VIETNAM
Reporter dies from attack
A newspaper reporter has died after an intruder broke into his home, doused him with chemicals and set him on fire while he was sleeping. The Laborer newspaper said 50-year-old Le Hoang Hung died on Saturday at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City after 10 days of treatment for burns covering 20 percent of his body. His colleague Nguyen Thi Ngoc Mai said Hung covered the southern Mekong Delta for the newspaper for nearly 10 years. She said the attack could have been in revenge for his reporting.
AUSTRALIA
Category 2 cyclone threatens
A cyclone is racing toward the flood-ravaged northeast, rattling nerves throughout a region that has already suffered billions of dollars worth of damage from a months-long crisis. Cyclone Anthony intensified to a Category 2 storm yesterday with winds of 130kph. It was expected to cross the Queensland coast early this morning. The Bureau of Meteorology told residents in coastal communities to brace for destructive winds and more flooding. Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the storm a “big, cruel blow” to residents who have already dealt with months of flooding. Heavy rains that began in November last year caused massive flooding nationwide, killing 35 people and damaging or destroying 30,000 homes and businesses.
GREECE
Police trace carbon theft
The theft of pollution permits that forced the closure of the spot market in EU emissions permits last week may have originated in Romania, a police official said on Saturday. Police identified between eight and 10 Internet protocol addresses that hackers used to attack Greece’s national registry for carbon trading rights, said the official, who declined to be named. “We have located the addresses in Romania, Interpol has been notified,” the official said. The spot market for EU emissions permits was closed after allowances worth up to 30 million euros (US$41.12 million) were stolen from the national registries of several European countries. National registries are the place where so-called EU allowances are electronically assigned to trading companies and polluters in the EU emissions trading scheme, the bloc’s chief weapon against climate change. The theft, possibly a concerted hacker attack, was the latest in a string of scandals and added to factors discouraging other countries from adopting similar cap-and-trade systems.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Regal prophylactics’ on sale
While the nation has a public holiday to celebrate Prince William’s wedding, one company is taking the party one step further with souvenir condoms that urge lovers to “lie back and think of England.” Crown Jewels Condoms of Distinction is producing special celebration packs that bear the slogan: “Like a royal wedding, intercourse with a loved one is an unforgettable occasion.” Critics have dismissed the novelty condoms as “tasteless.” Hugh Pomfret, a spokesman for the company, insisted they were “a unique way to remember this great British occasion ... In years to come, they will be a timeless memento of a magical wedding day.” Presented in regal-looking purple and gold, each pack bears a picture of William and fiancee Kate Middleton gazing into each other’s eyes, and adds it contains a “triumvirate of regal prophylactics,” which are “lavishly lubed” and “regally ribbed.” “England boasts some of the finest lovemaking in the world, with a tradition of coitus going back generations,” lovers are told.
MEXICO
Soldiers seize 90kg of drugs
Soldiers seized nearly 90kg of drugs from the cargo area of an Aeromexico commercial plane scheduled to fly to Tijuana, the military said on Saturday. Agents discovered the shipment on Friday at the airport in Guadalajara, the country’s second-largest city, the Defense Department said in a statement. They confiscated about 50kg of crystal methamphetamine, 30kg of heroin and 10kg of methylphenidate, which is often used to cut heroin, according to the statement. There were no arrests. The Defense Department did not say how the drugs were discovered or give further details on the shipment. Phone calls to Aeromexico representatives rang unanswered on Saturday. Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California, is a major staging point for funneling drugs into the US.
HONDURAS
Zelaya wanted power: Lobos
President Porfirio Lobo says ousted president Manuel Zelaya told him point-blank that he wanted to stay in power despite a constitutional prohibition — the very ambition that opponents alleged to justify the coup that toppled Zelaya. Lobos told opposition radio station Radio Globo that Zelaya made the declaration in March 2009 — three months before Zelaya’s ouster. Before and after the coup, Zelaya repeatedly denied wanting to extend his term. Zelaya is exiled in the Dominican Republic. He did not answer a telephone call seeking comment on Saturday. Lobo said on Saturday that Zelaya asked him to drop his bid for president — but did not say what he was offered in return. Lobo went on to win the November 2009 election.
PERU
Fujimori treated for cancer
Former president Alberto Fujimori, sentenced to 25 prison for human rights abuses, was hospitalized for a fourth time for cancer treatment, one of his sons said on Saturday. Kenji Fujimori said that the cancerous lesions on his father’s tongue have regrown, and that the he was returned to a hospital specializing in cancer treatment late on Friday.
UNITED STATES
Sandbar sprouts furniture
First, a baby grand piano mysteriously showed up on a Miami sandbar. A day after it was removed, a small table with two chairs, place settings, a bottle of wine and a chef statue appeared on the strip of sand. The latest prank has officials worried the sandbar could become a target for more mischief and they are warning such activity is illegal. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says anyone caught leaving items on the sandbar will be arrested. A 16-year-old art student admitted that he put the piano on the sandbar in Biscayne Bay as part of an art project, and a crew removed it on Thursday. The table for two has also been taken down.
UNITED STATES
Ant farm inventor dies
Milton Levine’s Eureka moment came in 1956, when he spotted a mound of ants during a Fourth of July picnic poolside at his sister’s Southern California home. Recalling how as a boy he had collected ants in jars at his uncle’s farm in Pennsylvania, he told his brother-in-law and business partner, E.J. Cossman: “We should make an antarium.” The resulting product — Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm — has been a staple in children’s bedrooms ever since. More than 20 million have been sold. Levine died on Jan. 16 at age 97, his son Steven said.
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