returning from Thailand,” Deputy Minister Lee Jong-koo of the ministry told journalists. The man in the southeastern province of South Gyeongsang toured Thailand from Aug. 1 to Aug. 5 with his colleagues, the ministry said. He began to show symptoms on Aug. 8 and test results on Friday showed he was infected with the virus. He had been under intensive care at a hospital since Monday, it said. He died yesterday morning from pneumonia and other complications caused by the A(H1N1) virus, it said.
■JAPAN
Swine flu death confirmed
A man in his 50s has died from swine flu, in the country’s first death from the virus, a local government official confirmed yesterday. The man, a resident of Okinawa prefecture who suffered from a chronic ailment, died of the A(H1N1) virus after developing complications, the official said. Jiji Press reported that the man, 57, had a chronic kidney condition and had previously experienced both kidney failure and cardiac arrest. He had no recent records of traveling abroad, it said. The number of swine flu cases in the country topped 5,000 late last month, as worries grew that the spread of the virus was accelerating.
■INDIA
Elephant tramples tourist
A French tourist was trampled to death by a wild elephant while trekking in the south on Friday, a forest official said. Del Yotel Annie, a retired teacher from Neuilly Sir Marne, was taking pictures of a herd of wild elephants at Bokkapuram, adjacent to the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Udhagamandalam, about 500km from Chennai, when a jumbo and a calf charged her. Her son, Fredrick Jean Lue, was injured and has been admitted in a local hospital, the official said. “Tourists are unaware that wild elephants are possessive about their calves and should be left alone,” said Rajiv Srivastava, field director of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve.
■CHINA
Police break up 14 gangs
Police in Chongqing have cracked 14 gangs, some of them with high-level business ties, in a sweeping campaign against organized vice, the government said yesterday. Nineteen gang bosses and more than 100 junior gang members have been arrested, along with “a fair number” of bosses of legitimate companies, the Chongqing government said on its Web site. “We’ve broken up 14 evil gangs that have been running wild in our city for many years,” government spokesman Zhou Bo said in the statement. Three billionaires are believed to have been arrested in the course of the 50-day campaign.
■AUSTRIA
Kids locked in mailboxes
Authorities aren’t about to give these pranks their stamp of approval. Frustrated officials say rescuers were deployed twice last week to break open large mailboxes after two children locked themselves inside in separate incidents. Firefighters in the westernmost province of Vorarlberg say the latest incident occurred on Thursday evening in the village of Schwarzach, where an eight-year-old boy climbed inside a mailbox and couldn’t get out. Postal officials weren’t able to find the key, so rescuers used welding torches and bolt cutters to open the box and free the child. He was uninjured.
■TURKEY
One killed in Istanbul blast
An explosion inside a trash container in Istanbul killed one person and injured another, police and news reports said yesterday. Istanbul Police Chief Huseyin Capkin said the blast late on Friday in the low-income Gaziosmanpasa neighborhood killed a night watchman guarding a nearby building. Another man was slightly injured in the leg. Capkin said the blast was caused by explosives placed inside the container, but gave few other details. He said it was too early to call the blast a terrorist attack, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. The attack occurred on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the start of the Kurdish insurgency.
■IRAN
Two dead in plane crash
A training plane crashed in Karaj yesterday, killing two people on board, state radio reported, adding that the cause of the crash was not yet clear. Tehran suffers from a poor air safety record, with a string of crashes in the past few decades — many involving Russian-made planes.
