AUSTRALIA
Cher ‘upset’ over key sale
US singer Cher is “upset” and trying to get to the bottom of why a key to the city of Adelaide she was given in 1990 ended up on eBay, selling yesterday for nearly US$100,000. The appearance of the brass key and an accompanying memorial plaque on the Internet auction house offended city officials, with Adelaide Mayor Stephen Yarwood saying he was “exceptionally disappointed.” “It must be very embarrassing for her if she is selling it because she needs the money,” Yarwood said last weekend. In a tweet, Cher said she was mystified about it appearing on eBay. “I’m upset 2 & trying 2get2 bottom! I Think my office fkd up?” she tweeted. The key and engraved plaque was sold by a user called Authentic_Cher who claims to be the musician’s new “personal consignor,” saying the item was from her Malibu, California, home. The auction closed yesterday morning after 146 bids from people around the world with the successful buyer paying US$95,900. Cher was awarded the key to the city in recognition of her performance at the 1990 Formula One Grand Prix. “If she didn’t want to keep it, she should have returned it back to the city,” said Steve Condous, the former mayor who presented her with the key.
NORTH KOREA
Missiles fake: analysts
Analysts say a half dozen ominous new missiles showcased at a lavish military parade were clumsy fakes. Their conclusions cast more doubt on the country’s claims of military prowess after its recent rocket launch failure. The weapons displayed on April 15 appear to be a mish-mash of liquid-fuel and solid-fuel components that could never fly together. Undulating casings on the missiles suggest the metal is too thin to withstand flight. Each missile was slightly different from the others, even though all were supposedly the same make. They don’t even fit the launchers they were carried on. Two analysts who detailed those discrepancies in a paper posted recently on the Web site Armscontrolwonk.com say there is no doubt that the missiles were mock-ups.
AUSTRALIA
Woman in ATM trap freed
Firefighters yesterday performed one of their most unusual rescues — freeing an elderly woman whose fingers got stuck in a bank ATM. The fire service was called to a hospital in Sydney after security guards found the woman distressed with three of her fingers jammed in the slot that dispenses cash, ABC radio reported. The crew prised the front panel away from the machine to free her. “I’ve been in the job 37 years and never had one of these,” firefighter Steve Webb said. “She was in the main foyer of Campbelltown Hospital with the little finger, well three fingers, stuck up inside where the money comes out.” The woman was being examined by doctors at the hospital, he said.
CHINA
Girl rescued from sinkhole
A teenage girl was rescued by a taxi driver after falling into a deep sinkhole that opened up on a city sidewalk near a school. China Central Television (CCTV) aired footage on Wednesday from a surveillance video that showed the teenager in a pink coat falling down the 6m hole in Xian last month. Taxi driver Wang Wei told CCTV he witnessed the accident and climbed into the muddy sinkhole to rescue the unconscious teenager. Wang said he patted the girl to wake her up, then helped her climb to safety when firefighters lowered a ladder down to the pair. The China Daily newspaper said in an earlier report the girl was taken to hospital for treatment and recovered.
AUSTRIA
Monks submit UNESCO bid
The next time you wash your hands, it could be a UNESCO-protected gesture if a group of Austrian monks has its way. The Benedictine monastery of Gut Aich near Salzburg says it has submitted its custom of hand-washing — a greeting ritual — to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to add to its Intangible Heritage list. The ritual — performed by monks on the monastery’s visitors upon arrival — brings people closer together and is understood across all cultures and religions, Prior Johannes Pausch said. “You encounter people on another level. With this ritual, visitors know: ‘I am welcome.’” At a “time of increasing superficiality and hectic” pace, people appreciate this personal contact and interaction, Pausch said.
MOLDOVA
Cemetery barbeques banned
A mayor says he is banning barbecues and merrymaking in the capital’s cemeteries after reports that the country’s day of reflection had turned into a day of debauchery. Dorin Chirtoaca, the mayor of Chisinau, said on Wednesday that after laying flowers and quiet reflection in the cemeteries in memory of the departed in the week following Orthodox Easter, thousands then used the solemn occasion to cook meat on makeshift grills. Moldovans traditionally flock to cemeteries on feast days to pay their respects to the dead. “A lot of people were drunk when they left the cemetery,” Chirtoaca said, adding that authorities had to clear 60 tonnes of garbage from St Lazar cemetery.
