■CHILE
Limited time for politicians
Voters tired of slick, endless election campaign broadcasts may finally have a sanctuary. Ahead of the Dec. 13 general elections, independent candidates have been allotted as little as two seconds of air-time to put their case to voters, thanks to rules that distribute time according to how a party fared in the previous election. Candidates cannot buy air time because the law forbids TV channels from accepting cash for broadcasts.
■UNITED STATES
Deported German charged
A German man has been charged with trying to extort US$100,000 from former model Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber over a photo of their daughter gagged and bound to a chair, authorities said. Edis Kayalar was charged in absentia in federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday. The photo was apparently taken by the then seven-year-old’s nanny as a joke and it came into the hands of Kayalar, a friend of the nanny. Kayalar contacted the couple over the summer, seeking money from them for the photo. He was arrested in September and deported to Germany for being in the country illegally, but he phoned the couple again this month and demanded US$100,000.
■UNITED STATES
Evangelist sentenced
Evangelist Tony Alamo was sentenced on Friday to 175 years in prison for taking underage girls across state lines for sex, effectively punishing him for the rest of his life for molesting children he took as “brides”’ in his ministry. Alamo, 75, was convicted in July on a 10-count federal indictment. Alamo’s lawyers said they planned to appeal the sentence.
■UNITED STATES
Survivor dog euthanized
A dog that survived being thrown off the roof of a six-story Brooklyn building this summer has been euthanized, despite pleas from animal activists to spare her life. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says the one-year-old pit bull mix named Oreo was euthanized on Friday. The group said Oreo was too dangerous to be placed in a home or to live among other dogs. The decision sparked outrage among animal activists. Oreo suffered two broken legs when she was thrown off the roof on June 18. Nineteen-year-old Fabian Henderson pleaded guilty to aggravated cruelty to animals.
■UNITED STATES
Cash-for-grades plan killed
A North Carolina principal is retiring after school district leaders halted a cash-for-grades fundraiser she approved. Wayne County Public Schools said on Friday that Rosewood Middle School principal Susie Shepherd has gone on leave for the rest of the month and will retire at the beginning of next month. The Goldsboro middle school had planned to allow students to buy 20 test points for a US$20 donation. Shepherd says she approved the idea after a parents council presented it as a way to raise money for new technology for the school.Officials stopped the fundraiser last week, saying no students will get extra credit and any donations will be returned.
■UNITED STATES
Woman faked illness
Texas authorities say a woman lied about having breast cancer and spent US$10,000 raised at a benefit to have her breasts enlarged in a bid to save her marraige. Trista Joy Lathern, 24, reportedly shaved her head to look like a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy. The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that Lathern has been charged with theft by deception.
■SWEDEN
Hundreds of reindeer drown
Hundreds of reindeer crossing a frozen lake above the Arctic Circle for their annual migration to winter grazing grounds drowned this week as the ice collapsed beneath them. The herd of roughly 3,000 reindeer were being moved by their Sami herders from the western shore of the frozen lake Kutjaure to the east when some reindeer at the front suddenly turned back, causing the ice to crack and several hundreds to drown. “In the ensuing commotion the whole herd moved in circles, adding great pressure and weight on the ice,” said Erik Gustavsson, a manager at the County Administrative Board of Norrbotten. The reindeer crashed through the ice and then trampled on each other as they tried to climb out of the water, he said.
■RUSSIA
Slain man sold for kebab
Three homeless men in the Russian city of Perm killed a man, ate part of the body and sold other portions to be used as meat in a kebab stand, investigators said on Friday. The three men, acting out of “personal hostility toward the victim,” stabbed and beat the 25-year-old with a knife and a hammer until he died at the scene, the Perm branch of Russia’s investigative committee said. “After the crime was carried out, the corpse was dismembered and partly used for food, and also sold to a kiosk that sold kebab and meat pies,” it said in a statement. The homeless men have been charged with murder.
■SLOVENIA
Qaddafi gives camels
Prime Minister Borut Pahor returned from a two-day visit to Libya with the “sweet problem” of finding a home for two camels he received from Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, media reported on Friday. “Hosting them will be one of the sweet problems I will have at home,” Pahor told Qaddafi after the Libyan leader announced the present in Tripoli, the 24ur news channel reported. Pahor gave Qaddafi a picture of a four-year-old Lipizzaner horse Napolitano that Slovenia will send to Libya as a present along with a stick that belonged to late Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, a co-founder of the Non-Alignment Movement of which Libya continues to be a leading member.
■NETHERLANDS
Cow dung fuels turbines
A plant that converts cow dung into energy for homes opened on Friday. Manure from cows at a nearby dairy farm will be fermented along with grass and food industry residues, and the biogas released during the process will be used as fuel for the thermal plant’s gas turbines. The heat generated will be distributed to around 1,100 homes in the area around Leeuwarden, plant operator Essent said in a statement. Firms in Europe and elsewhere have been investing in biogas plants and this is the second of its scale running on cow manure in the Netherlands.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Rabbits feed the poor
An official from the island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned said rabbits killed to control an infestation will be fed to the poor. Henry Bredekamp says all the rabbits that are certified safe for human consumption will be donated to charity beginning today. Robben Island has been battling an explosion of rabbits that threatens to damage its sensitive vegetation. There are an estimated 25,000 rabbits. Bredekamp said Friday about 2,000 have been shot in the past month under the supervision of animal welfare experts.
■INDIA
Turtle attracts worshippers
People are flocking to a temple to worship a turtle with natural markings on its shell resembling the eyes of a Hindu deity, the Press Trust of India said on Friday. The news agency described the reptile as a soft shell Gangetic Turtle, which is on an official list of endangered species in India, and said worshippers chased away forestry officials when they tried to rescue the creature. Prasanna Kumar Behera, who is in charge of Orissa State’s Rajnagar district, said the captive turtle was in “distress.” “We tried our best to convince the priests and local people to hand it over to the forest department, but the villagers are unrelenting,” Behera said. The unusual markings on the turtle’s carapace apparently resemble the large, prominent eyes of Lord Jagannath, Orissa’s most popular Hindu deity.
■AUSTRALIA
Serial drunk drivers charged
A couple were caught drunk driving three times in just three hours yesterday — each time a little further along the same street, police said. Victorian police said they first encountered a 37-year-old man driving along Montague Street in Melbourne shortly after midnight. He was breath-tested and found to be over the legal alcohol limit for driving. “Police observed the female passenger in the car was also alcohol affected and warned her not to drive,” police said in a statement. Just over an hour later, the pair were pulled over again in Montague Street and this time the 27-year-old woman was driving. She was breath-tested and also found to have too much alcohol in her system. “The pair were nabbed a third time on Montague Street about 3:05am when the man was breath-tested and refused to accompany police back to the station,” police said. The pair had not been arrested, but face drunk-driving charges, police said.
■HONG KONG
Gang leader finds God
A notorious triad gang leader claimed that he had turned to God and repented to a priest, a news report said on Saturday. Hung Hon-yee (洪漢義), who is believed to be the leader of the 14K triad gang in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui district, made the claim outside court after being arrested with 67 other triad gang members. Hung, 61, spoke to reporters about his gangland life after a court appearance on Friday, the South China Morning Post reported, and said: “I feel that I was very wrong. I have repented to a priest.” When his followers told reporters to stop asking questions, Hung, nicknamed Teddy in gang circles, insisted on continuing to speak about his new-found faith, saying: “We are Christians.”
■INDIA
Nine killed in derailment
A speeding train derailed in western India, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 80. Fifteen cars of the New Delhi-bound train flew off the tracks on Saturday and rolled onto their sides when the driver suddenly applied the brakes because of poor visibility in the region, said Vipin Kumar Pande, superintendent of police. A broken rail track punctured one car and killed some of the passengers, Pande said.
■SOUTH KOREA
Four killed in collision
Four fishermen died and three others were missing after a South Korean fishing boat collided with a Hong Kong cargo ship off the country’s south coast, officials said yesterday. The seven were among nine crew aboard the 3 Dae Kyong, which collided with the freighter Joshu Maru on the high seas, 130km southeast of Jeju island late on Saturday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema