■NEW ZEALAND
Fake IDs seized by police
Hundreds of teenagers are using forged drivers’ licenses with false birth dates to show that they are 18 years old — the legal drinking age — police said on Monday after charging a student with forgery. Police said they had seized a computer from a 17-year-old and obtained a database with the names of hundreds of recipients of forged drivers’ licenses. They charged five students with using forged licenses and urged others to surrender the fake documents to avoid arrest. Police said the teens using forged licenses, which they allegedly bought for NZ$100 (US$74) to gain admission to bars and pubs, were almost all 17-year-olds from as many as 15 schools in the Auckland region.
■NEW ZEALAND
Police end cooler joyride
Three men were arrested after a joyride on a picnic cooler down the world’s steepest street, police said on Monday. One man sat in the big blue, plastic bin — known as a chilly bin — while a 17-year-old high school student drove a car towing him down Baldwin Street on Sunday morning in the South Island city of Dunedin. Baldwin Street, which has a gradient of 1 in 2.86, has been listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s steepest public road. Police Sergeant Craig Brown told the Otago Daily Times that the men were reported to have poured gasoline on another road, set it alight, and then ridden the lid of the chilly bin through the flames.
■HONG KONG
Chess players brawl
A 77-year-old chess player was hospitalized after squabbling with his opponent during a game in a public park, police said on Monday. The dispute broke out over a move in a game between a 60-year-old man and the 77-year-old in a park on Sunday morning in the North Point district. The older man was pushed to the ground as the row escalated and then called police, who interviewed both men. The 77-year-old was admitted to hospital for treatment, but no arrests were made. Public parks are popular places for the elderly to play games such as chess and mahjong in densely populated region, where most people live in cramped, high-rise apartment blocks.
■AUSTRALIA
Boy charged over chocolate
A 12-year-old Aboriginal boy appeared in court on Monday charged with receiving a stolen chocolate frog worth about A$0.70 (US$0.65), reports said. The boy, who cannot be identified, briefly faced Northam Children’s Court on charges of receiving the chocolate “Freddo,” allegedly shoplifted by a friend, and a small, inexpensive novelty sign reading “Do not enter, genius at work.” The boy’s Aboriginal Legal Service lawyer, Peter Collins, said it was scandalous that a young child could face such charges. “The fact of the matter is he’s 12, and these are the most trivial charges imaginable, and it can hardly be a justification for this kid to be brushed up against the courts to teach him a bit of a lesson,” he told local media.
■MYANMAR
Ferry collides with tugboat
At least 50 people are believed to have drowned when a wooden ferry packed with 178 people collided with a tugboat on a river in the southern Irrawaddy delta region, officials said yesterday. Thirty-one bodies were found after the single-deck ferry collided with a tugboat pulling a barge late on Sunday in the Ngawun River, and 21 people were missing, officials said. “There is very little chance of finding those missing alive. Most of them are women and children,” said an official in Pathein, capital of Irrawaddy.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Poisoner doctor jailed
A doctor who tried to poison his pregnant lover’s drinks to make her lose her a baby, was jailed for six years on Monday. Edward Erin, 44, a consultant hospital doctor and pharmacologist, was found guilty last month of attempting to spike his girlfriend’s coffee and an orange juice to make her have a miscarriage. London’s Old Bailey court was told that Erin, a married father of two, had decided to take action after Bella Prowse, with whom he had had an affair, refused to have an abortion. Prowse contacted police after becoming suspicious about a powder she found in drinks Erin had given her.
■GERMANY
‘Personalized paper’ debuts
Billed as Europe’s first “personalized paper,” niiu, a newspaper tailored to readers’ individual wishes and delivered to their door before, made its first appearance in Berlin on Monday. Customers of the paper choose what topics they want to read about and receive news only on their chosen subjects. Articles are pulled together from major German papers and foreign titles as well as major blogs and Internet news sources.
■SEYCHELLES
Pirates hijack tanker
A Virgin-Islands owned chemical tanker carrying 28 North Korean crew members has been hijacked by Somali pirates off the Seychelles, the multinational naval force operating in the area said yesterday. The EU naval force EU Navfor said the tanker was hijacked on Monday northwest of the Seychelles.
