VIETNAM
Disease outbreak kills 70
A health official says a surging outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease in the country has killed 70 people so far this year and infected more than 23,000, mostly children under the age of five. Nguyen Van Binh, head of the Ministry of Health’s Department of Preventive Medicine, was quoted by the Thanh Nien newspaper as saying most of the cases have been reported in the south. Enterovirus 71, or EV-71, is the dominant strain circulating in the country. This year’s outbreak is a sharp uptick from recent years.
NEW ZEALAND
Penguin passes health test
The country’s favorite penguin visitor has been given a health clearance to be returned to the wild. The news comes five weeks after he was found on a beach more than 3,200km from his Antarctic home. The emperor penguin nicknamed “Happy Feet” has been recuperating at the Wellington Zoo since he was discovered in the North Island. He is the first emperor penguin to be found in the wild in the country in 44 years. Zoo spokeswoman Kate Baker said the penguin has gained about 4kg and this week passed an X-ray and blood test. Baker said the penguin will likely be released offshore in the south of the country sometime in the next few weeks.
UNITED STATES
Butt surgery death accidental
An autopsy report has determined that the death of a Las Vegas woman who died after receiving a buttock enhancement injection in a makeshift medical office was accidental. Clark County Coroner P. Michael Murphy said on Thursday that 42-year-old Elena Caro died from an adverse drug reaction. He said the autopsy does not preclude criminal charges. Ruben -Matallana-Galvas and Carmen Torres-Sanchez of Colombia face charges of murder and practicing medicine without a license in Caro’s April death. Authorities allege the husband and wife were running a cosmetic surgery business in the back room of a tile store when they injected Caro’s buttocks with a gel substance. Caro was found roaming the streets in agony hours after the injection. She was taken to a hospital, where she died.
RUSSIA
Three killed in two attacks
Police say a village leader and an elderly couple have been killed in a restive Russian province in the North Caucasus. Vyacheslav Gasanov, a police spokesman in the republic of Dagestan, said village chief Rabadan Omarov in central Dagestan was killed late on Thursday night when an unidentified man stormed his house and gunned him down with an assault rifle. In southern Dagestan, a married couple in their 60s known, for having conservative Muslim beliefs, was stabbed to death by a man who attacked their house on the same night. Police suspect Muslim insurgents to be behind both killings.
ITALY
Minister says sorry for errors
Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti apologized in an open letter yesterday over his occupancy of a flat belonging to a former aide now under investigation for corruption. “Did I commit unlawful acts? As far as I’m concerned, no. Did I make mistakes? Yes, definitely,” Tremonti wrote in a letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Tremonti has faced growing pressure over his links to Marco Milanese, a close aide being investigated for graft and influence-peddling by Naples magistrates. Tremonti until a few weeks ago occupied a flat in Rome made available by Milanese, a former tax official.
HONDURAS
Cocaine recovered from sea
The navy, with help from its US counterpart, recovered 2.5 tonnes of cocaine from a submarine intercepted on its way from Colombia to the US, authorities said on Thursday. The drugs were on the vessel sunk off the Caribbean coast near Tegucigalpa about two weeks ago by its four-man crew after the coast guard caught up with the suspected traffickers. General Rene Osorio said the semi-submersible sub had been carrying about 5 tonnes of cocaine and that half of the narcotics shipment was still on board.
UNITED STATES
Doughnut burger unveiled
Want fries with that ... doughnut? A food booth in Syracuse will unveil the “Big Kahuna Donut Burger” at this year’s New York State Fair. For between US$5 and US$6, the adventurous eater will get a quarter-pound burger between slices of a grilled, glazed doughnut. Toss on some cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion and you’ve got yourself a 1,500 calorie meal. State fairs can be counted on to provide foods featuring offbeat ingredient combinations. Wisconsin has chocolate covered bacon on a stick, you can get fried beer in Texas, Massachusetts provides fried jelly beans and North Carolina has the “Koolickle,” pickles soaked in Kool-Aid.
UNITED STATES
Madoff recoveries secured
A trustee recovering money for investors who lost billions of US dollars through Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff’s dealings says he has secured more than a billion US dollars through settlements with associates of the second largest feeder fund group to invest with Madoff. Trustee Irving Picard announced on Thursday the settlement would boost recoveries of money available to jilted investors to more than US$8.6 billion. He said that is nearly half the approximately US$17.3 billion in principal lost by Madoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges and is imprisoned in Butner, North Carolina.
IRAN
Hikers await final trial
The families of two imprisoned Americans are counting on a hearing tomorrow to end their ordeal. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are due for what Iranian authorities have said will be a final hearing in their espionage case. It comes two years to the day after they were arrested with another American while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border. Sarah Shourd was freed in September last year. Bauer’s mother, Cindy Hickey, said she will be up all night praying. The families are taking recent comments by Tehran’s top prosecutor as a good sign. He said officials hoped a final decision would be made at the hearing, but did not hint at the outcome.
COLOMBIA
Billions laundered each year
Nearly US$8 billion, roughly the equivalent of 3 percent of the nation’s GDP, are laundered in the country each year, Attorney-General Viviane Morales said on Thursday. Morales confirmed the figures, citing government estimates, at a Pan-American forum on money laundering and terrorism financing. She did not specify how much of the illicit funds come from the cocaine trade. The country is the world’s largest producer of cocaine with 350 tonnes exported last year, according to UN figures. Morales said money laundering has a negative impact on the economy and causes inflation and unemployment, as well as reduces domestic production.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion