■MALAYSIA
Artist wins damages
The mayor of the country’s largest city was ordered to pay 750,000 ringgit (US$226,000) in damages to an artist for vandalizing his sculptures, the first case of its kind in the country, news reports said on Saturday. The High Court ruled on Friday that the mayor of Kuala Lumpur committed “institutional vandalism” by altering artist Syed Ahmad Jamal’s sculpture without his consent, The Star newspaper reported. Syed Ahmad, 80, filed the suit in 2003 after the mayor made modifications to his sculpture in a public park as part of maintenance work done in 2000. The sculpture, called Lunar Peak, was commissioned by a bank and created in 1986. The mayor replaced the ceramic glass slabs Syed Ahmad used with stainless steel plates, substituted blue tiles with black ones and fixed steel tubing along the perimeter of the sculpture, the report said.
■CHINA
Truck-bus collision kills 32
A head-on collision between a truck and bus in the northeast killed 32 people and injured another 21 early yesterday. The accident happened along a section of highway undergoing road maintenance in Fuxin City, Liaoning Province, Xinhua news agency said. The truck was on the wrong side of the road when it plowed head-on into the bus, bursting into flames on impact, said an official from the Liaoning provincial transport department who gave his surname as Wang. All three people aboard the truck died immediately and 29 bus passengers died.
■CHINA
Train derails, 10 dead
A passenger train in Jiangxi Province has derailed, killing at least 10 passengers and injuring 55, Xinhua said yesterday. The train, heading from Shanghai to Guilin in Guangxi Province, was caught in a landslide as it passed through the city of Fuzhou in Jiangxi’s storm-hit mountain district in the early hours of yesterday. Xinhua said it was not immediately clear how many passengers were onboard, but the number of casualties was expected to rise.
■AUSTRALIA
Twelve hurt in ‘crash’ drill
An emergency training exercise in Sydney’s Botany Bay ended with real casualties when volunteers needed medical attention after awaiting “rescue” in chilly waters. “Exercise Splash” held on Saturday was designed to test rescuers’ ability to save lives if a plane from nearby Sydney Airport should ever ditch into waters off Port Botany. A total of 12 surf life-saver volunteers who had been pretending to be aircraft passengers stranded in the water were treated for hypothermia and sea-sickness. “Twelve people were assessed by ambulance officers for hypothermia,” a New South Wales police spokesman said yesterday, adding that five were taken to hospital.
■INDONESIA
Ainun Habibie dies
Former first lady Hasri Ainun Habibie died on Saturday of cervical cancer at a German hospital where she had been treated since March. She was 72. Family spokesman Ahmad Watik Pratiknya told reporters in Jakarta “She passed away very peacefully.” He said former president B.J. Habibie had been at his wife’s bedside throughout her treatment. He said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had ordered a state funeral for the former first lady.
■SWITZERLAND
Most expensive stamp sold
The world’s most expensive postage stamp, a one-of-its-kind issue printed in Sweden in 1857, was sold at auction in Geneva to an international consortium on Saturday, auctioneers said. One of the rarest known stamps, the “Treskilling Yellow” — or three-skilling stamp — was issued by mistake during a print run of eight-skilling stamps, which are yellow. The three-skilling was normally green. A Swedish schoolboy stumbled upon it in 1885 while rummaging for stamps to sell on for pocket money. The last time it was sold, in 1996, it fetched 2.875 million Swiss francs (US$4.5 million) at auction. Stamp auctioneers David Feldman did not disclose the identity of the buyers, nor the price paid this time. They did say, however, that the stamp remained the world’s most expensive.
■GERMANY
Attack dogs kill girl
Police in the east say four attack dogs have bitten a three-year-old to death and badly injured the girl’s great-grandmother, who tried to rescue her. A police spokeswoman said on Saturday that prosecutors opened an investigation for negligent homicide against the dogs’ owner, the girl’s aunt. The great-grandmother, 70, and the girl were visiting the aunt at her house in Oldisleben-Sachsenburg in Thuringia State on Friday evening when the dogs, Staffordshire bull terriers, attacked the girl. The dogs were killed by authorities.
