■CHINA
Bank official sentenced
The former vice president of a major government bank has received a suspended death sentence for abusing his position and taking bribes, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court convicted Wang Yi (王翼) of misusing his post at the China Development Bank to help his relatives and others and of receiving “huge amounts of money.” He was accused of taking bribes worth 11.96 million yuan (US$1.75 million).
■PHILIPPINES
Grenade attack kills one
A grenade attack on a political gathering left one man dead and 14 wounded in the same area of where 57 people were massacred last year, police said yesterday. The attack on a meeting of politicians at a resort in Maguindanao late on Wednesday was linked to next month’s national elections, the provincial police chief said. A mayoral and vice-mayoral candidate were unharmed when two men aboard a motorcycle threw a grenade over a fence, he said.
■MALAYSIA
Police offer wedding service
Couples are being invited to hold their weddings at a district police headquarters in a bid by authorities to boost ties with the public and avoid being idle in a community where crime is rare, an official said yesterday. Officers will provide security for outdoor ceremonies at the police station in Johor State, and their wives might even help prepare food for a wedding feast, said Mohamad Fauzi Arshad, a police official. “We want to cement the relationship” with the public, he said, adding that officials will also help organize community tea parties. Authorities have time to focus on public relations because the only crime reported so far this year was a house break-in, he said.
■DENMARK
Hotel pioneers pedal power
A hotel is pioneering a pedal-power electricity generation scheme it hopes will catch on in other countries. The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, 15 minutes from the center of the Danish capital, is installing two exercise bicycles hooked up to generators. Guests will be invited to jump on and start pedaling — and if they produce enough electricity they will be given a free meal. From June, they will be able to race against the 366-room hotel’s solar panel system in a bid to produce the most electricity. “Anyone producing 10 watt hours of electricity or more for the hotel will be given a locally produced complimentary meal encouraging guests to not only get fit, but also reduce their carbon footprint and save electricity and money,” the hotel said in a statement. A hotel spokeswoman said the offer was open only to paying guests.
■RUSSIA
Officials search for leopards
Russia has asked Iran to help it revive a rare population of Persian leopards near the Black Sea resort scheduled to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Caucasian or Persian leopards disappeared from the Caucasus mountains around the resort of Sochi in the 1920s because of excessive hunting. As part of an effort to restore the population ahead of the Games, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin received two wild male leopards as a gift from Turkmenistan last year and said he was hoping to receive more from Iran. Putin released the two into the wild last year. Obtaining female leopards, however, has proven much more difficult. “The search for females in both Turkmenistan and Iran continues,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
■ITALY
Court rejects gay marriage
The Constitutional Court on Wednesday rejected legal recognition of gay marriage, saying arguments in its favor were either “unfounded” or “inadmissible.” Courts in Venice and Trento in the northeast sought the court’s opinion after gay rights groups questioned whether the bar to same-sex marriage was a violation of human rights enshrined in the Constitution. They also argued it may flout European and international obligations, and that the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage.
■ITALY
Mafia boss arrested
Police on Wednesday arrested the boss of the Naples-area Camorra mafia, Nicola Panaro, considered one of the country’s 30 most dangerous fugitives, the ANSA news agency reported. The 41-year-old head of the most powerful Camorra clan, the Casalesi, had been on the run for seven years, ANSA said. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni hailed the arrest as “another extraordinary success by the state against the Camorra.” Late last month, police arrested 12 alleged members of the Casalesi clan, including the father and brother of Michele Zagaria, a boss who has been on the run for 15 years. Last week, authorities seized land and buildings worth more than 700 million euros (US$930 million) from suspected Camorra mafia members.
■NETHERLANDS
Coastal town evacuated
Around 450 residents and tourists were evacuated from the coastal town of Bergen aan Zee because of a brush fire in nearby dunes. National media broadcast images of the fire and evacuation. No injuries were reported. The town’s mayor, Hetty Hafkamp, told reporters on Wednesday night that the fire, which began in the afternoon, had proved difficult to control because of strong winds.
■COLOMBIA
Travel warning issued
The government said on Wednesday that it would warn its citizens against visiting Venezuela because of heightened dangers since eight Colombians were detained in the neighboring country on espionage accusations. Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez told reporters that his office was preparing a formal recommendation. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accuses Venezuela of violating the rights of the Colombians arrested in Venezuela in recent weeks. It is alleged that they were spying on Venezuela’s ailing energy infrastructure. The detentions followed months of jibes between Uribe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is wrestling with power shortages. Chavez has clamped down on trade with Colombia and has accused “counter-revolutionaries” opposed to his socialist government of slashing power cables to worsen the nation’s electricity crisis.
■UNITED STATES
Larry King divorces, again
Veteran television interviewer Larry King filed for divorce from his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, on Wednesday, citing “irreconcilable differences” for the breakdown of the 13-year marriage. Shortly after King’s lawyers filed for divorce at Los Angeles Superior Court, attorneys for Southwick also filed for divorce citing “irreconcilable differences.” Although Southwick is King’s seventh wife, it is the eighth time the septuagenarian television personality has filed for a divorce. He was twice married and divorced to Alene Akins, with whom he split in 1972.
■MEXICO
Plane crashes onto road
A cargo plane crashed onto a road while trying to land in Monterrey, killing all five crew members on board and one person on the ground, authorities said on Wednesday. Local civil defense director Jorge Camacho said the entire crew died and one person was killed inside a car crushed under the plane. The Airbus A300 was trying to land in rain at about 11pm on Tuesday when it crashed on a road, Camacho said. Charred and smoking wreckage was spread across an area at least 100m across. The nose of the plane and both wings were torn from the fuselage and lay in the middle of the two-lane road. Authorities recovered the plane’s flight recorders and were investigating the cause of the accident.
■UNITED STATES
Teen leads gay pride march
A lesbian teenager from Mississippi who challenged her school district’s ban on same-sex dates for a school dance will serve as grand marshal of the annual gay pride march in New York. Organizer Heritage of Pride Inc announced on Wednesday that Constance McMillen would appear in the parade on June 27. It commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots in which patrons at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back against a police raid. The 18-year-old senior says she’s honored to be part of the celebration.
■UNITED STATES
Boy hands out heroin
Police say a third-grader in Pennsylvania handed out more than 60 small bags of heroin to his classmates before his teacher discovered them. Wilkinsburg police say the eight-year-old brought the bags to Turner Elementary School on Tuesday. At a news conference on Wednesday, police said some of the bags were found empty in a trash can, but there was no evidence the kids had ingested the drugs. Police say the bags were stamped with the words “trust me.” School officials sent a letter home to parents about the incident. Police are investigating how the boy got the drugs.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not