VIETNAM
Rhino horn demand surges
Nguyen Huong Giang loves to party, but loathes hangovers, so she ends her whiskey benders by tossing back shots of rhino horn ground with water on a special ceramic plate. Her father gave her the 10cm brown horn as a gift, claiming it cures everything from headaches to cancer. Vietnam has become so obsessed with the fingernail-like substance that it now sells for more than cocaine. Experts say Vietnam’s surging demand is threatening to wipe out the world’s remaining rhinoceros populations, which recovered from the brink of extinction after the 1970s thanks to conservation campaigns. Illegal killings in Africa hit the highest recorded level last year and are expected to worsen this year.
AUSTRALIA
‘Dead’ man found alive
Ambulance heads yesterday admitted an “error” after experienced Australian paramedics declared a man dead following a car crash and left the scene, only for him to be found alive an hour later. The driver was trapped upside down in the wreckage of a Porsche in a Melbourne suburb and was pronounced dead after being treated on Sunday. It was only when State Emergency Service volunteers finally began the process of removing what they thought was a corpse that they saw him twitch and discovered a “feeble pulse.” The man was rushed to hospital in a critical condition and is now listed as serious, but stable.
HONG KONG
Bowl breaks world record
An extremely rare Chinese porcelain bowl fetched nearly US$27 million — smashing pre-sale estimates by about three times — at a hotly anticipated Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong yesterday. The modest-looking imperial ceramic bowl that was made about 900 years ago had been expected to fetch up to HK$80 million, but it was snapped up by an unidentified telephone bidder for HK$208 million (US$26.7 million). The price sets a new world record for a piece of ceramic from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), according to Sotheby’s, beating a 2008 record when a “Guan” mallet vase went for HK$67.52 million. “The Ruyao Washer is among the most sophisticated achievements in Chinese ceramics,” Sotheby’s Asia deputy chairman Nicolas Chow said.
INDIA
Nuclear sub in action
India was to return to the elite group of countries with a nuclear-powered submarine when it inducted a new vessel leased from Russia yesterday. Indian Minister of Defense A.K. Antony was to formally commission the INS Chakra II at its base in Visakhapatnam, a navy shipyard on the country’s south east coast in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The 8,140-tonne submarine is capable of firing a range of torpedoes as well as nuclear-tipped Granat cruise missiles.
JAPAN
At least four die in storm
A huge storm killed at least four people in Japan, police said yesterday, as violent winds and rain battered the nation and disrupted transport for a second day. The storm his now covering all of the north of Japan’s main island of Honshu and much of the northernmost island of Hokkaido, buffeting the region with strong winds caused by a severe low-pressure system. On Sado Island, on Honshu’s northwest, gusts of up to 156kph were recorded. Yesterday 72 flights were grounded, stranding about 6,000 people. Many commuter lines and bullet train services were also suspended.
ITALY
Pensioner jumps to death
A 78-year-old woman jumped to her death from a fourth floor balcony on Tuesday after her pension was cut, police said. Authorities had recently reduced her monthly pension to 600 euros (US$791) from 800 and she had become overwhelmed with concern about not being able to make ends meet, her children told local police in Gela, Sicily. Suicide attempts connected to economic woes are reported regularly in the nation, which is struggling with a recession, rising unemployment and increasingly severe austerity measures. Last week, two men facing financial trouble set themselves on fire in the north in two separate incidents. Both survived, one with severe burns.
ISRAEL
ICC snubs Palestine
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor said on Tuesday it would hold off on a preliminary probe into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories until the UN rules on Palestinian statehood. The Palestinian Authority in January 2009 accepted the Hague-based court’s jurisdiction, asking ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to launch a war crimes investigation against Tel Aviv following the Gaza War from December 2008 to January 2009. Tuesday’s statement said the court’s reach was not based on a principle of universal jurisdiction and it could open investigations only if asked to do so by either the UN Security Council or by a recognized state.
SUDAN
Air strike almost hits town
An air strike almost hit a village in the western region of Darfur, international peacekeepers said on Tuesday, the latest apparent attack by the government in the troubled region. Mainly African tribes took up arms against the government in Khartoum in 2003, complaining of political and economic marginalization in the remote region. Violence has ebbed from the 2003-2004 peak, but fighting still occurs as several rounds of peace talks have failed, hampered by rebel divisions and ongoing military operations.
