■HONG KONG
Pet cat rescued from pipe
A pet cat has been rescued after being trapped inside a gas pipe for 12 days, a news report said yesterday. The cat named Meow-Meow was found after faint mewing was heard coming from a gas pipe behind the wall of the restaurant run by his owner, the Hong Kong Standard reported. The fire brigade was called by a rescue team from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and drilled into the wall to free the cat. After firefighters drilled for one hour, the frightened tabby cat squeezed out of the pipe and into the arms of owner Yeung Ming, the newspaper reported.
■NEW ZEALAND
Thieves nab fertilizer
Police said yesterday they were investigating the theft of 65 tonnes of fertilizer, missing from a manufacturer’s store in the North Island township of Marton. Police said it would have taken at least two large trucks to steal the product, worth NZ$38,000 (US$27,000), from the Ballance Agri-Nutrients’ store, which is 10km off the main North Island highway, during the early hours of Wednesday.
■AUSTRALIA
Roo cull angers locals
The culling of some 140 kangaroos on one of the nation’s most famous race car tracks prompted outrage yesterday from environmentalists and animal rights activists. The eastern gray kangaroos were reportedly removed from the Mount Panorama circuit, about 300km west of Sydney, to ensure the safety of drivers and spectators in the V8 Supercar Bathurst 1000 car race next week. The bounding marsupials had created problems for drivers before — in 2007 a kangaroo was filmed jumping between race cars traveling at almost 200km an hour and three years earlier one was hit and killed by a car.
■BANGLADESH
Police arrest militant
Police said yesterday they had arrested a suspected Indian militant commander believed to have close ties with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group blamed for last year’s Mumbai attacks. Emdad Ullah, 30, was picked up during a raid on a house in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Thursday. “He has been in Bangladesh for three years and was living here under another name. We believe he was the Bangladesh commander of the Indian-based militant group Asif Reza Commando Force (ARCF),” Deputy Police Commissioner Monirul Islam told AFP.
■VIETNAM
Monk appeals to Vietnam
Trich Nhat Hanh, one of the world’s most influential Buddhist monks, appealed on Thursday to Vietnam to end harassment of his followers, saying it betrayed the nation’s traditions. The France-based monk, who was nominated by US civil rights icon Martin Luther King for the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote a letter to Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet after followers said they were evicted from their monastery.
■SRI LANKA
Bomb blast not Tamils
An explosion in a van that wounded 13 people in the northwest appeared to be part of a personal feud and not caused by remnants of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, authorities said. The blast occurred in the northwestern town of Kurunegala and was the first since the separatist rebels were crushed in May. Police spokesman Nimal Mediwake said officers were investigating but found indications the matter was personal.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Gem just a paperweight
The “Gem of Tanzania,” once valued at £11 million (US$17.5 million) and the key asset of a British construction company, has proved to be little more than an unusual paperweight, reports said. Once thought to be one of the most expensive rubies in the world, the 2.1kg purple rock was listed in the assets of now collapsed Wrekin Construction Company, but after examination by experts on behalf of administrators Ernst and Young, the stone was “not thought to be of sufficient gem quality” to cut. The rock is now believed to be a large lump of anyolite, a low-grade form of ruby, with a value of just £100, the Independent newspaper said yesterday.
■ITALY
Prostitute appears on TV
The prostitute at the center of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sex scandal appeared on state-run RAI television on Thursday, saying she never intended the details of their purported encounter to go public. Patrizia D’Addario said she only turned over to prosecutors audio tapes of what she says was a night she and Berlusconi spent together because she was questioned about it by prosecutors. She said she recorded the tapes to protect herself, not to blackmail the prime minister. D’Addario appeared on a prime-time RAI talk show hosted by Michele Santoro, a one-time center-left European parliamentarian.
