INDIA
Parents shocked by alphabet
Angry parents are demanding to know why their kids are being taught about bombs and knives at nursery schools in Uttar Pradesh State. They said that a book on the Hindi alphabet for children says that “B” stands for bomb and “Ch” for “Chaku,” or knife. Pictures accompany the words. Rav Authar Dixit, president of the Parents-Student Welfare Association of Gurukul Academy, said on Sunday that the national education board was investigating how such a book was cleared for private nursery schools. Javed Alam, a board official, blamed the book publisher for the lapse.
INDIA
One in three suffering: poll
A new poll finds that nearly a third of Indians view their lives poorly enough to be classified as suffering. The Gallup poll shows an increase in suffering across all income levels in the nation of 1.2 billion since the poll was first taken in 2006. The poll, released yesterday, found that 31 percent of Indians were rated as suffering. Among the poorest 40 percent, 38 percent were suffering. Gallup classified respondents as thriving, struggling or suffering according to how they rated their current and future lives. Income, education and employment were the key factors affecting people’s well-being, the survey said.
AFGHANISTAN
Street names key to fight
The maze of nameless streets and numberless houses in Kabul is making it difficult to catch insurgents and thwart attacks, prompting the capital’s police chief, Lieutenant-General Ayoub Salangi, to ask on Sunday that a system be installed. Most of the city’s dishevelled, dust-filled streets have no names, and of those that do, few are marked. For the majority of Kabul’s 4 million inhabitants, navigating is a trick of good memory and a stream of questions to locals and passers-by. “I have repeatedly asked the mayor of Kabul to create a system, but it is a vast project and requires a lot of money,” Salangi said. “From a security point of view, not having street names is devastating. There is no way to know where anyone is.”
NEW ZEALAND
Kim Dotcom in money row
Police are investigating Megaload cofounder’s claim that he gave a lawmaker money that the politician tried to disguise. Kim Dotcom told the New Zealand Herald he gave conservative MP John Banks NZ$50,000 (US$41,000) when Banks unsuccessfully ran for Auckland mayor in 2010. Dotcom said Banks told him to funnel the campaign contribution through two intermediaries so he could declare the donations anonymous. Banks is now the leader and sole lawmaker of the conservative Act Party, which is in a coalition partnership with the governing National Party.
SOUTH KOREA
Four hurt in sea scuffle
Seoul says four of its officials were hurt in a fight after they boarded a Chinese fish carrier, and nine Chinese sailors have been arrested. The scuffle happened after South Korean officials ordered the Chinese vessel to stop for an inspection yesterday morning in the Yellow Sea, it said. One official’s head was cut, but his condition is not life-threatening, the coast guard said. The officials said two other South Koreans received minor injuries, while another was rescued after falling into the water. The officials returned to their own vessel and contacted the coast guard, which said it captured the fleeing Chinese sailors.
IRAN
Koran burning condemned
The government yesterday slammed a US pastor’s burning of a Koran, calling it provocative and demanding US authorities take action to prevent any recurrence. The ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency that it “strongly condemns this ridiculous, insulting and provoking act by a so-called American priest in overt contempt of the holy Koran.” The condemnation was in reaction to a Saturday ceremony in which Florida pastor Terry Jones set fire to the Muslim holy book and a depiction of the prophet Mohammed to protest Iran’s imprisonment of an Iranian Christian clergyman, Yousef Nadarkhani. The act was broadcast online in a YouTube video that climaxed with Jones and a handful of followers repeating the US oath of allegiance as the Koran burned. Jones, who rebuffed a US Department of Defense request to desist out of fear for US troops’ safety abroad, was behind a burning of the Koran in March last year by his assistant that triggered violence in northern Afghanistan in which at least 12 people were killed.
MEXICO
Children poisoned at festival
Authorities say a festival celebrating Children’s Day went badly wrong and more than 200 youngsters were sickened after eating apparently rotten food in a village near the Pacific resort of Acapulco. Guerrero State Health Secretary Lazaro Mazon Alonso says the party was held on Friday at a school in Organos village and people began showing up at hospitals the next day for treatment of food poisoning.
ISRAEL
Wall built on border
The military yesterday began building a wall that will run several kilometers along part of the border with Lebanon, a military spokeswoman said. Public radio said the wall would be several meters high and intended to protect the Israeli border town of Metulla from fire coming from the Lebanese side. It is expected to take several weeks to build. Israel’s military announced the project in January, saying it would protect recently-constructed apartment blocks in Metulla from sniper fire coming from the border town of Kfar Kila.
UNITED STATES
Postcard from 1958 arrives
A postcard mailed from Chicago in 1958 has finally reached its intended recipient, but not without a little help from Facebook. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that a postcard depicting Shedd Aquarium recently arrived at Scott McMurry’s Virginia home, more than five decades after his mother mailed it. The 71-year-old said he immediately recognized his mother’s handwriting. The postcard was addressed to Clairmont Lane in Decatur, Georgia, where McMurry grew up, but it recently arrived in Elizabeth Fulcher’s mailbox on Clairmont Lane in South Daytona, Florida. Fulcher posted a picture of the postcard on Facebook and her friends helped track down McMurry.
CUBA
Police release dissident
Police in Cuba on Sunday released Jose Daniel Ferrer, a political dissident arrested shortly after the visit to the country by Pope Benedict XVI, the activist said. Ferrer, leader of the banned Patriotic Union of Cuba, was arrested on April 2, along with 42 other activists, in a crackdown on protesters in Santiago de Cuba after the pope’s visit. The group was arrested after protesting the detention of a dissident who chanted anti-government slogans during the pope’s visit in late March. Most were released after a few days.
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
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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