■AFGHANISTAN
Search for bodies continues
The death toll in one of the country’s worst natural disasters could rise, officials said yesterday as rescue workers used everything from bare hands to bulldozers to dig for bodies buried in snow. The bodies of at least 166 people killed when avalanches hit a treacherous mountain highway in the north this week have been recovered, said interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary. Scores of vehicles remain buried beneath massive snow floes and could contain more bodies, he said. “The latest information we have is that 166 people were killed and 125 others have been rescued and taken to hospital,” he said. A heavy blizzard struck the busy northern Salang Pass, which connects Kabul with the north of the country through the Hindu Kush mountain range, on Monday.
■HONG KONG
Kissel conviction overturned
The territory’s highest court overturned Nancy Kissel’s murder conviction in a stunning reversal yesterday and ordered that the US expatriate be retried for allegedly drugging her husband with a laced milkshake and bludgeoning him to death. The Court of Final Appeal found in its 111-page decision that prosecutors had used illegal evidence in the trial, but ordered that the 45-year-old mother of three be kept in custody pending a bail application ahead of her second trial. Kissel, who had lost her first appeal against her conviction, smiled broadly when Chief Justice Andrew Li (李國能) announced the ruling. Kissel’s lawyers argued during the appeal hearing that prosecutors broke the law by using evidence during the murder trial that drew from her initial bail hearing after she was charged. The five judges from the Court of Final Appeal agreed. Kissel has been serving a life sentence since she was convicted in September 2005. Her trial made headlines worldwide with its allegations of drug abuse, kinky sex and adultery in the wealthy world of expatriates in Hong Kong.
■RUSSIA
Red Square photo ban eased
President Dmitry Medvedev will lift draconian restrictions on photographing and filming on Red Square, the security service responsible for the top tourist attraction said on Wednesday. Since 1993, people with professional camera equipment, including tourists, have only been allowed to photograph or film in the red-brick heart of Moscow with an official permit, which takes 10 days to receive. The Kremlin guard service in charge of the Russian president’s security said it would “lift all restrictions on amateur and professional photography” on Medvedev’s order. Restrictions will remain in place for “advertising” and “commercial” photography and filming, it added. Medvedev, himself an avid photographer who publishes his work on the Kremlin Web site, apparently ordered the change after a well-known Russian photographer complained of the red tape while snapping the president in January. “But that’s just plain stupid!” Medvedev sympathized in front of the cameras.
■KENYA
Wildebeest relocated
A senior Kenyan wildlife official says about 7,000 zebras and wildebeest are being moved to one of the country’s premier game parks to restore the balance of predators and prey disrupted by last year’s drought. A senior Kenya Wildlife Service scientist said the animals were being taken from areas where they are abundant to replenish Amboseli National Park’s population. Charles Musyoki said more than 60 percent of the park’s zebra and wildebeest population died during the drought.
■UNITED STATES
Gene link to stuttering found
Three genes linked to a rare metabolic disorder may also cause some cases of stuttering, researchers said on Wednesday in a finding that could lead to a new treatment for the speech condition. Two of the genes are used by brain cells as part of a waste recycling process, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. A third has no other known role. “This is the first study to pinpoint specific gene mutations as the potential cause of stuttering, a disorder that affects 3 million Americans,” James Battey, director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, said in a statement. About 5 percent of preschoolers and 1 percent of adults stutter or stammer. Researchers at the institute studied 123 Pakistani people with and without stuttering, including 46 from a family heavily affected by the condition. Then they compared their DNA to more than 500 people from the US and Britain, half who stuttered and half who did not. None of the people who did not stutter had the genetic mutations.
■UNITED STATES
Charlie Wilson dies
A former US lawmaker and hero of the film Charlie Wilson’s War, who championed covert CIA support for Afghans fighting Soviet troops in the 1980s, died on Wednesday at the age of 76, the hospital said. Wilson, sometimes dubbed “Goodtime Charlie” because of his hard-partying ways, succumbed to a heart attack at 12:16pm, Memorial Health System of East Texas spokeswoman Yana Ogletree said. He was “an extraordinary patriot whose life showed, once more, that one brave and determined person can alter the course of history,” US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in a statement. “As the world now knows, his efforts and exploits helped repel an invader, liberate a people, and bring the Cold War to a close,” Gates said. Texas Governor Rick Perry praised Wilson, saying: “Charlie Wilson led a life that was oversized even by Hollywood’s standards. Congressman Wilson was fiercely devoted to serving his country and his fellow Texans.”
■UNITED STATES
Man nabbed over kid tattoo
Police alleged that an Ohio man had tattooed the letter “A” on the rear end of a one-year-old girl visiting his home. Twenty-year-old Lee Deitrick was arraigned on Wednesday on a felony child endangering charge in Canton Municipal Court, the Repository newspaper reported on its Web site. Authorities said there was no evidence the toddler’s mother permitted the November tattooing. It’s not clear what the letter “A” signifies. Deitrick’s grandmother called the tattoo “a wee-little hairline” and said there was hardly anything left of it. Louisville police chief Andrew Turowski said the tattoo was smaller than a dime. Bond was set at US$250,000. If convicted, Deitrick could face up to five years in prison.
■UNITED STATES
Man smashed 29 TVs
A 23-year-old man allegedly grabbed a baseball bat inside a Walmart store on Wednesday and smashed 29 flat-screen televisions, police in Lilburn, near Atlanta, said. Westley Strellis was charged with 29 counts of criminal damage to property in the second degree, they said. Witnesses told police he grabbed a metal baseball bat from the sporting goods section, then walked to the electronics department and destroyed the TV sets on display, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. Police said the televisions were valued at more than US$22,000.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the