■GAZA STRIP
War damage not repaired
A UN agency says about three-quarters of the damage inflicted by Israel’s war on Gaza more than a year ago has not been repaired or rebuilt. Israel continues to bar construction material from entering Hamas-ruled Gaza as part of an overall blockade of the territory. The UN Development Program said in a report yesterday that Gazans have carried out US$173 million in small-scale repairs with recycled rubble or material smuggled through border tunnels. The report says the international community has been largely sidelined in the reconstruction effort. Israel says it bans construction material to prevent it from being used by Hamas for military purposes.
■FRANCE
Eurostar slows to a crawl
Eurostar trains between Paris and London and fast trains on northern French lines have slowed to a crawl because of a signal problem after thieves stole copper cables. The SNCF company that runs the high-speed lines says delays of up to two hours have been reduced to some 40 minutes on the northern lines, but that trains, including the Eurostar, were still forced to crawl over some 9km of tracks without functioning signals.
■EGYPT
Bust dispute rumbles on
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle assured Cairo on Saturday that a dispute over the ownership of a 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti would not damage ties between the two countries. Cairo and Berlin have been at loggerheads over who legally owns the bust of the ancient beauty that is on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin. “I understand very well that this is a sensitive topic in Egypt. The statue was a legitimate acquisition of the Prussian state,” Westerwelle a told news conference in Cairo. The ancient artifact was at risk of being damaged even if it was lent to Cairo, the minister said. “Experts say it should not be moved due to possible breakage and for everyone’s benefit, it is better not to subject it to damage,” Westerwelle said.
■CANADA
Montreal mafia guy missing
An elderly man associated with the powerful Rizzuto mafia family has been reported missing, police said on Friday, saying the disappearance was a “possible abduction.” Paolo Renda, 70, was recently released from prison after a serving a sentence for criminal association but did not arrive home on Thursday night, police sources said. His wife — sister of alleged Montreal mafia chief Vito Rizzuto, who is in prison in the US — found his car near their home and alerted police, who found the car doors open and keys on the dashboard.
■UNITED STATES
Polymath Gardner dies
Prolific mathematics and science writer Martin Gardner, 95, known for popularizing recreational mathematics and debunking paranormal claims, died on Saturday at Norman Regional Hospital, his son James Gardner said. Martin Gardner was born in 1914 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at the University of Chicago. His creation of paper-folding puzzles led to his publication in Scientific American magazine, where he wrote his “Mathematical Games” column for 25 years. The column introduced the public to puzzles and concepts such as fractals and Chinese tangram puzzles, as well as the work of artist M.C. Escher. Allyn Jackson, deputy editor of Notices, a journal of the American Mathematical Society, wrote in 2005 that Gardner “opened the eyes of the general public to the beauty and fascination of mathematics and inspired many to go on to make the subject their life’s work.”
■CANADA
‘Husband killer’ denied bail
A US woman accused of killing her husband during a hunting trip in Canada has been denied bail. Mary Beth Harshbarger is facing charges of shooting and killing Mark Harshbarger while the two were hunting in central Newfoundland in 2006. She told police she mistook her husband for a bear and shot him accidentally. Judge Timothy Chalker handed down his decision on Friday in a Grand Falls-Windsor provincial courtroom following a two-day bail hearing. Mary Beth Harshbarger is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday to enter a plea.
■CHILE
Terror suspect back in jail
An appeals court ordered a Pakistani man back into a high-security prison on Saturday, saying the chemicals allegedly found on his possessions at the US embassy and inside his apartment could only have come from direct contact with explosives. Mohammad Saif Ur Rehman Khan has said it is all a misunderstanding and that he wants the US to be safe and secure. The appeals court overturned a magistrate who said there was insufficient evidence to justify his preventive detention. Court president Lamberto Cisternas wrote that the evidence shows Khan carried powerful explosives and that he represents not only “a danger to the security of society,” but also “in some ways, to the success of the investigation.”
■BOLIVIA
General under house arrest
A retired general famous for capturing Ernesto “Che” Guevara was ordered held under house arrest on Friday in connection with an alleged plot against President Evo Morales. Prosecutors allege that General Gary Prado exchanged “ultrasecret” encrypted e-mail with Eduardo Rozsa, a Bolivian-born Hungarian who was slain last year during a police raid.Authorities say Rozsa and two other men killed were involved in a conspiracy to create a separatist right-wing militia in the opposition-dominated Santa Cruz state.
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