■AUSTRALIA
Treat-stealing thief done in
A thief has been undone by his habit of stealing treats from his victims’ fridges, after police used the DNA he left on a half-eaten doughnut and empty bottles to catch him. Jamie Scott McKillop left an empty can of Coke in one house he robbed, the remains of a Krispy Kreme doughnut in the kitchen of another and empty bottles of pre-mixed alcoholic drinks in another, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Police were able to match DNA traces from the litter to him, the report said. “Frankly, it is not surprising that Mr McKillop was not concerned about leaving his DNA at the scene. After all, he had committed 154 offences without apprehension,” Justice Peter McClellan said.
■MALAYSIA
Pygmy elephant calf dies
An endangered pygmy elephant calf rescued on Borneo early this month has died, a minister said yesterday. Sabah state environment minister Masidi Manjun said the two-year-old female calf died from severe internal bleeding. On June 4, the wildlife rescue unit saved the highly dehydrated pygmy elephant from a moat at an oil palm estate. “The lesson we learn from this tragedy is that the best place for the animal to survive is in its natural habitat and not in human captivation,” Masidi said.
■SRI LANKA
Senior Tiger to aid Colombo
A senior leader of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels has agreed to help the government in its post-war reconstruction efforts, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday. The Sunday Observer said Selvarasa Pathmanathan, formerly the chief arms smuggler for the rebels, had already been working to convince Tiger sympathizers abroad that the fight for an independent Tamil homeland was over. Government troops defeated the Tamil Tigers last year after decades of bloody separatist warfare. “Pathmanathan told the Sunday Observer that several Tiger activists living abroad had now begun to understand the ground realities,” the paper said. Pathmanathan was appointed chief international representative of the Tigers by rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran shortly before Prabhakaran was killed in the last days of the war.
■BANGLADESH
Riots shut down university
One of the country’s leading universities closed indefinitely yesterday after five people were injured in riots by students demanding time off to watch the 2010 World Cup. Students carrying sticks rampaged through the University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka on Saturday demanding term be cut short so they could see World Cup matches, local police chief Rezaul Karim said. “The junior students wanted the campus to close so they can watch the World Cup. But some senior students, who have exams, didn’t want that — so there were some very tense clashes,” Karim said.
■INDIA
Protestor killed in Kashmir
One demonstrator was killed and five injured yesterday in Kashmir when troops fired bullets to disperse violent protests over the death of a Muslim youth, police and witnesses said. Rafiq Bangroo died on Saturday, days after being injured in the Kashmiri summer capital Srinagar in what his family allege was a beating by paramilitary forces. Enraged by Bangroo’s death — the second in less than 10 days of a civilian allegedly at the hands of security forces — hundreds of Kashmiris took to the streets yesterday. Protesters attacked a paramilitary bunker, prompting the soldiers to open fire that left one person dead, police said.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Rwandan general shot
Former Rwandan army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa was shot outside his home on Saturday, his wife said, calling the attack an assassination attempt. Rosette Nyamwasa said the former army chief of staff was shot by a man who followed the couple’s car on foot into the parking area of the complex where they lived in an upmarket Johannesburg suburb at around midday. “He pulled the pistol and just shot my husband who was next to the driver,” Nyamwasa said. Nyamwasa said she believed Rwandan President Paul Kagame was behind the attack, which she described as a planned assassination attempt that was politically motivated.
■ITALY
Berlusconi takes on tapping
As many as 10 million locals have had their phone conversations bugged, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday, as he tried to drum up support for a controversial bill to limit wiretaps. In a video message, Berlusconi complained of the country’s culture of wiretapping, which he described as “without equal in the world.” Citing statistics that 150,000 telephones in the country had been tapped, Berlusconi said that if each phone had been used to call 50 different people, 7.5 million people could have had their phone calls bugged, and that number could “easily be 10 million.”
■ITALY
Cardinal under investigation
Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the archbishop of Naples, is being investigated as part of a probe into corruption in the awarding of public works contracts, the ANSA news agency reported on Saturday. Sepe, who was previously the head of the Vatican’s property agency, has been implicated in arranging for a Rome apartment loaned out free to civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso. It turned out rent was paid for the flat by an architect linked to Rome construction magnate Diego Anemome, who is under investigation by prosecutors over several public tenders, including a number run by Bertolaso, notably for infrastructure for the G8 summit last year.
■FRANCE
Villepin launches movement
Former prime minister Dominique de Villepin launched a new political movement on Saturday to act as an alternative to the policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy, his longtime rival. In his speech before a crowd of several thousand people shouting “Villepin, president,” the one-time diplomat never mentioned the 2012 presidential race, but appeared to be laying the foundations for the contest with his movement “Republic Solidarity.” Villepin and Sarkozy belong to the conservative UMP party, which controls parliament.
■UAE
Cameras to be ‘everywhere’
Dubai, where a top Hamas commander was killed in January in an assassination blamed on Israel’s Mossad spy agency, is to have security cameras “everywhere,” the police chief was quoted as saying yesterday. The bustling Gulf city currently has 25,000 security cameras, but “surveillance needs to be ramped up to meet the growing requirements of an expanding city,” Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan told the National newspaper. “We need to work according to a well-studied strategic plan and not only react to events as they come along ... We will have cameras everywhere,” Khalfan said of the US$136 million project.
■MEXICO
Mayor assassinated
The mayor of Guadalupe was shot and killed on Saturday, only two weeks before Chihuahua state elections, state authorities reported. Mayor Manuel Lara Rodriguez “was killed inside a private home ... three gunmen fired the shots and then fled in a car,” the state justice department said. Another 18 people were killed across the state between late Friday and Saturday, it added. Chihuahua, bordering the US, is Mexico’s most violent region with the rival Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels waging daily gangland warfare. State elections for governor, state and city officials will be held on July 4.
■UNITED STATES
Man shoots stepdaughter
A man rode a bicycle up to a taco chain restaurant in San Bernardino, California, on Saturday afternoon and shot his stepdaughter and three members of her family, leaving two of them dead, before fatally turning one of his two handguns on himself. Lieutenant Jarrod Burguan of the San Bernardino Police Department said the suspect was the stepfather of one of the victims, a 29-year-old woman. She was shot multiple times and was in critical condition. Her husband, 33, was pronounced dead at the scene, and her six-year-old son died at the hospital. Her five-year-old son is in “very, very critical” condition at a local hospital, Burguan said. The suspect, whom the police identified as Jimmy Schlager, 56, said “something to the effect of, ‘Well, what do you think of me now?’” to the family before firing multiple shots at them and then shooting himself in the head.
■UNITED STATES
Tax worker saves life
A man credits a Kentucky state revenue employee with saving his life when he had a heart attack during a telephone call about his income tax bill. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Earl Phillips was talking with state employee Natalie Brown on May 26 when she noticed that he was breathing heavily and seemed ill. Phillips said on Friday that he didn’t want to tell a complete stranger that he needed help, but she verified his address and then called emergency responders. He was later transferred to a Louisville hospital, where doctors put a stent in his heart. He had a 90 percent blockage in one of his arteries. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear praised Brown’s dedication on Friday.
■CANADA
Zoo animals stolen
Hundreds of police mobilized on Saturday after the theft of a truck, its trailer and its cargo — a Bengal tiger and two camels from a Canadian zoo, officials said. The truck and its trailer were stolen from the parking lot of a motel in Saint-Liboire, Quebec, said provincial police spokesman Richard Gagne. He said the animals from the Bowmanville Zoo in Ontario were being transported when the two employees stopped overnight at the motel. When they woke up, the truck and animals were gone. The zoo is offering a C$20,000 (US$19,580) reward for the the animals, tiger Jonas, and camels Todd and Shawn. Zoo officials feared the animals might suffer from dehydration in heat around 30°C.
■UNITED STATES
‘Magic’ coffee poses risk
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Saturday urged consumers to stop using an instant coffee product that is being marketed as a sexual aphrodisiac, saying it could dangerously lower blood pressure. In a statement, the FDA said Magic Power Coffee contains a chemical that could interact with some prescription drugs to significantly lower blood pressure, leading to dizziness or lightheadedness.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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