AUSTRALIA
Man fights off crocodile
A man had to jab a crocodile in the eyes to force its jaws off his arm after it leapt from the water and bit him during a fishing trip, media reports said yesterday. The man’s hand was badly mauled in the attack on the Adelaide River, southeast of Darwin, which took place as his friend was sleeping in the back of their boat overnight on Saturday, the Northern Territory News said. He had surgery and was recovering in hospital, the report said. A second crocodile washed up on a Darwin beach over the weekend without a head or tail after falling victim to trophy hunters, rangers said. “They took the head for a trophy and the tail for meat,” a ranger told ABC radio.
SOUTH KOREA
Teeth turned in for gold
People are cashing in their gold teeth and other dental work as the price of the precious metal soars internationally, traders said yesterday. “We are handling gold teeth far more than usual as the price of gold is rapidly increasing,” said Nam Seung-soo, chief executive of dealer Gold Seven. The company has bought golden whole teeth, fillings or crowns from more than 100 customers in the past month and receives at least 10 e-mailed pictures for free appraisals every day. A gold crown fetches at least 40,000 won (US$37) and up to 100,000 won depending on condition and size. The high gold price is also undermining the Korean tradition of giving a 3.75g gold ring to babies for their first birthday. Jewelers are now marketing 1g rings instead, along with nine-carat gold rings for adults rather than 18-carat ones.
AUSTRALIA
Dingoes killed after mauling
Two dingoes that mauled a three-year-old girl on Fraser Island have been caught and destroyed, officials said yesterday. The girl suffered bites to her legs when the native wild dogs attacked her on Monday after she wandered away from her family and into sand dunes. The two dogs blamed for the attack were trapped yesterday and put down humanely, Environment Department general manager Terry Harper said. More than 200 dingoes live on the island, a popular tourist spot about 250km north of Brisbane. The purebred dingoes are a protected species in the national park that covers the island. “This is a very timely reminder for everybody about how important it is to stay very close to your children on Fraser Island,” Harper said. “Adults should always stay very close to their children. We know that they do excite dingoes.”
PAKISTAN
Bombs kill four, injure 56
Two bombs exploded near buses carrying navy officials in Karachi yesterday, killing four people and wounding 56, officials said, the first major attack on the military in seven years in the city. Police said the bombs targeting the buses in two different parts of the city exploded simultaneously using remote controlled devices. A junior naval officer and a civilian female doctor were among those killed in the twin blasts, Navy Commander Salman Ali said. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet, but analysts said that the attacks may be part of a wider militant campaign to hit security forces across the country. “It appears to be part of the same militant campaign, but I don’t see any logic in targeting the navy because unlike army and air force they are not involved in any operations against the militants,” said Tasneem Noorani, a security analyst and former interior secretary.
JORDAN
Cartoonist’s trial opens
A court on Monday put on trial in absentia Danish artist Kurt Westergaard, who is being sued for blasphemy over a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. “A court in Amman began today the trial in absentia of those who insulted the Prophet, including Westergaard and Danish newspapers which published his offensive cartoon,” said Tareq Hawamdeh, lawyer for journalists and activists who brought the suit, said in a statement. “Judge Nathir Shehadeh adjourned the trial until May 8 to hear the witnesses.” The court subpoenaed Westergaard on April 14 after accusing him of committing “the crime of blasphemy” for depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban in 2008. Westergaard, 75, said on Friday that he had no intention of going to Amman even if I am asked to, adding: “I do not want to risk becoming familiar with the Jordanian prisons, which would be hell.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Scotland Yard mounts up
Scotland Yard’s Mounted Branch is putting its ceremonial division, known as the Grey Escort, through its paces as officers prepare for the royal wedding. Eleven horses from its 110-strong cavalry arm are being prepared to serve as part of the escort for the royal carriage procession for Prince William and Kate Middleton after their marriage at Westminster Abbey on Friday. Only nine of the horses will serve on the day itself, ridden by an inspector, two sergeants and six constables.