UKRAINE
Ministry protests Dutch ad
The Foreign Ministry is protesting a Dutch television ad that advises women to keep their husbands from attending the Euro 2012 soccer championship in June because they are likely to be seduced by beautiful women. In the clip titled “Keep Him Home,” Netherlands Energy Co offers a free beer tap to customers who sign up for its services. If Dutch men were able to tap their own beer, the ad implies, they would be more likely to watch the games at home instead of traveling to the finals. An Internet search of “Ukrainian woman” shown in the clip yields dozens of photos of women in erotic outfits and poses. Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Voloshin said the ad was “humiliating and discriminatory.”
SWEDEN
Minister in invite mix-up
The environment minister thought she had asked the country’s former agriculture minister to attend a glamorous dinner, but the invitation went to the “wrong” Margareta Winberg — an ordinary Swede who jumped at the chance to mingle, even participating in the group photo. Winberg, a 67-year-old retiree from Sundbyberg told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter that although she does not know much about the environment, she did not hesitate in taking up Lena Ek on the offer last week. She told the paper that she met interesting people, “like that guy Blix,” a reference to former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix. Ek’s spokesman said the minister found the situation “extremely funny.”
GERMANY
Grisly discovery announced
Prosecutors said on Wednesday they have opened a probe following the grisly discovery of three dead babies in an apartment block and garage rented out to a 40-year-old woman. Prosecutors and police in Giessen said two of the small corpses were found on Tuesday in camping coolers in the basement of the apartment block. A third was found on Wednesday in another cooler in a garage used by the woman.
UNITED STATES
Police arrest six-year-old
Police in a small Indiana town hauled a six-year-old from his elementary school and charged him with battery and intimidation after he kicked and threatened the school principal, police said on Wednesday. The student, who had been suspended from school recently for biting and hitting a staff member, was arrested on April 18 at Hendricks Elementary School in Shelbyville. “This was not an isolated incident,” Shelbyville police lieutenant Michael Turner said. School officials called police, reporting that the student, who was not identified, had kicked principal Patrick Lumbley and told him and assistant principal Jessica Poe that he was going to kill them, a Shelbyville police report said. The student was yelling and screaming and lying on the floor of Poe’s office when police arrived, the report said. Turner said he hoped the filing of juvenile charges would help get the child the help he clearly needed. “Putting him into the system can open up avenues perhaps the parents don’t have,” he said.
UNITED STATES
Child patted down at airport
The grandmother of a four-year-old girl who became hysterical during a security screening at a Kansas airport said security agents forced her to undergo a pat-down, and even yelled at the child and called her an un-cooperative suspect. The incident has attracted increased media attention since the child’s mother, Michelle Brademeyer of Montana, detailed the ordeal in a Facebook post last week. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said its agents followed proper procedure. The child’s grandmother, Lori Croft, said on Wednesday that mother and daughter initially passed through security at Wichita’s airport without incident, but then the child ran to briefly hug Croft, who was awaiting a pat-down after tripping the alarm. That was when TSA agents insisted the child undergo a physical pat-down.
UNITED STATES
ACLU sues school district
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing a northwest Indiana school district that it said expelled three eighth-graders for joking on Facebook about which of their classmates they would like to kill. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in Hammond, alleges Griffith Public Schools violated the three 14-year-old girls’ free speech rights. The girls were suspended and later expelled in January after a classmate’s mother alerted school officials to the Facebook posts. The suit says school officials told the girls they had violated school policy against bullying, harassment and intimidation. ACLU attorney Gavin Rose said it was clear the girls were joking because their remarks were accompanied by smiley faces and other emoticons.
UNITED STATES
Woman admits cancer con
A New York woman has admitted faking cancer to con donors out of money and services for her wedding and Caribbean honeymoon. Court officials said 25-year-old Jessica Vega is not likely to do any time in state prison, but would have to repay more than US$13,000 to her victims and remain in a local jail until her sentencing on May 15. Vega pleaded guilty to fraud and forgery charges on Wednesday in Orange County Court. In 2010, she spread word in her Hudson Valley community that she was dying of leukemia and wanted a “dream wedding” to Michael O’Connell, the father of her infant daughter, in the few months she had left. She was arrested on April 3 in Virginia. O’Connell had questioned her story and they divorced.
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
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
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