AUSTRALIA
Oil-for-food director fined
A former managing director of a wheat exporter has been fined A$100,000 (US$106,000) and banned from being a company director for two years for his role in paying U$200 million in kickbacks to Iraq’s former regime under the discredited UN oil-for-food program. Andrew Lindberg, former head of the now defunct monopoly wheat exporter AWB Ltd, was yesterday sentenced for breaches of corporate law. It was part of a plea deal with corporate regulator Australian Securities and Investments Commission that ends a case that began in 2007.
PHILIPPINES
Gunmen kill soldiers, child
Gunmen believed to be followers of a local political warlord killed three soldiers in an ambush in the south that also left a child dead, the military said yesterday. The soldiers were aboard a military truck on routine security patrol in the mainly Muslim city of Marawi when they were attacked on Wednesday night, regional army battalion commander Colonel Daniel Lucero said. He said the ambush triggered a 30-minute gunbattle, during which three soldiers were killed and 10 wounded. A child aboard a vehicle that was caught in the crossfire was also killed, while three civilians were wounded, the army said. Lucero said the men behind the attack were believed to be members of a private militia controlled by a local political warlord he did not name.
FRANCE
Bel sorry over gaffe
For a company that produces a cheese called The Laughing Cow, its sense of humor seemed in poor taste. The processed cheese giant Bel has narrowly avoided a mass boycott by shoppers after a supposedly humorous summer promotion was slammed as offensive to people with learning difficulties. With its famous Mini Babybel — round, red wax-covered processed cheeses ubiquitous in lunchboxes worldwide — the company was giving away ink stamps for children. One read: “Des vacances de malade mental,” meaning loosely “having a mental holiday” or literally “holidaying like a mentally ill person.” Associations for parents of children with learning disabilities immediately expressed outrage and threatened a boycott of the company and all its products. Company director Etienne Lecomte told Le Parisien he profusely apologized for the “extremely clumsy” campaign.
RUSSIA
Underground sect found
Seventy members of an Islamist sect who have been living in an underground bunker without heat or sunlight for nearly a decade have been discovered living on the outskirts of the city of Kazan, local media said. The sect members included 20 children, the youngest of whom had just turned 18 months. Many of them were born underground and had never seen daylight until the prosecutors discovered their dwelling on Aug. 1 and sent them for health checks. A 17-year-old girl turned out to be pregnant. The group — known as the “Fayzrahmanist” sect — was named after its 83-year-old organizer Fayzrahman Satarov, who declared himself a prophet and his house an independent Islamic state, according to a report by state TV channel Vesti. Satarov was described as a former deputy to a Sunni Islamic cleric in the 1970s. His followers were encouraged to read his manuscripts and most were banned from leaving their eight-story underground bunker, Vesti said. Prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the sect. No arrests have been made although police are likely to look into suspicions that some of the children were being abused.
RUSSIA
Cow goes to new heights
A cow which was not “in the mood” ambled to the top story of an apartment building to escape a bull which was, and had to be led back down by firefighters, authorities said. The cow was discovered bellowing on the top of a stairwell in the five-story building in the village of Lesogorsk last month, with the probable cause of the cow’s distress an amorous bull at the bottom. “The bull was very loving and had paid excessive attention to the cow during the summer grazing,” the Irkutsk regional branch of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement. It took firefighters about three minutes to get the cow downstairs by roping its horns and pulling, according to the statement, which suggested members of the crowd that gathered should have done the job themselves. “When we arrived there were dozens of people outside the building. There were members of the local administration, police and many bystanders,” it quoted fire station shift chief Yevgeny Smirnov as saying. “In principle, they could have done without us.”
UNITED STATES
Policeman saves moose
A moose was freed from a strange backyard entanglement thanks to a brave Utah deputy and a pair of cutters. Sergeant Lane Findlay found himself face to face with the moose whose antlers were wrapped up in a backyard swing set in Ogden, 64km north of Salt Lake City, this weekend. He said the moose appeared in distress and was bleeding. Findlay said he handed his mobile phone to an onlooker and asked the person to shoot video, telling him: “If something happens to me, give this to my wife.” The video shows the moose twisting in an attempt to free its antlers from the metal chains of the swing as Findlay cautiously approaches with the cutters. He clips the chain links one by one until the moose finally pulls free and wanders off with minor injuries. “Pretty crazy stuff,” he said. “This is certainly a first for me, and hopefully a last.”
UNITED STATES
Romney ‘quip’ offends state
Mitt Romney jokingly said the government needs to do a better job managing debt or it could end up like Greece, or closer to home, California. The Republican presidential hopeful told an audience in Iowa that he worries the US is on a pathway to crippling debt and is scaring off foreign investors. Romney pointed to problems in Italy and Spain. He then suggested that Californians know a thing or two about debt. The state is facing the prospect of tax increases and spending cuts to deal with its budget problems. Romney aides say he had made the joke before and clearly was kidding. California was not laughing. A spokesman for the state’s Democratic governor dismissed Romney’s quip as “a paper-thin Republican talking point” that does not stand up to scrutiny.
UNITED STATES
Teen wins texting contest
The reigning 17-year-old champion of cellphone texting has retained the title of fastest texter in the country. Austin Wierschke of Wisconsin won after eight rounds at the texting competition on Wednesday in New York’s Times Square. He gets US$50,000 in prize money, which he said he will put away for college. Eleven contestants from around the US competed, all using the same type of phone. The competition tested three skills: speed, accuracy and dexterity. There were three rounds, including texting while blindfolded and with hands behind their backs. The annual competition is sponsored by cellphone maker LG Electronics.
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