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World News Quick Take

■PHILIPPINES

Residents brace for typhoon

Schools were closed and domestic ferry services in Manila were suspended yesterday as Philippine authorities braced for a third strong typhoon in five weeks. Mirinae, a Category 2 typhoon with maximum center winds of 150kph and gusts of up to 185kph, was expected to make landfall today, dumping rains on major rice-producing provinces north of the capital.



■SOUTH KOREA

North blamed for Web attack

Seoul’s spy chief has blamed North Korea for cyber attacks that briefly crippled US and South Korean government and commercial Web sites in July, reports said yesterday. It was the first time the National Intelligence Service had named a specific body as the user of the Internet protocol (IP) address linked to the attacks, Yonhap news agency and local newspapers reported. The line used in the attacks “was found to be on the IP that the North Korean Ministry of Post and Telecommunications is using on rent [from China],” intelligence service chief Won Sei-hoon told a parliamentary session on Thursday.



■NEW ZEALAND

People suffer ‘green fatigue’

New Zealanders are suffering “green fatigue” caused by continuous warnings of impending disaster because of global warming, according to a magazine survey reported yesterday. Only 3 percent of 1,000 respondents claimed to be “totally committed” to saving the planet, while the vast majority said they still used plastic bags, took long showers and drove gas-­guzzling cars when they could have walked or used public transport, the Reader’s Digest survey found. The magazine quoted an advertising executive who said “green” was a “damaged brand,” and media saturation had led to “green fatigue.”



■KENYA

Criminal group disbands

The Mungiki, a Kenyan criminal organization famous for decapitating some of its victims, announced on Thursday that it was officially disbanded. Once a pseudo-­religious group of dreadlocked youths who worshipped spirits in Mount Kenya and embraced rituals such as female circumcision, the Mungiki has evolved into an extortionist gang notorious for beheading victims. Twenty-one men who had been charged over clashes that left 29 people dead were freed earlier this month alongside Mungiki leader Maina Njenga, who is also the chairman of the Kenya National Youth Alliance.



■RUSSIA

Medvedev condemns Stalin

The killing of millions during Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s rule cannot be justified, President Dmitry Medvedev said on his blogsite early yesterday, warning against any attempt at revisionism. He dismissed apologists’ claims that the “extermination” was necessary for the “higher objectives of the state,” saying: “Nothing can be more important than a human life.” There have been fierce arguments between liberals and conservatives about the legacy of a dictator responsible for the death and imprisonment of millions in the Soviet Union’s notorious gulag prison system. While his brutality has been well documented, however, many people still associate his rule with the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II and remain sympathetic.



■IRAN

Worried pilot says: ‘Pray’

An airline pilot asked passengers to start praying after his plane was hit by a technical glitch early on Thursday, highlighting once again the notorious record of Tehran’s aircraft. The Aseman Airlines Boeing plane had taken off from Tehran airport after a six-hour delay, but had to return following a technical fault, the ISNA news agency quoted a passenger as recounting. “The pilot told the passengers ‘the plane is facing a technical problem and has to return. So please pray,’” a passenger said.



■RUSSIA

‘Bluebeard in a skirt’ jailed

A woman nicknamed “Bluebeard in a skirt” has been jailed for stabbing her younger lover — having already served two jail terms for killing her first husband and another lover. The 45-year-old woman, Irina Rybalko, was sentenced to 12 years in a prison colony on Tuesday at a court in the city of Novosibirsk in Siberia, a spokeswoman for the Novosibirsk legal department, Marianna Glushkova, said on Thursday. Rybalko killed her first husband, with whom she had two children, and was sentenced to four years for manslaughter. On returning from the prison colony, she met a new man and again stabbed him in a quarrel.



■SOMALIA

Centenarian marries teen

He is old enough to be her great-great-grandfather, but Ahmed Muhamed Dhore, a man who claims he is 112 years old, said he had realized a “dream” by marrying a 17-year-old bride. Dhore — who says he was born in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee — already has 13 children by five wives, but said he would like more with his newest, Safiya Abdulle. Hundreds of people attended the extraordinary ceremony this week in Guriceel, in the region of Galguduud. He and his new wife are from the same village, he said, adding that he had waited for her to grow up to propose. Dhore has 114 children and grandchildren. His oldest son is 80 and three of his wives have died. This was his first marriage for three quarters of a century.



■CANADA

Bikers convicted of murder

Six bikers were convicted on Thursday of killing eight fellow Bandidos gang members in 2006 and stuffing their bodies into vehicles abandoned on a Canadian farm. Three of the accused were shooters and were convicted of premeditated murder, while three others were found guilty of a mix of murder and lesser manslaughter charges. The gruesome crimes, in which the victims had been confined in a barn before they were marched out one by one to waiting vehicles and executed with a shot to the head, shocked the public when police in April 2006 uncovered the crime.



■CANADA

Eighth severed foot found

Another severed foot inside a dirty athletic shoe has washed up on the Pacific shore, following seven similar gruesome discoveries since August 2007, police said on Thursday. The foot in a white Nike running shoe, size 8.5, was discovered on Tuesday by two men walking on a beach in a suburb of Vancouver, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. Scientists say the feet could have drifted thousands of kilometers because body parts can remain intact in water for years when protected by shoes.



■UNITED STATES

Rapping teens cited

A rap by four teenagers at a McDonald’s has gotten them a bad rap in one Utah city. The teens were cited by American Fork police earlier this week for disorderly conduct after they rapped their order at a McDonald’s drive-through. The teens said they were imitating a popular video on YouTube. They rapped their order, which begins with: “I need a double cheeseburger and hold the lettuce” once quickly before repeating it more slowly. Spenser Dauwalder said employees at the restaurant told him and his friends they were holding up the line and needed to order or leave.



■UNITED STATES

Is that a ferret in your pants?

Police say a homeless man stole a live ferret by stuffing it in his pants. Rodney Bolton, 38, is charged with theft over the US$129 animal that police say he took from a pet store in Jacksonville Beach, the Florida Times-Union reported. A 17-year-old witness confronted Bolton in the parking lot and was bitten by the animal after the man allegedly shoved it in the teen’s face. That confrontation makes the ferret a “special weapon” under Florida law. So Bolton also faces battery charges for dangerously wielding the animal.



■BRAZIL

Military plane disappears

A military plane with 11 people on board disappeared on Thursday as it flew over the Amazon, the air force said. The C-98 Caravan transport plane was flying from Cruzeiro do Sul, in northern Acre state, to Tabatinga in Amazonas when it issued an emergency distress call 58 minutes after takeoff and then lost radio contact, the Brazilian Air Force said.



■UNITED STATES

‘Wee for Wii’ case closes

The family of a woman who died after taking part in a radio station water-drinking contest to win a Nintendo Wii was awarded more than US$16.5 million by a jury in California on Thursday. Jennifer Strange was 28 when she died in 2007 after participating in the “Hold Your Wee For a Wii” contest run by KDND-FM. The contest promised the popular Nintendo video game to the person who could drink the most water without urinating or vomiting. An autopsy determined that Strange died of water intoxication.
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