■RUSSIA
Alleged killer arrested
A man suspected of committing 15 racially motivated killings was arrested in Moscow on Friday, officials said. Vasily Krivets, 21, was detained at a railway station as he tried to board a train for Ukraine, police spokeswoman Yulia Kiselyova told Vesti 24 television. Krivets is suspected of committing 15 hate killings in 2007 and last year2008, Kiselyova said. The Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor General’s office said Krivets had been detained earlier but escaped police custody last October. Hate crimes have risen steadily in the country in recent years, with skinheads primarily targeting non-Slavs from Central Asia and the Caucasus. Last year, 99 people were killed in apparent racial attacks, said the SOVA Center, a hate crimes watchdog.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Record reward offered
A record reward of up to £1 million (US$1.65 million) was offered on Friday to find the robbers who pulled off what is thought to be the nation’s biggest jewelry heist, police said. Detectives said the reward was the largest ever offered in a crime of this sort and was intended to persuade any criminal associates of the thieves to hand them in. Two smartly dressed men toting guns walked into the exclusive Graff store on London’s swanky New Bond Street on Aug. 6 and stole 43 rings, bracelets, necklaces and watches with a retail value of £40 million. “Tyler and Company, on behalf of interested insurers, are offering a reward of up to £1 million for information leading to the identification, arrest and prosecution of the person(s) responsible and the recovery of the stolen property,” police said in a statement on Friday.
■ITALY
Hotel offers 1-cent weekend
A four-star hotel near Venice mistakenly offered the ultimate low-cost vacation — a romantic weekend in the Italian lagoon city for “1 [euro] cent” (US$0.014). Not surprisingly, the Crowne Plaza in Quarto D’Altino, 25km from Venice, received bookings for the equivalent of 1,400 room nights on the night the rate was posted on its Web site, the hotel chain said. It turned out to be human error at the Atlanta, Georgia, offices of Intercontinental Hotels Group, the hotel’s mother company, sales manager Fulvio Danesin said on Friday. But Monica Smith, media relations manager for the hotel group in the US, said the reservations would be honored. The offer was supposed to be for a two-night stay at half price. The hotel stands to lose 90,000 euros, Danesin said.
■VENEZUELA
Castro healthy: Chavez
President Hugo Chavez said on Friday he found his close ally and mentor Fidel Castro in good health during a visit to Cuba to celebrate the former Cuban president’s 83rd birthday. Chavez said they shared a cake. He said he also gave Castro products from his country including chocolate and sardines, and two charcoal drawings: one of independence hero Francisco de Miranda, and a second of Cuban hero Jose Marti. “You know what the imperialists say,” Chavez said. “Some say that Fidel is crazy ... They create rumors.”
■UNITED STATES
No kosher meals for inmate
A Michigan prison inmate who says his kosher meals were illegally suspended isn’t getting any relief at a federal appeals court. In 2005, convicted killer Phillip Berryman stopped receiving costly kosher meals at St Louis Correctional Facility after he was caught buying non-kosher snacks at the prison store. The 66-year-old Berryman said the snacks were for another inmate, but that defense was rejected. He sued, claiming his suspension from kosher meals was a burden on his religious liberties. The appeals court this week said Michigan had a legitimate interest in maintaining discipline and ensuring that only inmates with “sincere beliefs” participate in the kosher program. Berryman, who is serving a life sentence, now is at a Michigan prison in Jackson.
■UNITED STATES
Dylan a ‘complete unknown’
Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood. Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium. A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan was and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said on Friday. “I don’t think she was familiar with his entire body of work,” Woolley said. The incident began at 5pm when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses. The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name. According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued: “What is your name, sir?” the officer asked. “Bob Dylan,” Dylan said. “OK, what are you doing here?” the officer asked. “I’m on tour,” the singer replied. A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said. The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as Like a Rolling Stone and Blowin’ in the Wind said that he didn’t have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night’s show.
■BRAZIL
‘Right to starlight’ erodes
The public’s “right to starlight” is steadily being eroded by urban illumination that is the bane of astronomers everywhere, the International Astronomical Union said on Friday. The body, which wrapped up an 11-day general assembly in Rio de Janeiro that attracted galaxy-gazers from around the world, argued that authorities should use more unobtrusive lighting in cities and towns. Such moves would not only free up the night skies to make for easier viewing but also promote environmental protection, energy savings and tourism, it said in a resolution.
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