NEW ZEALAND
X-files released
The military released hundreds of previously classified reports yesterday detailing claims of UFO sightings and alien encounters. The reports, dating from 1954 to last year, were released under freedom of information laws after the Defence Force removed names and other identifying material. In about 2,000 pages of documents, members of the public, military personnel and commercial pilots outline close encounters, mostly involving moving lights in the sky. Some of the accounts include drawings of flying saucers, descriptions of aliens wearing “pharaoh masks” and alleged examples of extraterrestrial writing.
SOUTH KOREA
Gamer allegedly kills child
A mother has been arrested for allegedly killing her three-year-old son while she was tired from Internet game-playing, police said yesterday. The death is the latest of several cases related to computer game addiction in one of the world’s most wired societies. Kim, 27, played online games for about 10 hours a day, police said, adding her neighbors described her house as “like a trash site” where her two children were left crying for hours. Police in the city of Cheonan said Kim, who also has a one-year-old son, beat the three-year-old and strangled him after he disturbed her by urinating on the floor and crying.
NEW ZEALAND
US critical of ‘flap’
US diplomats disparaged Wellington’s reaction to a suspected Israeli spy ring as a “flap” and accused the government of grandstanding in order to sell more lamb to Arab countries, according to cables released on WikiLeaks. The arrest and conviction in 2004 of two Israeli citizens, who were caught using the identity of a cerebral palsy sufferer to apply for passport, caused a serious rift with Israel, with allegations that the two men and others involved were Mossad agents. “The New Zealand government views the act carried out by the Israeli intelligence agents as not only utterly unacceptable but also a breach of New Zealand sovereignty and international law,” then-prime minister Helen Clark said after the arrests. However, a confidential US cable written in July 2004, after high-level diplomatic sanctions were imposed against Israel, commented: “The GoNZ [government of New Zealand] has little to lose by such stringent action, with limited contact and trade with Israel, and possibly something to gain in the Arab world, as the GoNZ is establishing an embassy in Egypt and actively pursuing trade with Arab states.”
RUSSIA
Seductive spy to lead youth
A pro-Kremlin youth group was yesterday expected to elect seductive spy Anna Chapman to a top role in the organization. Chapman, booted out of the US along with nine other spies in July, will likely become head of the social council of the Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard), a source in the group told RIA Novosti. The Molodaya Gvardiya, which is now part of the structure of the ruling party, United Russia, was to choose its new leaders at its fourth congress yesterday. “What function she is going to perform will be determined just before the congress. But most likely she will head the social council,” the source said. The position would provide yet another role for the increasingly busy Chapman, who posed virtually nude for a local men’s magazine, met Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and attended a space launch since returning home.
AUSTRIA
Likud member visits rightist
An Israeli lawmaker has met with the leader of Austria’s far right amid protests from the Jewish community. Ayoob Kara, a deputy minister and a member of Israel’s ruling Likud Party, told reporters on Tuesday that he considered Heinz-Christian Strache and his Freedom Party as partners in the fight against terrorism and that there was nothing in the group’s program that “isn’t kosher.” Austria’s Jewish community criticized the get-together and called for Kara’s resignation. Strache’s anti-immigration party recently saw a surge in support in local elections in Vienna following a campaign laced with anti-Islamic rhetoric. Kara said he would do all he could to “legitimize” Strache in Israel and around the world.
UNITED KINGDOM
Zara to wed rugby player
Prince William and Kate Middleton will soon have company on the royal wedding calendar. Buckingham Palace announced on Tuesday that Zara Phillips, Queen Elizabeth II’s eldest granddaughter, is engaged. Phillips, an accomplished equestrian, said she was shocked but “very happy” that her rugby-playing boyfriend Mike Tindall had proposed. No date has been set yet. The 32-year-old Tindall has played 66 times for England and was in the team that won the 2003 World Cup. It was during the tournament that he first met Phillips in a Sydney bar. Phillips, the daughter of Princess Anne, has won medals in world equestrian championships and was once voted BBC sports personality of the year. Phillips, 29, is 12th in line to the throne. The palace said in a statement that the couple got engaged on Monday evening at their home in western England.
UNITED STATES
Poison plan considered
The Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) considered poisoning food supplies at US hotels and restaurants with ricin and cyanide, intelligence officials told CNN on Tuesday. However, the Department of Homeland Security emphasized the threat was akin to the plots discussed in numerous online jihadist publications, where militants and their sympathizers routinely consider ways to attack Western interests. An anonymous source in the US intelligence community told CBS News earlier this week that the threat was “credible.” Authorities have met with representatives in the hotel and restaurant industry to discuss the threat and “best practices” for ensuring food safety, according to CNN.
NORWAY
Reindeer given reflectors
Reindeer owners here have a Christmas safety tip for Santa — put reflectors on his fleet-footed animals so they won’t get hit by cars. About 2,000 reindeer have been fitted this month with reflective yellow collars or small antler tags to cut down on the car crashes that now kill 500 reindeer a year and pose a danger to motorists across Arctic Norway. “It really works,” Kristian Oevernes, the leader of the project at the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, said of the project in Finnmark, where the sun does not rise in mid-winter. About 200,000 reindeer live in Norway, mostly owned by Sami Aborigines, who raise them for meat, skins and antlers, according to the International Center for Reindeer Husbandry.
UNITED NATIONS
Sewage forces evacuation
Sewage from an unusually high tide caused a stink that forced the emergency evacuation of the Security Council on Tuesday, a spokesman said. The Security Council chamber in a basement of the headquarters in New York, which overlooks the East River, was hurriedly emptied as a mounting sulfurous smell engulfed the area, diplomats said. “We were about to start the debate, but there was a very strong smell of gas,” said one diplomat who had been in the chamber. Ambassadors and other top diplomats were all ushered out and 150 children who were to take part in the special debate were taken to the US mission across the street.
UNITED STATES
‘Prince’ Frederic glues eye
The husband of ailing Hollywood socialite and actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was hospitalized on Tuesday after accidentally gluing one of his own eyes shut. Gabor, 93, has been in and out of hospital in recent months, but this time it was self-proclaimed Prince Frederic Von Anhalt who was rushed to hospital after he mistakenly picked up a bottle of nail glue he mistook for eye drops and sealed his eye shut, according to celebrity Web site TMZ.com. The colorful 66-year-old German socialite underwent a procedure at a Beverly Hills clinic to unstick his eye. One of his representatives told TMZ he was in good spirits. Just two months ago, von Anhalt — who says he was adopted as an adult by a German princess — was hospitalized for swallowing a bee while sunbathing and eating Kaiserschmarrn pancake in his backyard. He has claimed to have fathered the daughter of late Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith after her death in February 2007. Earlier this year, he launched a bid to become the next governor of California. Von Anhalt is Gabor’s ninth husband.
UNITED STATES
Gunwoman stops news
A gun-wielding woman burst into a North Carolina TV station on Tuesday, forcing the evening newscast off the air, although no one was injured, the station said. After a brief standoff with a police SWAT team that surrounded the building of ABC Charlotte affiliate WSOC-TV, the woman was taken into custody. ABC News said she had pulled out a gun and put it to her head, though police later learned the gun was not loaded. A CBS affiliate in Charlotte, WBTV, identified the woman as Wendy Naidas. The station went black during the incident, which interrupted its 5pm broadcast, but was back on air an hour later. Employees were evacuated to the back section of a parking lot during the incident. Police chief Rodney Monroe told WBTV that Naidas threatened the receptionist and herself while they were barricaded in the building. Although police initially said Naidas had fired at least one shot, Monroe later said no shots had been fired.
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
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
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of