AUSTRALIA
Officials face Hendra scare
Health officials urged tourists who visited a popular adventure ranch west of the Great Barrier Reef over the weekend to come forward after a horse died from from the killer Hendra virus. Passed from fruit bats (flying foxes) to horses and highly fatal to humans, Hendra claimed the life of a horse at the Blazing Saddles adventure farm on Monday, west of the Reef gateway city Cairns. At least six people were known to have had contact with the sick animal and Queensland health officials said they were working to determine how many others could have been exposed at the popular tourist site. “I would like to reassure any tourists or visitors to the property over the weekend that transmission of the virus requires close contact with body fluids of the sick horse,” Queensland health chief Jeannette Young said. At least 48 people have been exposed to Hendra in the past month in an outbreak that has spread from Cairns to within 500km of Sydney, worrying the city’s thoroughbred race trainers. No humans have yet been infected.
PHILIPPINES
Beijing refusal causes doubt
China’s refusal to allow a UN-backed tribunal to rule on a South China Sea territorial dispute indicates Beijing’s claim stands on shaky legal ground, Manila said yesterday. Beijing and Manila have overlapping claims to parts of the South China Sea, which is believed to hold vast gas and other natural resources, along with Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia. Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario called in his meetings with senior officials in Beijing last week for the dispute to go before a UN tribunal, but China on Tuesday rejected the proposal. “China’s hesitation to accept the Philippine suggestion ... could lead to the conclusion that China may not be able to validate their stated positions in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,” del Rosario said in a short statement. Manila wants the dispute brought before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an independent judicial body set up by the UN convention in 1982 to handle such matters.
INDIA
Church sets dress code
Goa’s most historic church is to follow the example of some local Hindu temples and enforce a dress code for tourists, following complaints over foreigners’ inappropriate clothing. The rector of the Basilica of Bom Jesus, Father Savio Barretto, said officials would screen pilgrims and visitors coming to the 16th century church starting in September. Anyone “improperly dressed” will be given shawls to cover up, he said. Photography would also be banned inside the church, he added. The move follows that of Goa’s Mahalasa Narayani temple, which last month banned foreign tourists entirely after complaints from worshipers about scantily clad women sightseers.
INDONESIA
Cement truck destroys house
A cement truck plowed into a house, killing 16 people, including a young child, who had gathered there for an art show, a hospital source said yesterday. The accident happened late Tuesday in Ngawi, a town in East Java Province, the doctor said. “The truck overturned and hit a gathering. The sacks of cement toppled on people, killing them,” Indah Pitarti said. She said one of the victims was a three-year-old girl and the others were men. Four people were injured. It was not clear how the driver lost control of the truck.
GERMANY
Spy service left red-faced
The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), or Federal Intelligence Service, is facing embarrassing questions after it emerged that it could not even keep the plans for its new high-tech offices in Berlin from going astray. According to a report in Focus magazine, the blueprints contained sensitive information relating to the security of the new headquarters, such as anti-terror installations, emergency exits and alarm systems. The data, most likely stored on a USB stick, was stolen a year ago, public broadcaster ARD reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed government official. The core of the building may now have to be redesigned, the TV station reported. BND boss Ernst Uhrlau told a rare press conference on Tuesday that the leak was not a major security concern and an investigation into the leak was underway. However, he said he didn’t know if Focus had any more sensitive information.
ITALY
‘Heartstealer’ is pregnant
The 18-year-old nightclub dancer at the center of a sex trial against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said she is pregnant and plans to marry soon, in interview excerpts released on Tuesday. “I will be a mother this December,” Karima El-Mahroug, better known by her stage name of “Ruby the Heartstealer,” reportedly told the weekly gossip magazine Chi, saying the father was her boyfriend Luca Rizzo. “Our son will be born in Italy. Then we will get married and we will go and live abroad,” she said. Berlusconi is on trial on charges related to underage prostitution and abuse of power for allegedly putting pressure on police to release El-Mahroug from custody so she would not reveal their liaisons.
AUSTRIA
‘Pastafarian’ gets license
Pasta strainers are now considered suitable religious headgear in Austria ... at least as far as the transport authorities are concerned. Three years after applying for a new driver’s license, an Austrian man has finally received the laminated card and the picture shows him sporting an upturned pasta strainer on his head. Nothing to worry about: authorities ruled the kitchen utensil was a suitable religious accessory for a Pastafarian. Niko Alm, an entrepreneur, told the Austria Press Agency he had the idea when he read that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for “confessional” reasons. The atheist says he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a light-hearted “faith” whose members call themselves Pastafarians and whose “only dogma ... is the rejection of dogma,” according to its Web site. Accordingly, Alm sent his application for a new driver’s license in 2008 along with a picture of himself with a colander on his head. The stunt got him an invitation to a doctor to check he was mentally fit to drive, but after three years, Alm’s efforts have paid off. He now wants to apply for Pastafarianism to become an officially recognized faith in Austria.
UKRAINE
Two-headed snake on show
A two-headed snake has gone on display at a zoo in the Crimean city of Yalta on the Black Sea. The “Skazka” (Fairytale) zoo yesterday said the albino California Kingsnake has two heads that think, react and eat separately, though one is more passive than the other. Dmytro Tkachov, a zoo worker taking care of the snake, said he puts a barrier between the heads when feeding the snake lest one eats the other. The snake will be on display at the zoo until mid-September. The zoo would not provide further details.
UNITED STATES
Bad neighbor sentenced
A man who hacked into his neighbors’ Wi-Fi network and tried to frame them with child pornography and threatening e-mails to the vice president has been sentenced to 18 years in jail. District Judge Donovan Frank sentenced Barry Ardolf, 46, on Tuesday after listening to the tearful testimony of Bethany Kostolnik, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. “My husband and I had to explain to our young, innocent children way too early that there are evil people in the world — and to never go in Barry Ardolf’s yard,” she said, according to the newspaper. The trouble began in August 2008 when the Kostolniks, who had just moved into the neighborhood, reported Ardolf to police after he picked up their four-year-old son and kissed him on the mouth, according to US attorneys. Ardolf then began exacting revenge by hacking into their Wi-Fi network and creating fake e-mail addresses, which he used to send crude messages and child pornography to Matt Kostolnik’s coworkers and boss, the prosecution said. After Ardolf sent threatening e-mails in Kostolnik’s name to Vice President Joe Biden and others, investigators discovered the hacking following a search of Ardolf’s home in the summer of 2009.
UNITED STATES
Twins will not be indicted
Twin brothers who for three months lived with their elderly mother’s bug-infested corpse in their Houston home won’t be indicted, a grand jury decided on Tuesday. Edward and Edwin Berndt, 48, remain under guardianship of a relative after a judge previously decided they didn’t possess mental capacity to care for themselves. “This is the proper outcome in this case, once their diminished mental capacity was realized,” the brothers’ lawyer Robert Scardino said. Police found Sybil Berndt’s body during a welfare check in April. The brothers told police she sustained injuries after falling on Jan. 10 while they watched football. They left her on the floor because neither had money for medical treatment. She died three days later, one day after her 89th birthday. Scardino said the brothers had been disabled after being born oxygen-deprived and their mother had always taken care of them and her husband, who died five years ago of Alzheimer’s.
UNITED STATES
‘Dead’ woman sues bank
A Florida woman said she’s having numerous financial troubles because of a bank error that caused Chase Bank USA to declare her dead in November last year. Wrenella Pierre has filed a lawsuit and Chase officials said on Monday they’re investigating how the mistake happened. When Pierre and her husband built their home in 2007, they got two mortgages through Chase. According to the lawsuit, the bank notified credit-reporting agencies last year that Pierre had died. Pierre said she notified bank officials that she was alive and also went to a local branch to correct the mistake. A month later, the lawsuit alleges, credit agencies still reported her dead.
UNITED STATES
Guatemala Mormon mauled
A 20-year-old Mormon missionary from Utah is in a Guatemalan hospital with serious arm and leg injuries after being mauled by two lions at a zoo. Spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Scott Trotter said in Salt Lake City that doctors are evaluating Paul Richard Oakey’s condition after he was rushed to a hospital on Monday for surgery. He said Oakey was attacked by two lions when he stood too close to an exhibit at a Guatemalan zoo while trying to take a photo.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number