JAPAN
Young Japanese suicidal
More than a quarter of Japanese in their 20s have thought about taking their own life, according to a survey released yesterday, in a nation with one of the world’s highest suicide rates. The survey found that 28.4 percent of respondents in their twenties had contemplated suicide, the highest of any age group, according to the report. “The data show that the younger people hesitate to talk to others, or cannot find anyone to talk to when they have a problem because of shallow relationships with others,” the survey conducted by Japan’s Cabinet Office said. “They tend to suffer alone,” it added.
AUSTRALIA
Drunks fined over penguin
Two drunken Welshmen on Wednesday escaped with a fine after being convicted of stealing a penguin called Dirk from an Australian theme park after consuming large amounts of vodka. Former Royal Marine Rhys Owen Jones, 21, and his bricklayer friend Keri Mules, 20, broke into Sea World on Queensland’s Gold Coast last month and swam with the dolphins and let off a fire extinguisher in a shark enclosure. The pair, in Australia on a working holiday, then stole Dirk, Southport Magistrates Court heard. Their lawyer Bill Potts, who Australian Associated Press reported was wearing a penguin tie in court, said his clients meant no harm. He said after they awoke the next day with hangovers and found the bird in their room they tried to care for it by feeding it bread and putting it in the shower.
AUSTRALIA
Arm nearly lost to chainsaw
A man was in hospital yesterday after his arm was nearly severed by a chainsaw in a horrific neighborhood dispute that saw the alleged offender’s finger hacked off with a machete. Police said they were called out to Minto in Sydney’s southwest on Tuesday evening and were confronted by the grisly scene. “Upon arrival, they located a 30-year-old man with his right arm partially severed,” a police statement said. “It’s believed he had been attacked with a chainsaw during a violent altercation with a neighbor.”
AUSTRALIA
New toilet speed record set
Stuntwoman Jolene Van Vugt was flushed with pride yesterday after setting a new land speed record for the fastest motorized toilet. Van Vugt, a former Canadian motocross champion, steered the contraption through some early wobbles to 75kph in Sydney, 7kph more than the previous Guinness world record. Police were on hand to record the feat. “I flew into Australia yesterday and came out here to jump straight on the toilet,” the 31-year-old said. “That was so fun and I’m stoked to get the record.” Van Vugt, who is in Australia to perform at the Nitro Circus stunt show based on the hit MTV series, holds a host of world records, including being the first woman to backflip a dirt bike.
INDONESIA
Two-year-old dies of bird flu
A two-year-old boy has died of bird flu, the health ministry said, bringing the country’s death toll from the virulent disease this year to seven. The toddler, from the city of Pekanbaru on Sumatra island, developed fever on April 17 and was hospitalized three days later, according to a health ministry statement released late on Tuesday. “His condition worsened and he died on April 27,” it said. It added that it was suspected that he contracted the virus through contact with poultry products as his parents sold quails’ eggs for a living.
UNITED STATES
Cezanne sold for US$19m
A rare watercolor study by Paul Cezanne believed lost for nearly 60 years fetched more than US$19 million at a New York auction. Christie’s auction house says A Card Player sold on Tuesday night to a buyer who wished to remain anonymous. The price includes the buyer’s premium. The watercolor was a study for Cezanne’s celebrated series of oil paintings titled Card Players, created between 1890 and 1896. It was rediscovered this year in the collection of the late Heinz Eichenwald, a well-known collector from Dallas.
UNITED STATES
No basis to claims: official
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said the Secret Service found no basis to allegations its agents hired strippers and prostitutes in El Salvador last year. The allegations had been made by an anonymous source on a Seattle television station after the service was embroiled in a prostitution scandal involving agents’ conduct in Colombia last month. Napolitano said no basis to the claims had been found after interviews with some of the Secret Service agents who were in El Salvador at that time. She said while the interviewing likely was to continue, “to date, nobody has been able to substantiate that anonymous story.”
UNITED STATES
Judge rejects sex immunity
A judge rejected former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s claim of diplomatic immunity in his effort to dismiss a civil suit filed by a hotel housekeeper who claimed that the Frenchman had sexually assaulted her. Justice Douglas McKeon of New York state Supreme Court characterized Strauss-Kahn’s attempt to claim diplomatic immunity as “his own version of a Hail Mary pass,” noting that he had resigned from his position as the head of the IMF before the suit was filed. A provision of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations grants certain diplomatic agents an extension of diplomatic immunity for a period of time after one’s official duties have ended, but McKeon, in a written decision released on Tuesday, ruled that the extension did not apply to Strauss-Kahn.
UNITED STATES
Man convicted in bomb plot
A federal jury on Tuesday found a Bosnian-born US citizen guilty of planning a coordinated suicide bomb attack on New York subways in 2009 at the behest of senior al-Qaeda operatives. Adis Medunjanin, 28, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison following his conviction on all charges, including conspiring to carry out a suicide attack, receiving military training from al-Qaeda and plotting to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. Medunjanin’s accused co-conspirator, Najibullah Zazi, was arrested in September 2009, just days before Medunjanin and a third member of the plot, Zarein Ahmedzay, were allegedly prepared to carry out the attacks. Medunjanin’s high school friends, Ahmedzay, 27, and Zazi, 27, both pleaded guilty to planning the attacks with him and are cooperating with the government, awaiting sentencing.
UNITED STATES
Gingrich to end campaign
Former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich planned to officially end his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination with an announcement yesterday in Arlington, Virginia. Gingrich had indicated he would leave the race after he finished poorly in five northeastern state primaries last week. On Tuesday, Gingrich thanked supporters in a video message posted on his Web site.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in