AUSTRALIA
Jewelry tossed with trash
A man has pleaded with his local council to sift through their trash dumps yesterday after accidentally throwing out A$50,000 (US$53,000) of his wife’s jewelry. The man said the uninsured haul was stored in plastic bags to fool potential robbers, but they were mistakenly tossed into trash cans outside his house last week in a pre-move clean-up. “We’re moving house, and I told the kids to give me any garbage lying around for me to throw out,” he told the Brisbane Courier-Mail. “My wife rang me up when I was at work and said: ‘Where are the bags?’… You know that sick feeling you get? Wow.” The collection included charm bracelets, bangles and pure gold bars. Sunshine Coast Regional Council spokesman Gary Reeve told reporters there was little hope of finding the jewels with their dumps receiving thousands of tonnes of rubbish every week.
CHINA
New aerial teams formed
The air force will debut two new aerial demonstration teams this week as part of its growing sophistication and increasingly prominent public role, the Defense Ministry said yesterday. The Sky Wing and Red Falcon teams will take part in a joint performance in over Changchun tomorrow, along with the air force’s 50-year-old Bayi squadron of senior pilots, the ministry said in a notice posted on its Web site. The two new teams are attached to air force flight schools and have a total of 34 pilots. They will perform using domestically developed Jiao-8 and Chujiao-6 trainers, the ministry said.
INDIA
Literature festival canceled
The first major literature festival planned for Indian Kashmir has been canceled after several writers and artists said it would give a false impression about the existence of basic freedoms in the region. The Harud festival was scheduled for Sept. 24 to Sept. 26 in Srinagar. Its cancellation late on Monday came weeks after news reports quoted organizers as saying the event would be apolitical. Writers said the region has a long history of fear and that people are not allowed to speak their minds.
CHINA
Tycoon eyes Iceland
Huang Nubo, a former government official turned real-estate tycoon, is trying to buy a huge tract of land in Iceland for a US$100 million eco-tourism project that will include a golf course, the Financial Times said yesterday. Huang has reached a provisional deal to acquire 300km2 of Icelandic territory, the paper said. The Iceland Review Online reported last week that Huang signed a deal with land owners, including the Icelandic government, on Wednesday, and that the deal was dependent on approval by both China and Iceland. Forbes ranked Huang as China’s 161st richest man last year, with a net worth of US$890 million. His firm, Zhongkun Group, owns resorts and facilities across China and around the world.
PHILIPPINES
Dump to be relocated
A huge rubbish dump in Baguio that collapsed, killing three people, during Typhoon Nanmadol will be relocated, authorities said yesterday. The government raised the toll from the typhoon to 22 dead and 12 missing after more fatality reports from isolated areas — up from 16 deaths on Monday. The collapse of the Irisan dump in accounted for three deaths, one missing and one injured, said Olivia Luces, regional head of the civil defense office. “The city government has decided to look for an alternative area.”
SPAIN
Survivor killed in pilgrimage
A man making a pilgrimage to thank the “Virgin of Miracles” for his survival in a road crash last year was killed, along with two aunts when a car hit them, an official said on Monday. The 40-year-old truck driver was among a group of half a dozen pilgrims walking from his northwestern hometown of Ordes to Caion, about 30km away, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office in Ordes said. “He did not even manage to walk 1km and was still in Ordes,” the spokeswoman said. Traffic officials said they suspect the driver of the car that struck the pilgrims on Saturday fell asleep at the wheel.
ITALY
Town wants independence
A small town is trying to go independent and mint its own money in protest at government austerity cuts. Filettino, set in rugged hill country about 100km east of Rome, is rebelling against a proposal to merge the governments of towns with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants to save money. Filettino has only about 550 people, but instead of merging with neighboring Trevi, Mayor Luca Sellari is trying to go it alone and set up a “principality” along the lines of the famous republic of San Marino to the north. He has started minting Filettino’s own bank currency, the “Fiorito,” with his photo on the back, which he says is already being used by the townspeople.
ISRAEL
‘Idol’ judge charged
Prosecutors have accused a leading singer of skewing the vote, while judging the local version of the American Idol singing contest. Margalit Tzanani is accused of conspiring with crime kingpins to extort her manager and repaying them by advancing their interests in the entertainment industry. The indictment, issued on Monday, accuses her of voting for one contestant after a suspected crime boss instructed her to do so in a text message during the live broadcast. Prosecutors said Tzanani also voted for another contestant after his relative — an acquaintance of the alleged crime boss — called her from prison to ask for the vote.
NETHERLANDS
Money falls from the sky
The fantasy of seeing banknotes fluttering down from the sky came true for motorists after a package containing cash apparently fell from a bank transport truck and broke open. The incident triggered a dangerous scramble for the euro bills on Monday on the busy A2 highway near Maastricht, as people parked cars on the road’s shoulder and ran to scoop up loose notes. Police in the southern province of Limburg confirmed in their Twitter feed “it briefly rained bank bills.” It was not clear how much cash was lost.
UNITED STATES
Man impales self, survives
Hospital officials said an 86-year-old Arizona man was lucky to be alive after he accidentally impaled himself with pruning shears. University Medical Center said on Monday that Leroy Luetscher of Green Valley was working in his yard on July 30, when he dropped a pair of pruning shears. When Luetscher went to pick them up, he lost his balance and fell face-down on the handle. The handle penetrated his eye socket and went down into his neck, resting on the external carotid artery. Half the shears were left in his head, while the other half was sticking out. Luetscher was rushed to the hospital, where surgeons removed the shears and were able to save his eye. Doctors said Luetscher still has slight swelling in his eyelids and minor double vision, but has otherwise recovered.
UNITED STATES
Grizzly bear mauls hiker
A 59-year-old man has died after being mauled by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park, officials said on Monday. Officials identified the man as John Wallace of Michigan and said he was camping alone in the vast park in Wyoming. His body was found on Friday. “Results from an autopsy conducted [on] Sunday afternoon concluded that Wallace died as a result of traumatic injuries from a bear attack,” the National Park Service said in a statement. “Rangers discovered signs of grizzly bear activity at the scene [on] Friday afternoon, including bear tracks and scat.” Wallace was the second person to die from a bear attack in the past two months in the famed US park, after a 57-year-old man was killed last month.
UNITED STATES
Obama’s uncle arrested
An uncle of President Barack Obama was arrested last week near Boston on a charge of drunk driving, police said on Monday. Onyango Obama was arrested in Framingham, Massachusetts, last Wednesday and charged in Framingham District Court with operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. At the time of his arrest, Obama had “red glassy eyes, slurred speech and a strong odor of alcohol,” police Lieutenant Blaise Tersoni told reporters. According to the police report, he said he’d had “only two beers,” but still failed several tests. Then when asked if he wanted to call someone, he responded: “I think I’ll call the White House.” Obama was being held without bail on an immigration detainer — a status usually for people without a valid visa. The president’s extended family on his Kenyan father’s side made news last year when his aunt, Zeituni Onyango, who is the sister of Onyango Obama, won a court battle for asylum after being in the country illegally.
UNITED STATES
Jailed polygamist in coma
Imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs is in a coma in a Houston, Texas, hospital after complications from fasting. A person familiar with Jeffs’ condition told reporters on Monday that the 55-year-old prisoner’s coma was medically induced and said he’s expected to survive. The person requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss Jeff’s condition publicly. Emily Detoto, Jeffs’ attorney, said her client was taken to East Texas Medical Center in Tyler on Sunday night. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Jeffs hasn’t been eating or drinking enough since being sentenced this month to life in prison for sexually assaulting underage followers.
UNITED STATES
Immigration law blocked
A federal judge on Monday blocked Alabama’s tough new immigration law from taking effect this week, making it the latest state to have a measure on illegal immigration halted in court. Chief US District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn cited the need for more time to consider the legal challenges against the law in an injunction that blocks implementation of the law through Sept. 29. The Alabama law, widely seen as the toughest state measure on illegal immigration, requires police to detain people they suspect of illegally entering the country if they cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason. The law also makes it a crime to knowingly transport or harbor an illegal immigrant and requires public schools to determine, by reviewing birth certificates or sworn affidavits, the legal residency status of students upon enrollment.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the