NEW ZEALAND
‘Tour group’ smuggles drugs
Ten Malaysians posing as an organized tour group were caught entering the country with up to 1kg of methamphetamine in each of their shoes, an official said yesterday. The bust at Auckland Airport on Tuesday was the largest number of drug couriers caught in a single incident at the nation’s border, customs official Mark Day said. The drugs recovered were worth about US$8 million, he said. Day said the alleged traffickers, who ranged in age from their early 20s to late 60s, posed as a tour group apparently hoping it would help them avoid scrutiny. In Tuesday’s incident, customs officers searched two members of the group and found methamphetamine in their shoes, Day said.
CHINA
Tainted milk case emerges
Police have seized more than 26 tonnes of milk powder tainted with melamine from an ice cream maker in a southwestern city, state media said, three years after milk tainted with the industrial chemical killed six and made thousands ill. The Chongqing-based company bought the milk powder from a company in the southern region of Guangxi at a lower-than-market price last month, the Xinhua news agency said late on Tuesday. The powder, produced in Inner Mongolia, was first sold to the Guangxi company in 2009, Xinhua said, adding that company managers at three companies have been detained in connection with the tainting.
CHINA
Road paving to Rason begins
The country has begun paving a road connecting its northeastern region with a North Korean free-trade zone in an attempt to gain access to the Sea of Japan, a report said yesterday. It hopes to complete work on the 53km road between Hunchun and the Rason zone by the end of this year, South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper said, adding the project would be financed by Beijing. The paper quoted sources in the country as saying Beijing and Pyongyang would soon unveil a joint plan to develop Rason. North Korea is striving to revitalize Rason near its border with China and Russia. It became a special economic zone in 1991, but never took off.
UNITED KINGDOM
Christie’s auctioning Picasso
Christie’s said yesterday that it would offer a Pablo Picasso portrait of his lover Marie-Therese Walter at auction in June on behalf of the University of Sydney. Jeune fille endormie, estimated to be worth £9 million (US$15 million) to £12 million, was given to the university by an anonymous donor on condition that it was sold and that the proceeds were spent on scientific research into obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The painting was executed in 1935 and is one of several portraits of the same subject by Picasso. It will go under the hammer in London on June 21 at the impressionist and modern art evening sale.
UNITED STATES
Crocker likely Kabul envoy
President Barack Obama is likely to nominate veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker as the next ambassador to Afghanistan, a source familiar with the pending appointment said on Tuesday. Crocker, one of Washington’s most experienced Middle Eastern hands before he retired last year, was ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009, a period when former president George W. Bush sent in a “surge” of troops. Crocker was assigned to the embassy in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the bombings of the embassy and the Marine barracks in 1983.
RUSSIA
Vodka to be swapped for tea
Revelers can now swap vodka and dancing for tea and reading at new “spiritual nightclubs” being set up by the Orthodox Church, media said on Monday, quoting a top religious official in Moscow. In the latest suggestion by the increasingly powerful church, youths will be able to “have the opportunity for serious dialogue, reading, unhurried conversation so they can have a cup of tea,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said. “A nightclub does not have to be a place where debauchery, boozing and drug addiction reign,” said Chaplin, who added that the church-inspired clubs would stay open until 5am like most of the country’s drinking holes. Endorsed by leaders as the country’s main faith, the Orthodox Church has grown increasingly powerful since the collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union in 1991.
ISRAEL
Official forgets briefcase
Defense Minister Ehud Barak last month forgot a briefcase containing confidential documents in a London hotel room, the private Channel 2 television station reported on Tuesday. The minister left the papers at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge where he was overnighting on the way to New York, the broadcaster said, adding that some papers had handwritten comments by Barak on them. A businessman assigned the same room after Barak checked out found the papers and phoned security officials, who recovered the documents and ascertained there was nothing compromising in them, it said. The defense ministry confirmed Barak had forgotten the papers, but said they were not “top secret.” The channel cited the ministry as saying the incident happened because an agent supposed to go through the room carefully after Barak’s departure had failed to do so.
LIBYA
Fighting arrives in northwest
Insurgents have fought heavy battles against Muammar Qaddafi’s forces in the northwest, leaving dozens dead, rebels and residents said on Tuesday. The fighting around Kabao on Monday lasted “from sunrise to sunset,” said Nafoussi, a resident of the town of 15,000 people located 50km east of Nalut. Witnesses said 45 regime loyalists had been killed in the fighting and 17 captured. Two rebels had also been killed and three injured. “Qaddafi’s forces started attacking the village of Thlath,” 18km west of Kabao with missiles and anti-aircraft guns, said Nafoussi, who refused to give his last name. According to Nafoussi and a number of insurgents who also requested anonymity, troops loyal to Qaddafi then turned on the nearby town of Kherba, east of Kabao, where they seized residents to use as human shields. Hatem, a rebel fighter, said that Qaddafi’s men shot at one another because “some among them did not want to fire on civilians.”
EGYPT
Amenhotep statue unearthed
Archeologists have unearthed the biggest statue of Tutankhamun’s grandfather Amenhotep III and another of the goddess Sekhmet, the country’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Tuesday. Both statues were discovered at the pharaoh’s temple on the western bank of the Nile at Luxor. The statue of Amenhotep III, who reigned about 3,350 years ago, is 13.65m high and carved out of quartzite. The statue, found in seven chunks and missing a head, is one of twin statues erected in front of the temple’s northern entrance, said to have been destroyed in an earthquake in 27 BC.
UNITED STATES
SETI telescope shuts down
Astronomers at the SETI Institute said a steep drop in state and federal funds has forced the shutdown of the Allen Telescope Array, a powerful tool in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, an effort scientists refer to as “SETI.” The 42 radio dishes in the mountains of northern Califronia had scanned deep space since 2007 for signals from alien civilizations, while also conducting hard scientific research into the structure and origin of the universe. SETI chief executive Tom Pierson said in an e-mail to donors last week that the University of California, Berkeley, has run out of money for day-to-day operation of the dishes. The US$50 million array was built by SETI and UC Berkeley with the help of a US$30 million donation from Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen. Operating the dishes costs about US$1.5 million a year, mostly to pay for the staff of eight to 10 researchers and technicians to operate the facility. The shutdown came just as researchers were preparing to point the radio dishes at more than 1,200 potential new planets identified by NASA’s Kepler Mission.
UNITED STATES
Woman retires at 102
A 102-year-old woman who works for the state of Nebraska is hanging up her professional hat, saying it is time to enjoy retirement. Sally Gordon worked for three governors before rejecting retirement and at age 75 started a new career as a legislative sergeant at arms. For 27 years Gordon has worked as one of the Nebraska legislature’s five gatekeepers, ferrying messages from lobbyists to lawmakers during floor debate and keeping order during committee hearings. She said health concerns were not a factor in her decision to retire on Tuesday. “I just decided it is the time to do it,” she said.
UNITED STATES
Medical chaperones urged
Teenagers should have the option of having a “medical chaperone” present when they are undergoing any kind of intimate physical exam, according to a new policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Pediatricians should also have a medical chaperone — a nurse or a medical assistant — on hand for younger children in cases where a parent is not there, or shouldn’t be there, such as when child abuse is suspected, the group said. “The use of a chaperone should be a shared decision between the patient and physician,” wrote Edward Curry, the statement’s lead author. “The patient’s preference should be given the highest priority,” said the statement published in Pediatrics.
UNITED STATES
Phoebe Snow dies at 60
Phoebe Snow, the bluesy singer-songwriter known for her song Poetry Man, died on Tuesday at age 60 of complications from a stroke she suffered last year, her manager said. Snow released 16 albums, composed more than 100 songs and was nominated for a best new artist Grammy Award in 1975. The New Jersey-born singer’s Poetry Man, about her infatuation with a man, was released on a self-titled 1974 album and was her first big hit. Over the years, Snow performed with the likes of Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Chaka Khan and Jackson Browne. Former US president Bill Clinton also was a fan, and Snow performed several times for him. When she suffered a stroke in January last year, she had just finished recording a collection of songs and was rehearsing with her band in anticipation of performing weekly shows at a winery in New York, her management firm said. She never emerged from a coma after the stroke.
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