AFGHANISTAN
Bomb kills three soldiers
A roadside bomb attack killed three NATO troops in the east of the country, one of the deadliest flashpoints in the 10-year war against Taliban insurgents, the military said yesterday. NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force did not release the nationalities of the soldiers or give further details of the incident, which happened on Tuesday. The deaths take the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan to 561 so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on figures from independent Web site iCasualties.org. A total of 711 foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan last year, the highest annual total since the US-led invasion in 2001 ousted the Taliban from power.
CHINA
Tiger escapes from zoo
A rare Siberian tiger escaped from a zoo in Anhui Province, frightening locals in a downtown public park before she was shot dead by more than 12 police, the Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday. The nine-year-old big cat fled her cage in Wuhu city when a zookeeper there forgot to lock the gate properly after feeding time, Xinhua said, citing zoo officials. The tiger had a bad temper, “probably caused by mating anxiety,” the zoo officials told Xinhua, which said that further investigation is underway. No one was hurt in the incident. The tiger’s escape was the latest in a string of cases involving tigers escaping from zoos in the country over the past few years, according to local media reports. In January, a tour bus driver was mauled to death by a tiger at a breeding center in the northeast after he got out of his vehicle to check on a mechanical problem and was dragged off to a wooded area by the hungry cat.
NEW ZEALAND
‘Sparta’ leaves Antarctica
The patched-up Russian fishing boat Sparta completed temporary repairs and set sail from the Antarctic yesterday, ending a 12-day battle to stay afloat in icy waters, rescue officials said. “Repairs on the stricken vessel Sparta are complete. She is now heading north to rendezvous with her sister ship, Chiyo Maru No. 3, in the open ocean,” rescue coordinator Tracy Brickles said. The Sparta, with a crew of 32, had been stranded near the Antarctic ice shelf for 12 days after being holed below the waterline while heavy ice prevented nearby vessels from giving immediate assistance. Pumps and fuel dropped from a New Zealand Air Force Hercules helped keep the vessel afloat until a South Korean icebreaker reached it on Christmas Day with equipment to speed up repairs. “The Korean icebreaker Araon will escort Sparta and open an ice lane to allow both vessels to make their way from the ice shelf,” Brickles said. The Sparta is expected to make its way to New Zealand, 2,000 nautical miles (3,700km) away, for permanent repairs.
INDONESIA
Mudflows kill four
Officials say fast-moving mudflows streaming from the mouth of a volcano in the Molucca Islands have killed four villagers. About 1,000 others have fled their homes. Mount Gamalama sprang back to life this month with a powerful, non-fatal eruption. Government spokesman Yusuf Sunnya said yesterday that days of heavy rains triggered flows of cold lava, rocks and other debris that slammed into villages near the base on Tuesday night. He said four people were killed and more than a dozen others were hospitalized with injuries ranging from broken bones to head wounds.
ITALY
Pirates hijack cargo ship
Pirates have hijacked a cargo ship with 18 crew on board at dawn on Tuesday off the coast of Oman in an area notorious for attacks by pirates, officials said. The Enrico Ievoli, carrying a cargo of caustic soda from the United Arab Emirates to the Mediterranean, was boarded by pirates at about 4am, said the Naples-based owner of the ship, Marnavi. “There were 18 people on board,” including six Italians, five Ukrainians and seven Indians, Marnavi director Domenico Ievoli said. Ievoli said the ship’s Italian captain, Agostino Musumeci, had told him: “The pirates are on board, but we are all fine.” A foreign ministry spokesman said the navy, which thwarted a pirate attack against the same ship in 2006 near Yemen, had been alerted. “Together with the crisis unit, I am closely following the hijacking of the Ievoli,” Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said in a message on Twitter, calling for “strict discretion to ensure a positive outcome.” However, the captain’s wife, Rita Musumeci, said she had been told of the hijacking by journalists and that she had received no official word from the government. “It’s shameful. No one from the state has called us. They’re warm with their families. What do they care?” she was quoted as saying by ANSA news agency.
ITALY
Murder shocks tiny island
The tiny island of Lipari, an idyllic jewel off the north coast of Sicily, has been rocked by its first murder in 56 years. Part of the volcanic Aeolian chain of islands, which includes Salina, where the Oscar-winning film Il Postino was shot, Lipari draws boatloads of tourists to its beaches during the summer, but the population falls to 11,000 during the winter. On Christmas Eve, a cousin calling for Eufemia Biviano, 62, a cleaning lady who lived alone in an isolated house, found her lying in a pool of blood in her garage with her throat slashed. Lipari’s last murder was in 1955, when a woman was killed by two men and dumped in a well. “Here people leave their car keys in the ignition and many leave their front doors open,” Lipari Mayor Mariano Bruno said. A recent number of small thefts has triggered speculation that Biviano disturbed thieves, but nothing was stolen from the house. “It is possible someone was waiting for her and we are looking at her past,” a police officer said.
SWEDEN
Pedophile gets five years
A court on Tuesday sentenced a man to five years in prison for a series of sex crimes against children, including a rape in the Philippines, and the possession of more than 500,000 pornographic pictures featuring children. The Kristianstad district court found 45-year-old Patrick Johnsson guilty of raping a young child, planning further child rapes, aggravated child pornography, sexually assaulting children and making children pose for sexually explicit pictures.
ITALY
Fallen masonry probed
The culture ministry is investigating reports that bits of rock have fallen from the Colosseum in Rome. Witnesses reported seeing the fallen masonry on Sunday. News agency ANSA reported that another bit fell on Tuesday, but Colosseum director Rossella Rea denied it and blamed the false report on a “psychosis” that occurs every so often that Rome’s iconic stadium is crumbling. Environmental group Legambiente has frequently raised the alarm about the precarious state of the Colosseum, charging that exhaust fumes and vibrations from vehicles and a nearby subway are damaging the Colosseum’s travertine exterior, and its brick and tufa interior.
UNITED STATES
‘Tarzan’ chimp, 80, dies
A Florida animal sanctuary says Cheetah, the chimpanzee from the Tarzan movies of the 1930s, has died at age 80. The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor announced on its Web site that Cheetah died on Saturday of kidney failure. Sanctuary outreach director Debbie Cobb yesterday told the Tampa Tribune that Cheetah was outgoing, loved finger painting and liked to see people laugh. She said he seemed to be tuned in to human feelings. Cheetah was the comic relief in the Tarzan series starring Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. Cobb said Cheetah came to the sanctuary from Weissmuller’s estate in about 1960.
UNITED STATES
Filipinos on murder charge
Three brothers from the Philippines have been charged with the Christmas Day beating to death of their sister’s husband. Hudson County prosecutor Edward DeFazio told the Jersey Journal newspaper the killing resulted from “an ongoing family dispute.” DeFazio said 44-year-old Jeorge Alvendia was stomped and hit with a shovel in the garage of his Jersey City home. A criminal complaint said 44-year-old Elieser Paet beat Alvendia with a shovel while 37-year-old Francis Paet and 39-year-old Wilfred Paet kicked him. Authorities said Alvendia’s wife wasn’t home during the attack, but arrived soon after. The brothers were arrested and are being held on US$500,000 cash bail. It’s unclear if they have an attorney.
UNITED STATES
‘Justice fugitive’ pays fine
A French graffiti artist accused of tagging trains in Boston and New York paid a fine of US$2,500 to avoid a trial on vandalism charges in one case, Massachusetts prosecutors said on Tuesday. Maxime Bezat, 25, was caught at Newark airport in New Jersey on Dec. 3 while about to fly to Paris, where he is also sought for spray-paint vandalism. He was then brought back to Massachusetts. “The vandalism case was resolved today with a payment of US$2,500 restitution” to the Boston transit authority, said Jessica Pastore, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office. A second “fugitive from justice” charge was dismissed, as Bezat — who is sometimes known as “Rask” — was transferred to New York on Tuesday to face charges there.
MEXICO
Poverty remarks cost job
An anti-poverty official has been fired after posting a comment on social media sites suggesting that poor people smell bad. The nation’s anti-poverty agency said Carlos Talavera has been fired as director of outreach brigades in the western city of Uruapan after a Facebook posting of his was re-tweeted on social media sites. The original comment appears to describe an event attended by poor people and reads roughly: “Truth is this smells impressively bad, poor things.” The social development department said on Tuesday that it “roundly condemns” Talavera’s comment. Talavera also apologized on his Facebook account.
VENEZUELA
Breast implant removal free
The public health service will remove for free French-made breast implants feared to be at risk of rupturing, Health Minister Eugenia Sader said on Tuesday. “Patients who wish to have breast implants made by the French company Poly Implant Prothese may head to hospitals with plastic surgery units to have them removed at no cost,” state news agency AVN quoted Sader as saying.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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