■GERMANY
Thrills, spills and bills
Fourteen people rescued by the fire brigade after being left dangling upside down from a fairground ride for nearly an hour have been slapped with a hefty bill, a spokesman said on Monday. The thrill-seekers got more than they bargained for when the ride, a large spinning wheel with rotating gondolas, in Berlin came to a halt 15m above the ground. Each person must now pay 281.43 euros (US$420). The operator of the ride refuses to pay because they didn’t call the emergency services, and were capable of rescuing the people themselves, Bild said. Stefan Fleischer, a spokesman for the Berlin fire service said the people could claim back the costs from their insurance firms, or sue the operator.
■ZAMBIA
Journalist cleared of charges
A journalist was acquitted on Monday of pornography charges after e-mailing pictures of a woman giving birth on the sidewalk outside a hospital during a doctors’ strike. Magistrate Charles Kafunda said prosecutors had failed to prove the case against Chansa Kabwela, news editor of the Post newspaper. Kabwela later told reporters outside the court that her acquittal was a victory for everyone affected by the doctors’ strike, which lasted two weeks in June. Kabwela was charged over graphic images of a child born in the breech position, after the family was turned away from the hospital due to the strike. The baby died. The woman’s family e-mailed Kabwela the pictures, asking her to publish them to highlight the suffering caused by the striking public hospital doctors. Kabwela decided the pictures were too graphic to publish but she e-mailed them to Vice President George Kunda with a message urging them to take action. The images outraged President Rupiah Banda, who ordered that she be arrested for distributing obscene images. She was charged with circulating pornography with intent to corrupt public morals.
■IRAQ
Arnie pumps up Army
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has dropped in on US troops, thanking them for the sacrifices they and their families are making. Schwarzenegger entered a crowded dining hall at Camp Victory on Baghdad’s outskirts on Monday to a loud roar from the soldiers gathered. The governor congratulated them on the job they were doing before shaking hands and posing for photographs. The former bodybuilder also discussed with soldiers the need to work out, reminding them: “You have to pump up every day.” Schwarzenegger also handed out cigars.
■UNITED STATES
Unruly man stops flight
US Airways said a flight made an unscheduled stop after the pilot decided a passenger was being unruly. Airline spokesman Todd Lehmacher said Flight 728 left Philadelphia for London on Monday night and the pilot diverted it to Boston to have the passenger removed. Lehmacher said the pilot had the man removed before beginning the Atlantic crossing “in the interest of safety.” The man’s name wasn’t immediately available and Lehmacher did not say what kind of disturbance he allegedly made on the plane. Lehmacher did say there was no indication of any terrorist threat.
■UNITED STATES
The word of the year is ...
What word sums up 2009? How about “unfriend?” That’s the New Oxford American Dictionary’s 2009 Word of the Year. It means to remove someone as a friend on a social networking Web site such as Facebook. Each year Oxford University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word that best reflects the mood of the year. This year’s finalists also included “netbook,” a small laptop, and “sexting,” sending sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone.
■UNITED STATES
Hey, Boss, where are you?
Bruce Springsteen bellowed “Hello, Ohio!” to his fans at the Palace of Auburn Hills. That’s in Michigan. The 60-year-old rock legend referred to the neighboring state several times on Friday night until E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt whispered in his ear. A visibly embarrassed Springsteen grinned and said such a mistake was “every front man’s nightmare.” The Detroit Free Press said Springsteen rocked the forgiving audience for nearly three hours with new and old hits, including a complete performance of his album Born to Run.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Edward Woodward dies
Edward Woodward, the English actor who starred in Breaker Morant and The Wicker Man, the TV dramas Callan and The Equalizer and had a long stage career, has died at the age of 79. He had been suffering from various illnesses, including pneumonia, and died in hospital, his agent Janet Glass said. Woodward began his career on the stage at the Castle theatre in Farnham, England, in 1946. After graduation from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he worked extensively in repertory companies as a Shakespearean actor throughout England and Scotland, making his London debut in Where There’s A Will in 1955. He also worked on Broadway in New York and in Australia and recorded 12 albums. He starred in the British TV show Callan from 1967 to 1972 and the US TV show The Equalizer from 1985 until 1989. He was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth in 1978 for services to drama.
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
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
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of