AUSTRALIA
‘Chopper’ Read has cancer
Infamous crime figure Mark “Chopper” Read has revealed he has terminal cancer and could have only weeks to live. Read, who shot to worldwide fame after the 2000 film Chopper about his violent life, starring Eric Bana, took to Twitter on Thursday to break the news about his failing health. “Looks like the big C has finally bitten. Let’s see how we go,” tweeted Read, who in the past has claimed to have been involved in the killing of 19 people. Read, who is in his late 50s, told News Limited newspapers he has four tumors on his liver and could have just six weeks to live. “I’ve got liver cancer. They say there’s no way out of it,” he said. “As long as the bleeding stops, I don’t give a bugger.” Read, who has spent a total of 23 years in jail, is a national celebrity after retiring from a life of crime to write novels, including How to Shoot Friends and Influence People in 1993.
AUSTRALIA
KFC told to pay A$8 million
Fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) was yesterday ordered to pay A$8 million (US$8.3 million) to a girl who suffered severe brain damage and was paralyzed after eating a Twister wrap. Monika Samaan was seven when she suffered salmonella encephalopathy — a brain injury linked to food poisoning that also left her with a blood infection and septic shock — in October 2005. Several other family members also fell ill and they claimed Samaan’s injuries were caused by a chicken Twister wrap from a Sydney KFC outlet. The New South Wales Supreme Court ruled in the family’s favor a week ago and yesterday ordered KFC to pay the girl A$8 million in damages plus legal costs. In a statement, the family’s lawyer George Vlahakis said they were relieved the battle was over. Last week KFC indicated it would appeal the decision, but has yet to do so. During the trial, Justice Stephen Rothman said the chicken became contaminated “because of the failure of one or more employees of KFC” to follow proper preparation rules, which he described as “negligent.”
CHINA
Paracels tourism approved
Beijing has approved a development project that would support tourism and fishing around South China Sea islands, a move likely to inflame territorial disputes. Hainan Province wants to build a supply dock over more than 823 acres of water off Jinqing Island (晉卿島), part of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島). Taiwan and Vietnam also claim the Paracels as their territory, and Vietnam has protested China’s tourism plans. The State Oceanic Administration said on Thursday it agreed “in principle” to Hainan’s proposal. It was also considering a proposal for another supply dock in the South China Sea, the statement said without elaborating. Hainan Province Vice Governor Tan Li (譚力) has said he is determined to start tourism development in the Paracel Islands this year. Also on Thursday, the Philippines said Beijing violated a 2002 pact when Chinese government ships prevented Filipino authorities from arresting Chinese fishermen at a disputed shoal this month. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said in Manila that Beijing’s aggressive actions at the Scarborough Shoal, known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) in Taiwan, violated an accord between Beijing and ASEAN that discourages aggressive acts in the South China Sea. Del Rosario said Manila would consider any ASEAN offer to intercede to end the shoal dispute, which began on April 10.
NORWAY
Crowds gather for singalong
They gathered by the tens of thousands in the drenching rain to face down terrorism with song. Drawn by a Facebook-organized protest, thousands flocked to public squares across the country on Thursday and rallied against far-right fanatic Anders Behring Breivik, now on trial for a bomb-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people. They sang a Norwegian version of a Pete Seeger tune that the confessed mass killer claims has been used to brainwash the country’s youth into supporting immigration. Defiant singalongs of Children of the Rainbow were staged in Oslo and other major cities, even as the ninth day of the trial went on with survivors of Breivik’s attacks giving tearful testimony. In downtown Oslo, about 40,000 people raised their voices as Lillebjoern Nilsen played the song, a Norwegian version of Seeger’s My Rainbow Race.
RUSSIA
Clouds spook Muscovites
Weather and emergency officials soothed fears of Moscow residents on Thursday with statements that green-tinged clouds over the capital were not an alien invasion, but tree pollen. “Today Muscovites felt like characters in a disaster film about an alien invasion — people living in the southwest of the city saw that the sky had been colored green,” the weather service said on its Web site. The clouds reached the city center by the afternoon, causing office workers to gawk at the suspiciously colored sky. “Green clouds are coming toward Moscow,” the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid headlined its story. “Could it be that the apocalypse is upon us?” Green dust also covered streets and cars. Some people apparently called emergency numbers, leading officials to say the air was thick with tree pollen, not disaster fallout. “Many residents forgot all about natural phenomena and decided that it’s the result of an accident at an industrial facility, but this dust is pollen from alder and birch trees, which began flowering recently after a slow spring,” said the city administration of the town of Podolsk.
GERMANY
Woman denies killing babies
A woman suspected of killing three babies found in camping coolers in a basement denied murder on Thursday, according to prosecutors, who are nevertheless continuing their investigation. The 40-year-old mother “has declared that they were stillborn,” said Ute Sehlbach-Schellenberg, a prosecutor in the western town of Giessen. However, she said that there was “an initial suspicion of three counts of intentional homicide. We must now see whether we can refute her plea.” The woman, who has other living children, has not been arrested. An autopsy has shown that two of the corpses were of baby boys. The sex of the third baby remained unclear.
UNITED KINGDOM
Delay hampered death probe
A colleague of a British spy, whose body was found locked inside a sports bag, says a delay in reporting him as missing hampered police inquiries into his death. Gareth Williams, 31, worked for Britain’s secret eavesdropping service GCHQ, but was attached to the MI6 spy agency when his naked and decomposing remains were found in curious circumstances in August 2010 at his London apartment. The spy’s manager at MI6 previously acknowledged he did not raise the alarm for a week after Williams first failed to appear for work. At an inquest on Thursday, some of Williams’ relatives walked out in tears as a second intelligence official said she recognized the delay had an “impact on the police investigation.”
UNITED STATES
Kids learn about adult life
Children participating in the State Department’s “Take Your Child to Work” day event on Thursday were treated to a discussion of prostitutes and strip clubs as reporters pressed for answers on a widening Secret Service scandal. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland opened the daily news briefing with a salute to the handful of underage observers who joined journalists for the midday run-down of global events. However, any hopes that the briefing would steer clear of the salacious dissipated as questions focused on charges that Secret Service agents caroused with strippers and prostitutes on overseas assignments. “What a topic to be talking about on ‘Bring Your Kids To Work’ day,” Nuland said. “Parents, you can explain all of this later.”
UNITED STATES
Record-holder dies
The man who holds the Guinness World Record for living the longest with a bullet in his head has died in Central California at age 103. The Modesto Bee reported that William Pace died in his sleep at a Turlock nursing home on Monday, 94 years and six months after his elder brother accidentally shot him with their father’s .22 caliber rifle in 1917. Pace learned in 2006 that he had been crowned the world record-holder in the category of unwanted cranial ammunition acquisition. His son told a newspaper during a birthday party for his father last year that doctors in Pace’s native Texas left the bullet in place because they worried that surgery might cause brain damage.
UNITED STATES
‘Monkeypox’ is false alarm
Authorities say passengers aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Detroit were kept from disembarking in Chicago for about three hours after a person was suspected of carrying monkeypox. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the passenger was evaluated shortly after the plane landed on Thursday afternoon at Midway International Airport. The CDC said emergency medical personnel determined the woman’s rash was not related to monkeypox. In its statement, the CDC said the woman was cleared, but advised to seek medical care.
UNITED STATES
Elephant flunks training
The owner of a California sanctuary says an African elephant is still welcome after killing the zookeeper who was preparing to move it from New Zealand. Pat Derby’s Performing Animal Welfare Society in San Andreas was going to be home to the elephant now called Mila, but known as Jumbo for 30 years in a circus. Derby said on Thursday there may be ownership problems. Mila had been at the Franklin Zoo near Auckland while zoo owner Helen Schofield worked to place her. Derby says she and Schofield had been working on the move for two years. Schofield was training Mila how to live in a crate during the trip. She told Derby a month ago it was going well. Schofield was crushed to death on Wednesday when Mila picked her up in its trunk and lifted her off the ground.
UNITED STATES
Frisky puppy delays flight
A puppy named Byrdie delayed several flights at New York’s LaGuardia Airport when she escaped from her crate and ran around a busy runway. The Port Authority says the dog was loose for about 10 minutes on Wednesday while authorities unsuccessfully tried to catch her. The agency says they had to find the dog’s owner aboard the Memphis-bound Delta Air Lines flight to help catch her.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion