AUSTRALIA
Shark attacks surf-ski
A man had a lucky escape on Wednesday after being thrown from his surf-ski when it was rammed and then attacked by a shark, forcing a friend to rush to his rescue, officials said. The man was out paddling with friends on the surf-ski at Perth’s Mullaloo Beach when he felt a “significant thump on the back half of his surf-ski,” Surf Life Saving WA said. Initially he thought a jet-ski had hit him. “He was flung into the water and turned around to see the tail of the shark moving through,” Chris Peck, the surf authority’s community manager, told local media. The shark — believed to be a 3m great white — then attacked the kayak with its jaws, Peck said. Authorities commended the bravery of a fellow paddler who went to the marooned man’s rescue, paddling past the shark to pick him up. “Who knows what might have happened if he had to have swum 150 meters into shore and not had someone there to help out,” Peck said.
AUSTRALIA
Diprotodon graves opened
Scientists yesterday unveiled the biggest-ever graveyard of an ancient rhino-sized mega-wombat called diprotodon, with the site potentially holding valuable clues on the species’ extinction. The remote fossil deposit in Queensland is thought to contain at least 20 diprotodon skeletons, including a huge specimen named Kenny, whose jawbone alone is 70cm. The lead scientist on the dig, Scott Hocknull from the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, said Kenny was one of the largest diprotodons he had ever seen and one of the best preserved specimens of the species unearthed in Queensland. Hocknull said the deposit contained the largest concentration of mega-wombat fossils ever discovered in the nation and could hold important clues on how the diprotodon lived and what caused it to perish. Diprotodon, the largest marsupial ever to roam the Earth, weighing up to 2.8 tonnes, lived between 2 million and 50,000 years ago and died out around the same time indigenous tribes first appeared.
JAPAN
Squirrels break out of zoo
Zookeepers in Tokyo were yesterday hunting a group of squirrels that made a break for freedom under cover of a powerful of the bushy-tailed creatures saw their chance when Typhoon Guchol felled a tree near their enclosure at Inokashira Park Zoo, cutting a hole in the netting that held them captive. Park workers used nets and traps to recapture 18 animals on Wednesday and yesterday morning, but were still on the lookout for a determined dozen. The zoo is near the busy shopping hub of Kichijoji, an area where wild squirrels are not usually found.
SERBIA
Mammoth field found
Archeologists say they have discovered a rare mammoth field containing the remains of at least five of the giant beasts that lived tens of thousands of years ago. The discovery last week at the Kostolac coal mine, east of Belgrade, is the first of its kind in the region. It could offer important insight into the ice age in the Balkans, said Miomir Korac from the Archeology Institute. “There are millions of mammoth fragments in the world, but they are rarely so accessible for exploration,” he said. The remains were found during coal excavation about 20m below ground. Korac said the mammoth field stretches over about 8 hectares of sandy terrain. The bones discovered last month likely belong to the so-called woolly mammoth, which disappeared about 10,000 years ago, said Sanja Alaburic, a mammoth expert from the Museum of Natural History.
UNITED STATES
Dad cleared in killing rapist
A Texas father who beat a man to death with his bare hands after catching him sexually assaulting his five-year-old daughter should not face criminal charges, a grand jury has ruled. Prosecutors said at a press conference on Tuesday that the jury determined that there was ample evidence that it was a justifiable homicide. They played a tape of the distraught father’s desperate 911 call as he tried to save the man’s life after realizing what he had done. “I need an ambulance. This guy was raping my daughter and I beat him up and I don’t know ... I don’t know what to do,” he sobbed into the phone, so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t provide directions to his father’s ranch. “I need help. This guy is dying on me ... oh my God ... I’m going to try to load him up on the truck and take him to the hospital.” Lavaca County District Attorney Heather McMinn said that under Texas law deadly force is both “authorized and justified” in order to stop a sexual assault.
UNITED STATES
‘Joe the Plumber’ under fire
The Ohio Republican congressional candidate who became famous as “Joe the Plumber” by confronting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign is running a video in which he suggests that Nazi gun control laws contributed to deaths during the Holocaust because Jews did not have firearms to defend themselves. The ad drew strong rebukes from Democrats and Jewish organizations. In the video, Samuel Wurzelbacher loads a shotgun and fires at lemons and tomatoes placed on wooden posts. “In 1939, Germany established gun control,” he says. “From 1939 to 1945, 6 million Jews and 7 million others, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated,” he says before ending the video by saying: “I love America.” Gun control opponents have long held that Adolf Hitler was able to seize power in Germany in part because of controls on firearms. Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said the video was “incredibly offensive” and called on Republicans and Democrats to condemn “the despicable actions of this very desperate man.”
UNITED STATES
Ellison buys Hawaii island
Billionaire Oracle CEO Larry Ellison bought 98 percent of Hawaii’s sixth-largest island, Lanai, Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie announced on Wednesday. Ellison, the third-richest man in the US, is purchasing the property from fellow billionaire David Murdock. Murdock’s Castle and Cooke Inc, which owns all but 2 percent of Lanai’s 365km2, filed a transfer application with Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission. Previous media reports put the price tag at between US$500 million and US$600 million, but the price was not revealed in Wednesday’s filing. Once known for its pineapple fields, Lanai is now visited for its two Four Seasons resorts, golf courses and luxury housing. Bill Gates booked every hotel room on the island for his 1994 wedding.
COLOMBIA
Paid killer gets 40 years
A judge has sentenced a man to more than 40 years in prison for murdering two Bogota priests who allegedly paid him to end their lives. Gilberto Penate had confessed to shooting to death Roman Catholic Reverends Rafael Reatiga and Richard Piffano early last year and make it appear like a robbery. Prosecutors say Reatiga was suffering from AIDS and syphilis and prosecutors determined that the priests had paid Penate and another gunman US$8,400 to kill them.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
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
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