HUNGARY
Jobs to be immortalized
Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, will be immortalized in Budapest with a statue, Graphisoft, a Hungarian firm Jobs helped to prominence, said on Friday. “Graphisoft ... will erect a statue to commemorate Apple’s legendary founder” on Dec. 21, the company, known globally for its architectural design software ArchiCAD, said in a statement. Steve Jobs, who died on Oct. 5 following a long battle with cancer, “was the creator of technology with a human face,” it said. The statue will be erected in a science park that hosts several IT companies, including Graphisoft. Apple has supported the Hungarian firm since 1984, when Jobs saw it at the annual CEBIT expo in Germany, the company said.
ITALY
‘Blind’ woman outed
A woman claiming a disability allowance for blindness was remanded in custody on Friday for benefit fraud after police filmed her working as a hairdresser and cycling about town on her bicycle. The 62-year-old woman, who owns a hair salon in the town of Lugo in the north of the country, began claiming the benefit in 1986 because her vision was degenerating. By this year she claimed to be “totally blind,” according to a police statement. By 1997 her doctor said she had to be accompanied when she left the house and by 2008 she could only count the number of fingers held up in front of her if the hand was held a few centimeters away from her face. In double-checking a list of professions of those registered as blind, police stumbled across the salon and filmed the woman cutting clients’ hair, shopping for clothes and food and walking and cycling about the town. Her benefit — 43,000 euros (US$59,000) so far — has been suspended.
FRANCE
Sword-wielding man kills
A man armed with a Japanese samurai sword killed a policewoman and wounded two other people on Friday during an attack on a local government office in the central city of Bourges, police said. The 33-year-old man was shot in the leg and wounded during the attack, which took place at a local prefect’s office. Witnesses said that before the attack the man had been rejected for a gun license at the office. He returned with the 80cm sword and attacked police when they attempted to subdue him. The 30-year-old policewoman was seriously wounded and died shortly after the attack, the interior ministry said. A police officer shot and wounded the attacker, after which he was subdued and taken into custody, witnesses said.
SOUTH KOREA
Conman uses homeless
A man has been arrested for arranging sham marriages between homeless men and visa-seeking Vietnamese women, an immigration official said on Friday. The 40-year-old man was held on Wednesday by a special immigration investigation team for arranging the fake marriages, an official at Seoul’s immigration office said. Three other alleged marriage brokers are being investigated by prosecutors. The brokers contacted homeless men at Seoul railway stations and promised them a free trip to Vietnam and up to three million won (US$2,600) if they agreed to the fake marriages, the official said on condition of anonymity. Vietnamese brides, who were seeking the right to live and work in the country, paid between US$18,000 to US$20,000. The homeless men were flown to Vietnam to marry and the supposed couples then returned to South Korea for another wedding ceremony before the brides parted company with their spouses and disappeared.
UNITED STATES
NASA books Virgin flight
NASA has booked a charter suborbital flight from Virgin Galactic’s spaceport operations in southern New Mexico. Virgin Galactic announced on Thursday that the agreement calls for NASA to charter a full flight from the company, and it includes options for two additional flights. If all options are exercised, the contract is worth US$4.5 million. Virgin Galactic says each mission allows for up to 590kg of scientific experiment equipment. Earlier this week, Virgin Galactic announced it had hired former NASA executive Michael Moses as vice president of operations. Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Aabar Investments. It is on track to be the world’s first commercial spaceline and hopes to launch its first flight within the next year from Spaceport America, about 80km north of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
UNITED STATES
Pumpkin prices soar
A hurricane that drenched the northeast in August is having a knock-on effect on festivities months later, with pumpkin prices soaring after heavy rains ruined patches, officials said on Friday. The Department of Agriculture warned in a blogpost that in the wake of Hurricane Irene, prices for pumpkins large and small were higher than last year. However, pumpkins are grown “in nearly every state, so the supply is widely disbursed,” the department added, calling on lovers of the famous orange squash to send in photos of their creations. Pumpkins are often traditionally carved for the late October festivities of Halloween into scary, humorous or abstract shapes. A candle is placed inside the hollowed pumpkin left outside homes. The Wall Street Journal reported that prices for smaller pumpkins grown in Maryland and then sold in New York state are 60 times higher than a year ago.
HONDURAS
Six killed leaving airport
Police said six men were shot dead on Friday as they left an airport in the northern part of the country, which has one of the world’s highest homicide rates. The incident took place at the exit for the carpark at the airport in San Pedro Sula, 240km north of the capital, Tegucigalpa. On Thursday, the Violence Observatory at the National Autonomous University of Honduras released a study indicating that the small Central American country of 8 million was on course to break world records with its murder rate. Authorities have blamed some of the violence on international drug cartels, which have used Central American countries as transit routes to export cocaine to the US.
GUATEMALA
Heavy rains threaten region
Central America was on maximum alert on Friday as heavy rains threatened to lash the region over the weekend, while the death toll rose to 37 from a storm system in the past week. The toll in neighboring Mexico rose to eight, with three more reported dead in the wake of Jova, which separately hit the Pacific coast as a hurricane on Tuesday before weakening to a tropical storm. Storm systems in Central America and Mexico triggered heavy flooding, blocked roads and caused electricity outages and mudslides. Many homes were destroyed and more than 70,000 people affected. Torrential rains carried away bridges in Guatemala, where 22 people were confirmed dead, according to local authorities and emergency services. President Alvaro Colom told reporters that two people were still missing, while the US offered four helicopters to help rescue efforts in isolated communities.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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