THAILAND
Dog smugglers caught
Authorities rescued more than a thousand dogs found stuffed into tiny cages and being smuggled out of the country to be cooked and eaten in Vietnam, officials said yesterday. Police intercepted four trucks stacked high with crates packed with the animals in an operation on Thursday evening in Nakhon Phanom Province in northeastern Thailand near the border with Laos. Two Thai men and a Vietnamese man have been charged with trafficking and the illegal transportation of animals, police case officer Captain Prawat Pholsuwan said. “The maximum punishment is a one year jail term and a fine of up to 20,000 baht [US$670],” he said.
CHINA
Carrier exercises expected
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was yesterday scheduled to conduct an air exercise on the nation’s first aircraft carrier, unveiled earlier this week, state media reported. The maneuvers could include aircraft approaching the ship, landing and then quickly taking off again, the Global Times newspaper said, citing a military source said to be closely involved with the drills. The aircraft carrier embarked on its inaugural sea trial on Wednesday. Beijing only recently confirmed it was revamping an old Soviet ship to be its first aircraft carrier and has sought to play down the vessel’s capability, saying it will mainly be used for training and “research.” The Global Times report said that radio restrictions had been imposed in a maritime zone off the coast of Liaoning Province where the carrier is docked. The planes being used for the drills are the Shenyang J-15, a Chinese version of Russia’s Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker, it added. The Ministry of National Defense refused to confirm if an exercise was scheduled to take place yesterday.
INDIA
‘Rebels’ shoot at cars
Police say suspected rebels have fired guns at motorists on a highway in India’s insurgency-wracked northeast, killing one person and wounding five others. The attack came as nearly two dozen rebel groups in the region asked people to boycott India’s Independence Day anniversary celebrations next week. A police officer says the assailants fled after the firing early yesterday in Golaghat district, 300km southeast of Gauhati, the capital of Assam state. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. No one claimed responsibility for the shootings.
AUSTRIA
Casino win was ‘faulty’
It seemed too good to be true — a slot-machine jackpot of almost 43 million euros. And maybe it was. Austrian state broadcaster ORF reports that Behar Merlaku is going to court over the refusal of the Bregenz casino to give him what he considers his win on March 26. Casino officials do not dispute that the gaming machine showed a payout of nearly 43 million euros (US$62 million). However, they say that a malfunctioning computer chip was responsible for what they say was the faulty display. Both sides are going to court.
POLAND
Mystery train smash kills 1
A passenger was killed and six gravely hurt in central Poland on Friday when an inter-city train derailed for reasons that were not immediately clear, the country’s prime minister said. “We have confirmation that one person has perished,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told Poland’s TVN24 news channel. Earlier, medics had reported four casualties. “Luckily the death toll is not as high as we had originally thought,” Tusk said, adding that six people were seriously injured in the disaster which occurred near the town of Baby. Rescue workers said 56 passengers were being treated for injuries in hospital.
UNITED KINGDOM
More animals bite people
Beware of the biting dog, pig and bedbug, as hospital admissions resulting from animal-related injuries are on the rise in England, according to provisional figures released by the National Health Service (NHS) information center. Injuries from dogs caused 6,120 hospital admissions from May last year to April this year, representing a five percent increase from the previous year. “Our statistics show that the summer is a seasonal hotspot for admissions to hospital for injuries caused by dogs,” Tim Straughan, NHS information center chief executive, said. “However, the same time-frame also saw an increase in admissions for injuries inflicted by other creatures — from bugs and horses to cows and pigs,” he said.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mandela opera opens
The refined strains of Western opera and traditional Xhosa song and a sexy dose of jazz drive a new opera that opened yesterday in Johannesburg about South Africa’s former president and anti-apartheid hero, Nelson Mandela. Writer and director Michael Williams said the range of musical styles reflects South Africa’s mix of cultures. The sweeping production shows Mandela cheating on his wife, making political missteps and struggling with the burden of holding others’ lives in his hands. Aubrey Lodewyk, who plays an aging Mandela in the opera, says Mandela is “a human being, he had his faults. But yet he came out as great a man as he is.”
UNITED STATES
Rapper’s fans jam phones
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has opened a criminal investigation after the rapper The Game tweeted the number for the sheriff’s Compton station, prompting hundreds of calls and overwhelming the emergency phone system. Sheriff’s Captain Mike Parker told the Los Angeles Times that The Game told his 580,000 followers that if they wanted an internship with him, they should call the number. Parker says all of the phone lines were jammed for more than two hours. He says sheriff’s investigators are documenting the actions for possible criminal charges.
BRAZIL
Gunmen kill judge
Gunmen on Friday ambushed and killed a Brazilian judge known for taking a hard line against criminals, including corrupt police officers. The early-morning slaying of Patricia Lourival Acioli in Niteroi, across a bay from Rio de Janeiro, prompted the Supreme Court to demand a swift investigation by federal police. “Cowardly crimes against magistrates are an attack on the independence of the judiciary, the state and Brazilian democracy,” Supreme Court President Cezar Peluso said in a statement. “The preservation of the rule of law in our country demands a rapid investigation of the facts and a rigorous punishment of those responsible for this barbarous act.” A group of gunmen fired at least 16 bullets into the judge’s car as she arrived at her house, according to Brazilian media reports. The 47-year-old mother of three had been on a death list found in possession of a jailed militia leader this year, the Globo Web site quoted investigators as saying.
BRAZIL
Robber leaves his dentures
It wasn’t his fingerprints that placed alleged thief Milton Cesar de Jesus at the scene of the crime. It was his dentures. Police officer Alex Oliveira says a homeless man who witnessed a purse theft found the artificial choppers at the crime scene in the southeastern town of Severini, Brazil. The UOL Internet news portal quotes Oliveira as saying that the homeless man turned the dentures over to police and gave them a physical description matching that of de Jesus. Oliveira told UOL on Friday that De Jesus at first denied owning the dentures, but then confessed to the crime after they fit perfectly in his partially toothless mouth.
UNITED STATES
Music deters loiterers
Shoppers and employees say an Ohio convenience store has fewer people hanging around and hassling customers since the business started blaring classical music. Customers told WBNS-TV that loitering has declined quickly outside the United Dairy Farmers location in the Columbus Short North neighborhood. Workers who have also noticed a change say the new music went on earlier this week as part of upgrades at the store.
UNITED STATES
Strauss-Kahn inspires show
In a story line inspired by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn assault case, a prominent European is arrested and accused of rape in the season premiere of US courtroom drama Law & Order: SVU, TV Guide has reported. Italy-born veteran screen and stage actor Franco Nero — who appeared in last year’s film Letters to Juliet with his wife, Vanessa Redgrave — stars as an Italian dignitary at the center of a criminal sex scandal.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was