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.
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