RUSSIA
Five suspected rebels killed
The Ministry of the Interior says five separatist rebels, including two would-be suicide bombers, have been killed in a restive region in Russia’s Caucasus region. Madina Khadziyeva, a spokeswoman for the ministry’s branch in the southern province of Ingushetia, said yesterday that the militants opened fire on police from an onpassing car in the city of Nazran late on Tuesday and were killed in a shootout. She said two of them, including a woman, wore explosive belts and were presumably planning a terrorist attack. No police officers were hurt.
FRANCE
Suspected radicals arrested
Police swooped on suspected radical Islamists in pre-dawn raids for the second time in less than a week yesterday, arresting 10 people, a source close to the investigation said. The raids were carried out in Marseille and Roubaix, near the Belgian border, and in several other locations in the country’s south and southwest, the source said. They came less than a week after 19 alleged Islamists were arrested in similar anti-terrorist swoops on Friday. Prosecutors have announced that they would seek terror charges against 13 of them. Authorities have vowed a crackdown on Islamist extremists after self-confessed al-Qaeda follower Mohamed Merah was shot dead in a police siege following a killing spree in which he murdered seven people, including three children.
UNITED STATES
Smallest town up for sale
An outpost billed as the nation’s smallest town is up for sale today, complete with its own schoolhouse and gas station, with bidding starting at an enticing US$100,000. For a sum that would barely buy a one-room apartment in most places, the purchaser of Buford, Wyoming, would get more than 4 hectares of land, including a three-bedroom home, a garage and a cellphone tower. The store, Buford Trading Post, benefits from regular traffic along the I-80 interstate, with Wyoming’s capital, Cheyenne, just 50km to the east and San Francisco 1,800km to the west. Owner Don Sammons moved to Buford from California in 1980 with his family, but his wife died several years ago and his son grew up and moved away, leaving him on his own. “I am getting to the point where I’m thinking about retirement,” said Sammons, who describes himself as the mayor, adding that he had had “wonderful years” in the town.
UNITED STATES
Surfer bitten by 3m shark
A 28-year-old surfer suffered injuries on his left foot after being bitten by a 3m shark off Oahu’s North Shore on Tuesday. Honolulu lifeguard operations chief Jim Howe told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the shark came up to Holley, bit him and let go, and then bit him again. He said Holley fought off the shark with his surf board and got a good look at it. Holley was due to have minor surgery yesterday.
UNITED STATES
Prayer for the unborn
The pro-life Roman Catholic Church is finalizing a special Vatican-approved prayer dedicated to unborn children, the national association of bishops said on Tuesday. Rite for the Blessing of a Child in the Womb should be available in English and Spanish at parishes in time for Mother’s Day on May 13. “This new blessing gives thanks to God for the gift of life and imparts his blessing on the development child and his or her family,” spokesman Don Clemmer of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said by e-mail. “As the blessing was requested by the US bishops and approved by the Vatican as a blessing for use in the Church in the United States, it can only be used in this country,” he added.
CANADA
Human trafficker gets jail
The kingpin in what prosecutors described as the largest human trafficking case in the nation’s history that used Hungarian men as slaves was sentenced on Tuesday to nine years in prison. Ferenc Domotor, 49, pleaded guilty to running a criminal gang that lured men from his native Hungary with a promise of good jobs and a better life, and then coercing them into forced labor at his stucco companies in Hamilton, Ontario. With time already served, he could spend less than four-and-a-half years in prison. His wife, his son and several relatives were also convicted of related offenses.
MEXICO
Drug suspect extradited
The government has extradited Sinaloa cartel drug suspect Jesus “The King” Zambada to face charges in the US, an official said on condition of anonymity. Zambada is the brother of the Sinaloa cartel capo Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. the official said. Jesus Zambada was put on a plane to the US on Tuesday afternoon. A 2009 indictment in a US District Court in New York alleges Jesus Zambada operated a continuing criminal enterprise and trafficked drugs. Jesus Zambada allegedly shipped drugs through Mexico City’s international airport, and faces drug-related charges in Mexico.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
RSS