■FRANCE
Court condemns Russia
The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday condemned Russia for the second time in two years for refusing to register two Scientology churches as religious organizations. The Church of Scientology was awarded 5,000 euros (US$7,250) in moral damages. The court ruled that the action of the authorities in Surgut in eastern Siberia and Nizhnekamsk in Tatarstan had violated articles 9 and 11 of the Human Rights Convention on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Association. Russian authorities rejected the registration of the churches in 1994 and 1998 on the basis of legislation which demands that a religious group has to have existed for at least 15 years in a Russian region and prove that it is affiliated to a central religious organization.
■ZIMBABWE
Activists sue government
A prominent human rights activist and eight others are suing the government for US$500 million after terror charges against them were dropped because they had been beaten and tortured, their lawyer said. Harrison Nkomo, a lawyer for activist Jestina Mukoko, said on Thursday that the national police commissioner, intelligence minister and several police officers were among those being sued for the abduction, wrongful arrest and torture of Mukoko and the others. Mukoko is seeking US$250 million of that settlement, he said, adding that the rest would be split between the other activists.
■ZIMBABWE
Nestle ends Mugabe deal
Nestle SA said on Thursday that it would stop buying milk from a farm owned by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s family, who seized it from white farmers under his controversial land reforms. The company said that it had begun buying milk from Gushungo Dairy Estate and seven other farms in February because local dairy processor, Dairy Board of Zimbabwe, was not able to pay for its orders. Nestle said the Dairy Board would resume its purchases from the eight farms and that the firm would stop receiving milk from Gushungo from tomorrow.
■UNITED STATES
University ready for zombies
No one expects a zombie apocalypse. But the University of Florida is making sure officials are ready for a night of the living dead, just in case. The school has a plan for responding to the undead on its Web site among outlines for dealing with hurricanes and pandemics. The exercise lays out how university officials would respond to attacks by “flesh-eating, apparently life impaired individuals.” A school spokesman says the exercise was written by an employee in the academic technology office to “add a little bit of levity” to disaster preparation discussions.
■UNITED STATES
Jackson was basically OK
Michael Jackson was in mostly fine physical shape for a 50-year-old man when he died, the Los Angeles County coroner’s report shows. Jackson’s weight of 62kg was in the acceptable range for a 1.75m man. His heart was strong, with no sign of plaque buildup. His kidneys and most other major organs were normal. He did have arthritis in the lower spine and some fingers, and mild plaque buildup in his leg arteries. The report said his lungs were chronically inflamed and had reduced capacity that might have left him short of breath. But the lung condition was not serious enough to be a direct or contributing cause of death, the document said.
■MEXICO
Ciudad Juarez deadlier
The number of murders in Ciudad Juarez reached 1,801 in the first nine months of the year, topping last year’s record, a tally of daily police reports shows. Last month was the most violent month yet, with 311 people killed. Ciudad Juarez is the epicenter of a bloody drug war between rival cartels for control of lucrative routes into the US. Last year, 1,653 people were murdered in the city.
■CANADA
Moroccan convicted
Said Nomad, a Moroccan citizen who has lived in Quebec since 2003, was convicted on Thursday of four terrorism-related charges for plotting attacks in Germany and Austria in order to get the NATO nations to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Nomad, 36, was found guilty of one count of plotting to set off a bomb in Vienna, participating in a terrorist act, facilitating an act and committing extortion for a terrorist group. He faces life in prison. Royal Canadian Mounted Police found evidence on Namouh’s computer of dozens of videos and other propaganda materials, as well as thousands of pages of transcripts from online discussions revealing he was an active member on jihad forums and message boards.
■UNITED STATES
Speeding driver was 11
Police say an 11-year-old boy led law enforcement on a high-speed chase reaching up to 160kph early Wednesday morning in central Wyoming. The chase ended after 80km near Crowheart on the Wind River Reservation, where police managed to corner the car. The driver then tried to flee on foot, but was caught.
■HONDURAS
Brazil wins assurances
A Brazilian delegation won assurances on Thursday that the military will not attack the Brazilian embassy where ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is holed up. The delegation met with Zelaya as well as Supreme Court President Jorge Rivera. The interim government had said it would not raid the embassy but Brazil began expressing concern after tear gas was fired nearby and loudspeakers used to harass Zelaya and about 60 supporters who are staying with him.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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