PHILIPPINES
‘Gift’ explodes, kills woman
Police say a gift-wrapped grenade exploded and killed a woman when she opened the package inside her house in an upscale neighborhood of Manila yesterday. Metropolitan Manila police chief Nicanor Bartolome says police are trying to establish a motive for the blast in Manila’s Taguig city and are interviewing other members of the 31-year-old woman’s family. Unwrapping the package apparently removed the pin from the grenade, triggering the blast. Bartolome says the woman died instantly.
NORTH KOREA
Human feces up for sale
Shops selling human excrement began operating this year, as acute shortages of fertilizer in the sanctions-wracked country put a price on feces, an analyst said on Tuesday. Aid groups have said human waste has long been used on domestic crops in the impoverished communist state, but there is now a trade in the readily available commodity, a North Korea analyst told a seminar at a South Korean university. “Each household used to use human excrement as fertilizer. But because it’s hard to keep up with the amount, ‘human manure’ shops showed up at markets,” Kim Young-soo, a professor at Seoul’s Sogang University, told the seminar. Kim said other products making their way on to a limited must-have list for North Koreans this year included skinny jeans, after a ban on fashionable trousers was lifted. North Korean women have previously been told to wear only skirts or traditional attire in public places, but the interdiction on trousers was lifted this year, Kim said. Other popular items include secret imports like instant noodles and adult movies, he said.
KAZAKHSTAN
Term may be extended
The parliament yesterday backed a plan for a referendum that would extend the mandate of the Central Asian state’s long serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev to 2020. The central election commission unexpectedly announced this week it had received a petition to hold a referendum which if agreed would mean the country skips 2012 presidential polls and Nazarbayev serves for another decade. Speaker Ural Mukhamedzhanov confirmed that the referendum would be on “changes in the Constitution to prolong the mandate of the president,” according to the Interfax--Kazakhstan news agency.
SINGAPORE
ArtScience museum to open
Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands will open the world’s first ArtScience museum in February, the latest attraction at its US$5.5 billion gambling complex built by US casino giant Las Vegas Sands. With a form reminiscent of a lotus flower designed by renowned architect Moshe Safdie, the science museum is due to open on Feb. 17 at 1:18pm, “as advised by our feng shui master,” a Marina Bay Sands spokeswoman said. Dubbed “The Welcoming Hand of Singapore” by Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Adelson, the museum hosts 10 “fingers” anchored by a round base in the middle. The design of each finger reveals different gallery spaces featuring skylights at the “fingertips” that illuminate the dramatically curved interior walls. The building features 21 gallery spaces totaling 6,000m2 that will deliver exhibits from art and science, media and technology to design and architecture, the statement said. The permanent exhibition includes objects representing accomplishments of art and science through the ages, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Flying Machine, a Kongming Lantern and a high-tech robotic fish.
UNITED STATES
Man chews through restraints
The King County sheriff’s office in Washington State says a 92-year-old man chewed through restraints to free himself after two men robbed his house. Sergeant John Urquhart says that on Monday two men knocked on Lester Matteson’s door in Shoreline and asked to use his phone, claiming their car had broken down. Once they entered, the men grabbed the victim’s arms and held them while they used masking tape to tape him to a chair. Urquhart says the men ransacked the house, eventually taking off with more than US$400 in cash and the victim’s 2000 Ford pickup truck. It took Matteson two hours to chew through the masking tape. Matteson told KOMO-TV he wasn’t frightened, but at his age, “you don’t wrestle two young men.” And he says he’s learned his lesson: “Watch out who you let in.” The robbers are still at large.
UNITED KINGDOM
Charity begins at ATM
The government is considering plans to ask for donations to charity each time a customer uses an ATM, or pays for items using their bank card. The Cabinet Office said yesterday the proposals are being debated as officials consider ways of boosting the amount of money donated to good causes. A study by the Charities Aid Foundation published this month found that just over half of British adults regularly give to charity, donating an estimated £10.6 billion (US$16.3 billion) each year. Ministers believe that adding a request for donations at cash points, or offering the use of landmark government buildings for charity events, could increase that total. Critics say the government hopes the public’s money can limit the impact of harsh spending cuts.
UNITED STATES
Man admits to grisly killing
Authorities say a man already on probation has admitted killing a woman whose body was found in a suitcase on a New York City street. He claimed she attacked him first. Hassan Malik was held without bail after his arraignment on Tuesday on a murder charge. Police say a passer-by found 28-year-old Betty Williams’ body in a suitcase in East Harlem last week. A court complaint says Malik told police he returned to his apartment to find Williams dead. The papers say Malik said he choked Williams with an electric cord after she wound it around his neck and hit him with a frying pan. Prosecutors say forensic evidence will contradict him. His lawyer says the 55-year-old Malik was about to start a job as a drug counselor.
UNITED STATES
New Yorkers shred bad bits
Looking forward to next year was not enough for some New Yorkers on Tuesday. First, they needed to shred the bad bits of 2010. So on annual Good Riddance Day, members of the public were invited to jot down their least favorite moments and memories, then stuff the paper into a giant shredder set up at Times Square. Big Apple resident Melissa Altman said she shredded “a name, a person I liked for a while, a person I just want to get rid of.” “It’s the guy who didn’t know I existed,” another woman said, throwing her piece of paper into a bin, which then dumped its cargo into the truck-sized shredder. One woman said she had scribbled “California” on her paper. Whether the high-tech voodoo works is one thing. But the shredder certainly shreds — and the shredded paper is recycled as toilet roll.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion