■JAPAN
Reactor clears first test
A controversial “fast-breeder” nuclear reactor reached criticality — the point when a nuclear chain reaction becomes self-sustaining — yesterday after 14 years of suspension. The Monju Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor cleared the first hurdle of test operations on the road to generating power at full capacity in 2013. “It has reached criticality with no problems,” a spokesman for the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which runs the reactor, said. On Thursday, the Monju was reactivated for the first time since it was shut down in 1995 following a fire and a subsequent cover-up that sparked public anger. Fast-breeders use a mix of plutonium and uranium and generate or “breed” more plutonium than they consume.
■MALAYSIA
Wedding shooter gets death
A court has sentenced an Indonesian man to death for fatally shooting five people during a wedding reception on remote Borneo island. The news agency Bernama reported yesterday that the court in Sarawak State sentenced Nyambang Entuhan on Friday to death by hanging over the 2007 shooting. The man, who is married to a local woman, reportedly became angry and opened fire after the village chief warned wedding guests not to marry Indonesians. He was also sentenced to 22 years in prison for wounding nine others and illegal firearms possession.
■INDONESIA
Moderate quake strikes
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake hit West Nusa Tenggara Province yesterday, the local meteorological and geophysics agency said, but no tsunami alert was issued. The quake struck at a depth of 10km, 68km northwest of Raba at 10:22am, according to the agency. There were no immediate reports of damage.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Prince Harry to fly choppers
Britain’s Prince Harry is to learn to fly Apache attack helicopters, a role that could lead on to frontline service in conflict zones such as Afghanistan. His decision to train on the aircraft, which carry armor-piercing missiles and chain-powered machine guns, was supported by the Army Air Corps. The 25-year-old’s flying skills and ability were judged to be best suited to the Apache, one of the most lethal helicopters in military deployment, which is sometimes used in close support of grounds troops. The news was announced on Friday by St James’ Palace on the day the prince received his provisional wings from his father, the Prince of Wales, at a ceremony to mark his graduation from the army helicopter training course. The prince has made no secret of his desire to return to Helmand Province in Afghanistan, where he served as a forward air controller for 10 weeks in 2008 before publicity about his presence forced a withdrawal.
■ROMANIA
Diplomat in hit-and-run
A Romanian diplomat involved in a fatal hit-and-run case in Singapore was detained for questioning on Friday, Romanian prosecutors said. Silviu Ionescu, who was Bucharest’s charge d’affaires in Singapore at the time, is alleged to have hit three pedestrians in two incidents in December while driving a car belonging to the Romanian mission. One of the victims, a 30-year-old Malaysian national, suffered brain damage and died on Christmas Day, while the two others suffered injuries. The diplomat, who flew back to Romania days after the accident, “has tried to influence witnesses’ depositions and asked an employee to ... erase data in his computer,” prosecutors said. Ionescu was taking in for questioning for six hours on Friday by prosecutors who are seeking a 29-day detention warrant against him. Ionescu has publicly denied he was the driver, claiming the car was stolen. In interviews to Romanian media, he alleged he was “a victim of a conspiracy by Singapore authorities.”
■RUSSIA
Bomb kills one, wounds five
A powerful bomb tore through a crowd of commuters in Russia’s troubled Northern Caucasus on Friday, killing a woman and wounding five other people, officials said. The woman died in a hospital shortly after a bomb planted in a garbage bin exploded at a railway station in the town of Derbent in the violence-ridden Republic of Dagestan, regional transport police spokesman Akhmed Magomayev said. He said a police officer was among the wounded. Dagestan, along with other provinces of Russia’s Northern Caucasus region, is home to an active Islamist insurgency. Regarded as Russia’s most ethnically diverse republic, Dagestan lies between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea.
