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.
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