■PHILIPPINES
Volcano draws tourists
Thousands of tourists are flocking to restive Mayon volcano with many even risking their lives to get close to the spectacular flowing lava, authorities said yesterday. Albay provincial Governor Joey Salceda said 2,400 tourists a day had been pouring into the area since the volcano started oozing lava on Dec. 14, compared with about 200 a day before. “All the hotels are fully booked, even the cheapest ones,” Salceda said. He said that tourists typically only stayed overnight to view the lava oozing from the volcano’s crater in the dark. But many were also slipping by security patrols to enter the 8km danger zone around Mayon to get a close-up experience, he said. “It’s a big problem. I think the first violation of the zero casualty [record] will be a dead tourist,” Salceda said. “At the moment of the eruption, the local guides will have better chance of getting out. The hapless tourist will be left behind.”
■NEW ZEALAND
Jackson becomes a knight
The king of Middle Earth is being made a knight. Writer and director Peter Jackson, whose widely acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy scooped 17 Oscars, has been made a knight in the New Year Honors’ list. He becomes Sir Peter Jackson for his “services to film.” The Lord of the Rings trio showcased the country’s unique natural scenery as J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy land, filled with sword-swinging warriors, elves, wizards and hairy-footed hobbits. The project broke box office records around the world, won Jackson international accolades, and prompted a spike in tourism.
■THAILAND
Bomb kills two soldiers
A roadside bomb killed two soldiers in the south yesterday, as authorities boosted security ahead of the New Year and the sixth anniversary of an insurgency in the region, police said. The blast ripped through a truck carrying five members of the rangers force as they patrolled a route used by teachers in Pattani Province. Two soldiers died at the scene and three others were seriously wounded. Police said the bomb contained around 15kg of explosives and was detonated remotely by cellphone.
■HONG KONG
Feces leads to jail term
A court has jailed a caregiver who forced a 65-year-old dementia sufferer to eat her own feces. Chan Sau-kuen force-fed the woman her own excrement on at least two occasions as punishment for soiling herself. Jailing Chan for six months on Tuesday and fining her HK$3,000 (US$390), Magistrate Symon Wong warned her that she would “be punished by heaven” for her behavior.
■SERBIA
Official resigns over Mladic
The head of a Serbian unit hunting indicted war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic resigned on Tuesday over his team’s failure to arrest the Bosnian Serb former military chief by the end of the year. “This is to inform you that for reasons well known to everybody ... I resign from my post” as chief of the unit, Rasim Ljajic said in a letter submitted to Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic. The unit was formed in 2006 to track down and arrest suspected war criminals from the Balkans conflicts sought by The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). But Ljajic’s unit has failed to catch Mladic.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Prisoner taunts police
An escaped prisoner is taunting police and attracting a growing fan base on his Facebook page, mocking authorities for failing to find him and openly musing about moving across the Atlantic. Police have appealed to his more than 3,800 Facebook friends to help track him down. Craig “Lazie” Lynch, 28, escaped from the minimum-security Hollesley Bay Prison in southern England three months ago. He regularly updates his Facebook page with ungrammatical digs at police. Police said Lynch had been serving a seven-year sentence for committing a burglary with a weapon, but did not go into detail. Lynch’s updates typically center on what he’s eating — pizza was recently on the menu. His profile pictures show him shirtless while holding a well-roasted turkey.
■NIGERIA
Fighting kills 38 in Bauchi
Fighting between Islamic militants and security forces left at least 38 people dead as sect members armed with spears, knives, assault rifles and arrows ransacked a neighborhood and set homes ablaze, police officials said. Mohammed Barau, a police spokesman for Bauchi state, said members of the Kata Kalo sect began fighting among themselves on Monday night and accusing each other of causing their leader to fall seriously ill. The fighting spread into the streets of a poor neighborhood near the city of Bauchi and military forces attempted to stop the violence, Barau said.
■FRANCE
Carbon tax unconstitutional
A new carbon emission tax that was due to take effect on Friday has been ruled illegal by the constitutional court as it exempted too many polluters. The Conseil Constitutionnel struck down the tax on Tuesday as the exemptions violate “the principle of [tax] equality.” It estimated that 93 percent of industrial emissions outside of fuel use, including the emissions of more than 1,000 of the country’s most polluting industrial sites, would be exempt from the tax of US$24.40 per tonne of emissions.
■GERMANY
Checkpoint McDonald’s?
McDonald’s said on Tuesday it planned to open an outlet at Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie, completing the landmark’s 20-year transformation from Cold War front line to a money-making tourist hotspot. The 120-seater restaurant will be opposite the Mauermuseum dedicated to the Berlin Wall and hopes to open next year. Checkpoint Charlie was the main crossing point for foreigners between East and West Berlin. After the East German authorities erected the Berlin Wall in 1961 as an “anti-capitalist protection barrier,” the crossing point expanded to include several traffic lanes.
■CANADA
Rare death in line of duty
An Ottawa police officer was stabbed to death on Tuesday, the first time a policeman in the city has been killed in the line of duty since 1983. The deceased officer was 51-year-old father of four Eric Czapnik, Ottawa police chief Vern White said. Police said Czapnik’s attacker took him by surprise as he was parked outside a hospital. The alleged assailant was identified as Kevin Gregson, 43, a former member of the Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police, CBC television reported.
■UNITED STATES
Diner hurt by moose head
A woman says she was struck by the decor at a New York City restaurant — when it fell on her head. Raina Kumra says in a negligence lawsuit filed last week that a 68kg stuffed moose head plummeted off a wall at the White Slab Palace on Oct. 4 and hit her. She says she suffered a concussion and other injuries.
■MEXICO
Protest at film prison
About 300 relatives of inmates at a prison where Mel Gibson is reportedly scheduled to make a movie protested outside the facility on Tuesday, fearing their loved ones will be moved to make way for the production. The group of protesters said it would be harder to visit inmates if they are transferred out of the city of Veracruz. Earlier this month, Veracruz governor Fidel Herrera said part of the prison would be emptied next month “because a grand production will be filmed there with our friend, the actor and producer Mel Gibson.”
■UNITED STATES
Hacker pleads guilty
A Florida man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to hacking into corporate computer networks and carrying out what officials have described as the largest credit card theft in US history. Albert Gonzalez pleaded guilty in US District Court in Boston to two counts of conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to payment card networks, the Justice Department said. Gonzalez and two co-conspirators were accused of stealing more than 130 million credit and debit card numbers from firms supporting major retail and financial organizations. Gonzalez was accused of leasing servers to other hackers who used the platforms to store malicious software known as “malware” and launch attacks against corporate victims.
■UNITED STATES
Suspect draws on scandal
The TV producer accused of shaking down David Letterman to keep mum about his affairs is drawing on the Tiger Woods sex scandal to try to bolster his defense. In court papers filed on Tuesday, Robert Halderman’s lawyer cited published reports that Woods paid an alleged mistress millions of dollars to stay silent. Attorney Gerald Shargel suggested that since the woman hasn’t been charged with a crime, Halderman shouldn’t be, either.
■UNITED STATES
Anthrax vaccine offered to 80
Antibiotics and vaccines are being offered to about 80 people in New Hampshire as authorities investigate the US’ first known case of gastrointestinal anthrax. Officials don’t know how the woman contracted the disease but are focusing on a drum circle gathering she attended last month. They said that vaccines and antibiotics will be available to people who attended the event. An adviser to the state’s public health division, says one theory is that the spores became airborne through vigorous drum playing, and the woman swallowed them.
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