IRAN
Computer spy virus attacks
A second computer virus has hit the nation, a senior military official said on Monday, suggesting it was part of a concerted campaign to undermine the country’s disputed nuclear program. Gholam Reza Jalali, the head of a military unit in charge of combating sabotage, said that experts discovered the “espionage virus,” which he called “Stars.” “The Stars virus has been presented to the laboratory, but is still being investigated,” he said in a report posted on Monday on his organization’s Web site. “No definite and final conclusions have been reached.”
UNITED STATES
Warning over Uzbekistan
The State Department on Monday warned citizens traveling in Uzbekistan of the potential for a “terrorist attack or localized civil disturbance” and told them to exercise caution. “The US government continues to receive information that indicates terrorist groups may be planning attacks, possibly against US interests, in Uzbekistan,” it said in a statement, without providing more specific details. “Supporters of terrorist groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, al-Qaeda, the Islamic Jihad Union, and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement are active in the Central Asian region. “In the past, these groups have conducted kidnappings, assassinations, and suicide bombings.”
BAHRAIN
Iranian diplomat expelled
The government has ordered the expulsion of an Iranian diplomat for alleged links to a spy ring in Kuwait, state media said. The Foreign Ministry summoned charge d’affaires Mehdi Islami to inform him that Hojjatullah Rahmani had 72 hours to leave “based on his link to the spy cell in Kuwait,” the state news agency said. “Bahrain calls on Iran to desist from these serious violations of standards of international relations which are a threat to the security and stability of the region.” Two Iranians and a Bahraini are currently on trial on charges of spying for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
UNITED STATES
Taichi ‘good’ for the heart
People with chronic heart failure may be able to boost their quality of life by doing taichi, a US study suggested on Monday. Two group sessions of one hour each per week were enough to show significant improvements in mood and confidence, said the Boston-based study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association. The study compared 50 US heart patients who enrolled in taichi classes to 50 who took classroom study in heart education. Physical responses were similar in both groups, but those who did taichi reported better “exercise self-efficacy, with increased daily activity, and related feelings of well-being compared with the education group,” the study said.
CANADA
NDP support surges: poll
Support for the New Democratic Party (NDP) surged to within 6 points of the ruling Conservatives in an opinion poll released on Monday, raising the prospect that the left-leaning NDP could knock the Conservatives out of power after the election on Monday next week. The EKOS survey of more than 3,000 voters put support for the NDP at 28 percent, 33.7 percent for the Conservatives and 23.7 percent for the Liberals (now the main opposition party in parliament). The poll indicates that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives could win about 130 seats, raising the prospect that the NDP could form a coalition with the Liberals and Layton could become the party’s first prime minister.
UNITED STATES
Missionary out on bail
A Christian missionary charged with helping a woman involved in a custody dispute with her former lesbian partner abscond to Central America with the couple’s daughter is free on US$25,000 bond. Amish-Mennonite pastor Timothy David Miller from Tennessee was released to the custody of a friend on Monday by a federal judge in Vermont. The Amish-Mennonite pastor from Tennessee is allowed to remain free on unsecured bond. The FBI says the pastor helped arrange travel for Lisa Miller and nine-year-old Isabella Miller Jenkins. They are believed to be living in Nicaragua. Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins have fought a custody battle since they broke up in 2003 and Miller renounced homosexuality.
UNITED STATES
Prop 8 group plans appeal
The sponsors of California’s same-sex marriage ban said the recent disclosure by the federal judge who struck down Proposition 8 that he is in a long-term relationship with another man has given them new grounds to appeal. Lawyer Andy Pugno said on Monday that backers of the voter-approved measure believe that Chief District Judge Vaughn Walker should have removed himself from the case because his impartiality could “reasonably” be questioned. Walker declared Prop 8 to be an unconstitutional violation of gay Californians’ civil rights last summer. He retired in February.
MEXICO
Police freed 51 victims
Police on Monday freed 51 people who had been kidnapped in the northeast town of Reynosa near the US border, including 18 Central American and six Chinese migrant workers, the public security ministry said. The statement did not mention any arrests during the operation. Earlier this month police freed 68 kidnapped individuals, including 12 Central American migrants, in Reynosa. Four policemen were detained on Monday in connection with the earlier release.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing