INDIA
Minister’s body found
The body of Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu has been recovered from the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed in a densely forested area in the Himalayan foothills. Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said yesterday the body had been taken to the state capital, Itanagar. The single-engine helicopter carrying Khandu and four others lost radio contact and crashed on Saturday about 20 minutes after taking off from the Buddhist mountain retreat of Tawang. The bodies were retrieved on Wednesday after a five-day search. A state funeral for Khandu will be held today.
VIETNAM
Hmong protest crushed
Troops forcibly dispersed ethnic Hmong protesters after thousands mounted a rare demonstration in northwestern Dien Bien Province calling for autonomy, a military source said yesterday. The Hmong, who began demonstrating several days ago, were also demanding greater freedom of religion, said the source, who asked for anonymity. The troops “had to disperse the crowd by force,” the source said, without saying if anyone was injured.
AUSTRALIA
World War I veteran dies
Briton Claude Choules, the last World War I combat veteran, has died aged 110, ending the living connection with a conflict that saw 70 million military personnel mobilized. Blind and almost totally deaf, Choules died in his sleep at his hostel home in Perth overnight. The only other surviving veteran of The Great War is said to be Britain’s Florence Green, who served with the Royal Air Force in a non-combat role as a mess waitress and is now aged 110. Born in Worcestershire, England, Choules served with the Royal Navy on board the HMS Impregnable in 1916 at the age of 15 and witnessed the surrender of the German Imperial Navy in 1918. After the war, he moved to Australia and was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy in 1926. Choules remained with the navy after the war but spent his final working years in the crayfishing industry at Safety Bay, near Perth. Married for 80 years to Ethel, a Scottish children’s nurse who lived to 98, he had two daughters, a son, 13 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
MALAYSIA
Visitors being fingerprinted
The government has begun taking fingerprints from foreigners entering the country in a bid to prevent illegal immigrants coming in using fake papers, immigration spokesman Abdul Haidir Mohamad Sukor said yesterday. A pilot system, implemented at several entry points since late last month, requires visitors to give prints of both index fingers, Abdul Haidir said. He said the biometric system was expected to be implemented nationwide from June 1. “Before this in Malaysia, the overstayers are just sent back but they can come back with fake passports. With the biometric system, they cannot lie,” he said.
FRANCE
Crash body recovered
An undersea recovery team has recovered the first body from the wreck of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 with the loss of all 228 on board, police said yesterday. The remains of some passengers were found in the ocean after the crash, but it is thought that some of the missing could be in the wreckage 4,000m below the surface. The search crew used an underwater robot to recover the body.
Agencies
EGYPT
Chief coroner sacked
The nation’s chief coroner was sacked on Wednesday and activists applauded the move, saying he had forged autopsy results to hide torture and state security abuses. The justice minister sacked coroner Ahmed Sabiey after he was investigated for having given unauthorized interviews on the health of former president Hosni Mubarak, judicial sources said. Internet social networking sites had carried statements from dozens of groups calling for Sabiey to step down. He was blamed for having covered up details of the death of 28-year-old Khaled Said in June. The death sparked public protests and was a catalyst in galvanizing anger that toppled Mubarak on Feb. 11.
SPAIN
Prehistoric paintings found
Paintings depicting horses and human hands made by prehistoric humans around 25,000 years ago have been discovered in a cave in the north, regional officials said on Wednesday. The red paintings, found by archeologists looking for signs of ancient settlements, were made around the same time as the Altamira Cave paintings — some of the world’s best prehistoric paintings discovered in the northern part of the country in 1879.
ITALY
Jilted groom sues bride
A groom left hanging at the altar after his runaway bride changed her mind at the last minute because she was in love with another man is now suing her for 500,000 euros (US$743,000). The 32-year-old said he had suffered emotional and material damages after booking a villa for the wedding outside Rome, reserving a honeymoon on a Pacific island and refurbishing an apartment to his fiancee’s tastes. Wednesday’s report by Italy’s ANSA news agency said the man, referred to only by his first name, Riccardo, was already in the church when his fiancee’s brother told him she would not be coming and the priest canceled the service. The report said the lawsuit emphasized the groom and his family had borne all the costs for the wedding.
GERMANY
Man rescued from prison
A mayor helped rescue a man who became trapped in a women’s prison after mistaking it for a shortcut to a nearby park, police in the northern city of Hildesheim said on Wednesday. Hilde-sheim Mayor Henning Blum heard the man’s cries for help while passing by the prison near the city center and notified police who came and freed the 24-year-old. The man told police he was strolling through town and did not immediately notice he had walked into a prison. By the time it dawned on him where he was, the gate to the jail had already closed, locking him inside. Police said they are investigating why the prison gate was open.
UNITED KINGDOM
Chinese lecturer killed
Police pursued a nationwide manhunt on Wednesday for a herbal medicine businessman suspected of killing a Chinese university lecturer and his family over a court dispute. Detectives are hunting 52-year-old Du Anxiang (杜安祥) over the killing of lecturer Ding Jifeng (丁繼峰), 46, his wife, Ge Chui, 47, and their daughters Xing, 18, and Alice, 12, who were knifed to death at their home in Northampton. Their bodies were found on Sunday, but it is not clear when they died. Du lost a bitter court battle over their shared business interests on Thursday and the next day, Du traveled to their suburb, police said, adding that the businessman felt he was owed tens of thousands of dollars by Ding’s wife.
PERU
Government critic killed
A reporter who openly criticized regional government officials was killed in a hail of gunfire, a media watchdog group said on Wednesday. Julio Castillo Narvaez, who headed the newscast at Radio Ollantay in the northern city of Viru, was a fierce critic of regional authorities, the Lima-based Press and Society Institute (IPYS) said. On Tuesday a group of gunmen accosted Castillo, 41, as he was leaving a Viru restaurant after lunch and shot him six times, then fled the scene. Police say the hitmen were likely hired guns.
UNITED STATES
Jackie Cooper dies at 88
Jackie Cooper, who was nominated for an Oscar at the age of nine and played the editor of the Daily Planet in the Superman films, has died at 88, officials said. Flowers were placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame following his death after a sudden illness, said the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which manages the stars on the storied stretch of sidewalk. Born in LA in 1922, Cooper was only nine when he played the lead in the 1931 movie Skippy, and became the youngest ever actor nominated for a leading role Oscar.
CANADA
Beaver dam stops oil spill
An oil spill near the native village of Little Buffalo in Alberta Province was partly contained by a beaver dam, a provincial environment official said on Wednesday. Oil began leaking on April 29 from a pipeline belonging to Plains Midstream Canada about 7km from the village, Alberta Environment said. In the end, it spilled 28,000 barrels. The oil almost sullied a river, but was contained by some small bodies of standing water and a beaver dam, officials said.
UNITED STATES
Suicide abettor sentenced
A former nurse who helped persuade two people he met online to kill themselves was sentenced on Wednesday to nearly a year in jail, a punishment tailored to force him to return to jail each year for a decade to spend the anniversaries of his victims’ deaths behind bars. William Melchert-Dinkel was convicted of two counts of aiding suicide under a rarely used Minnesota law. Prosecutors said he posed online as a suicidal nurse and encouraged a Canadian woman and a British man to commit suicide.
MEXICO
Vigil for miners held
Stunned and saddened relatives held a vigil on Wednesday outside a mine in the northwestern state of Coahuila, where nine workers were trapped and possibly dead following an explosion that killed at least five of their colleagues. Rescuers used picks, shovels and their hands to tunnel through dirt, wood, metal and rock in a frantic effort to reach the miners trapped 60m underground. “We want their bodies, regardless of their condition,” said Silvia Martinez, whose nephew is missing. Labor Secretary Javier Lozano calmed the group and promised he would give them an update on the rescue every hour.
UNITED STATES
No Iran trial for me: hiker
A woman released from prison in Iran said she would not be going back to stand trial there alongside two fellow hikers charged with spying for the US. Sarah Shourd said she suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome and returning to Iran would be “far too traumatic” after all she has been through. Her friends, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, are still held in Tehran and scheduled for a second session of their trial on Wednesday.
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