■ FRANCE
Dealers talk via T-shirts
Drug dealers have developed a novel way of alerting their accomplices to police surveillance — by printing T-shirts with the registration numbers of undercover cop cars, Marseille police said on Monday. Officers found a bag full of such T-shirts on Saturday when they inspected a car whose driver had abandoned the vehicle after being pursued by police. Officers also found half a kilogram of cannabis in the car. “Until now dealers would graffiti our [car] numbers on walls or print insulting slogans on sweatshirts, but this is a bizarre variation,” a police union representative said.
■ RUSSIA
Executive killed in Moscow
A businessman was murdered in a daytime shooting in the stairwell of his apartment building in central Moscow on Monday, the RIA Novosti news agency reported yesterday, citing police. The man, who headed a firm called Gold Bear, drove himself to the hospital despite bullet wounds to his head and shoulder, a police source told the agency, but he later died in hospital.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
TV program a ‘freak show’
A new reality TV show, which will film two people — one disfigured, the other attractive — living together in a house full of mirrors, has been branded a “freak show” by critics. In each episode of Channel 4’s Beauty and the Beast, a different pair will be followed by cameras both inside and outside the house, to explore how people’s lives are shaped by their looks. “Putting a disfigured person in a mirrored house in the name of entertainment is neither a healthy nor an appropriate subject for a television program. It sounds like an extraordinary freak show,” Vivienne Pattison, director of campaign group Mediawatch UK said. Channel 4 defended the show as an attempt to “challenge people’s narrow definition of beauty in a frank and engaging format.”
■ NIGERIA
Politician’s son kidnapped
Politician Mahmud Dahiru said his 10-year-old son was kidnapped by gunmen on Sunday in Bauchi state. Dahiru said that gunmen made a ransom demand on Monday and asked that he not contact the police. However, police had already informed about the abduction and set up checkpoints throughout the capital city of Bauchi. Dahiru hopes to run for the federal House of Representatives in next year’s election.
■ FRANCE
Baby alligators on the loose
Police and wildlife experts have launched a search for two baby alligators that escaped from a zoo near the town of Pierrelatte. The 90cm-long reptiles, originally from China, went missing from the Crocodile Farm late last month, a police official said yesterday. “They were first thought to have been stolen, but recent evidence suggests they are prowling around between a cornfield and a disused canal,” he said. “These are young alligators with jaws hardly any bigger than a poodle’s, so no one will get eaten,” police said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Pope bash do’s and don’ts
Britons planning to attend open-air services by Pope Benedict XVI next month have been told it’s OK to bring a picnic, but no wine. Organizers of the pontiff’s visit released a list on Monday of what is and isn’t allowed at the gathering in London and Birmingham. Sunscreen, banners, flags, cushions and folding chairs are okay. Barbecues, candles, musical instruments, pets and alcohol are banned because they “could pose a threat to yourself or others.”
■UNITED STATES
Boy goes on long joyride
A 12-year-old boy had permission to drive the family pickup truck to the end of the driveway to unload trash, but he kept going until he was stopped nearly 160km away. The Clackamas County sheriff’s office says it received a call from the boy’s mother reporting the boy and the pickup missing from their home near Portland, Oregon. An alert went out, and the youngster was stopped by a sheriff’s deputy in Washington State. Detective Jim Strovink says the case will be referred to juvenile authorities for possible prosecution of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and driving without a license.
■MEXICO
Army kills US citizen
A Mexican soldier said that a US citizen attacked an army convoy and was killed when troops shot him in self-defense outside the city of Acapulco, a police official said. An army lieutenant told police that Joseph Proctor opened fire on a military convoy with a rifle, forcing the soldiers to shoot back, said Domingo Olea, a police investigator in the state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located. Olea provided no further details on Proctor, who was found dead in his car early Sunday. Proctor’s father, William Proctor, said he did not know of his son being involved in any illegal activity and did not believe he would have owned a gun or attacked soldiers.
■ MEXICO
Actress in poison drama
A Venezuelan soap opera actress is at the heart of a real life telenovela after her personal assistant was arrested for allegedly trying to poison her and her family. Mexico City prosecutors arrested actress Gabriela Spanic’s assistant after she allegedly poisoned the actress’ food with ammonium sulfate. Prosecutors say that Marcia Fernandez, an Argentine citizen, had been putting the chemical in Spanic’s food for months. The actress told investigators that she, her family and a maid had been suffering from vertigo, headaches, fatigue and chills for months. Prosecutors said on Monday that Spanic became suspicious of her assistant after noticing she was the only one in the household who hadn’t been sick.
■CANADA
Amnesty chief blasts Ottawa
Amnesty International’s secretary general, Salil Shetty, on Monday accused the Canadian government of a “serious worsening” of human rights in Canada. “Amnesty International is more and more concerned about the serious worsening of the human rights approach of this government,” Shetty said in a speech to the CIVICUS world assembly on citizen participation in Montreal. “There is a real shrinking of democratic spaces in this country ... Many organizations have lost their funding for raising inconvenient questions,” he said. “You expect more from Canadians ... I think there is a growing gap between the values and the track record of Canada historically and the actions of the current government, which is deeply concerning.”
■UNITED STATES
Bullet prompts security call
Texas Governor Rick Perry is again calling for the federal government to step up border security after officials said at least one stray bullet from a shootout in Mexico hit a University of Texas-El Paso building. A fire fight between gunmen and police broke out Saturday along the border in Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. The next day, university officials found a bullet lodged in an office door frame inside a campus building. Police believe it flew across the border during the shootout.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was