■SOUTH AFRICA
White exttremists charged
South African investigators on Friday said five white extremists had been charged with terrorism in connection with a plot to blow up black townships ahead of the World Cup in June. The men were part of a group of seven people arrested late last month in the northeastern town of Phalaborwa, near the Kruger National Park, said Musa Zoni, spokesman for the police special investigations unit. “They were conspiring to engage in terrorist activities, which includes the fact that they wanted to blow up areas in which black people live,” Zondi said. “The seven were charged with terrorism. Charges against two were withdrawn today,” Zondi said.
■UNITED STATES
Bad economy is bad for sex
The global economic crisis is taking a toll on older peoples’ sex lives, according to an AARP survey. Between 2004 and last year, the percentage of people in their 50s who say they have sex at least once a week took about a 10-point plunge for both sexes. Women dropped to 32 percent from 43 percent and men to 41 percent from 49 percent in the sex survey of 1,670 people aged 45 and older. Most other age groups saw a drop in their frequency of sex too, according to AARP, a non-profit membership organization for people 50 years and older.
■UNITED STATES
Killer was asleep: doctor
A psychiatrist testified that a Colorado teen was sleepwalking when he allegedly shot and killed his nine-year-old brother and wounded his mother. John Hardy gave his testimony at an ongoing hearing to decide if Daniel Gudino, 14, of Colorado Springs would become one of the youngest people in the state to be charged as an adult with second-degree murder. Authorities say Gudino told police he shot his brother and mother last year and later added in a recorded statement: “I was hoping it was just a nightmare.” Hardy said Gudino has parasomnia and thought he was shooting at ghosts. Prosecutors contend Gudino acted willfully when he picked the lock on a gun cabinet with toothpicks, loaded a .22-caliber rifle, shot his brother in his bed and wounded his mother in the shoulder, then stabbed her with a knife and scissors.
■UNITED STATES
Spying landlord convicted
A Philadelphia-area landlord who admitted he used hidden cameras to spy on 34 female tenants is heading to prison. A Montgomery County Court judge sentenced 47-year-old Thomas Daley to between four and 10 years behind bars on Friday. Daley pleaded guilty last year to hiding cameras behind mirrors or in ceiling fans to spy on tenants. Prosecutors say Daley taped the women or watched them live on his computer. They say it began in 1989 and continued until September 2008 at five apartment buildings he owned in Norristown.
■UNITED STATES
Aide stole lunch money
A Southern California jury has awarded US$5,700 to the family of an autistic girl whose lunch money was stolen for nearly two months by a teacher’s aide. The Ventura County panel found on Thursday that Oxnard Union High School District was negligent for failing to remove the aide from Megan Spitzer’s special education class in 2007. Kristen Santoyo was caught on video stealing the US$5 a day that Megan’s parents gave her to buy lunch at Camarillo High School. Megan was unable to tell anyone, but her parents’ suspicions finally prompted an investigation. Santoyo, an admitted methamphetamine user, pleaded guilty two years ago and got a 180-day jail sentence.
■UNITED STATES
Mom starved child to death
A 30-year-old mother has pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter in what Minnesota prosecutors say was the starvation death of her 10-year-old daughter. Court records show Ludusky Sue Hotchkiss of Sandstone, Minnesota, faces four years in prison in a plea deal entered on Thursday in Pine County District Court. Her severely disabled daughter, Lakesha Victor, weighed just 14kg when she died in 2006 at the family’s home in Hinckley. An autopsy found the girl died of malnutrition and dehydration.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is to meet US President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally would secure a more favorable trade deal before the deadline on Friday next week. Marcos would be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term. Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in trade talks even with close allies that Washington needs to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China. “I expect our discussions to focus on security and defense, of course, but also
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
‘OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE’: Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen are to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss EU-China relations and geopolitical challenges Top leaders from China and the EU are to hold a summit in Beijing this week, as the major economic powers seek to smooth over disputes ranging from trade to the Ukraine conflict. Beijing and Brussels have been gearing up to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, but a suite of squabbles over state subsidies, market access and wartime sanctions have dampened the festivities. A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would visit on Thursday. The statement came after the EU
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