FRANCE
Passengers face whip-round
The crew of an Air France plane that was rerouted via Damascus on Wednesday asked passengers how much cash they could stump up after Syrian authorities refused a credit-card payment to refuel the aircraft, the French airline said on Thursday. Ultimately it found an alternative arrangement, it said. The plane that was headed for Beirut on Wednesday night was diverted due to civil unrest in the Lebanese capital and it sought to go to Amman, but it was forced to land in Syria due to a lack of fuel. Air France stopped its flights to Damascus in March as fighting in the country escalated, and relations between France and Syria collapsed after Paris demanded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down. On landing, the airport authorities said they could not accept a credit-card payment and would only take cash, an Air France spokeswoman said. “As a precaution, and in anticipation, the crew asked how much money the passengers had in cash to pay to fill up with fuel,” the airline spokeswoman said. She said the airline was eventually able to pay the bill without taking money from passengers, but she declined to say how it had paid or how much the fuel stop cost.
FRANCE
Minister sent severed finger
A prison inmate has mailed part of his own severed finger to the justice minister hoping the desperate gesture would help his plea to be moved to another prison, officials said on Thursday. An envelope containing the chunk of finger was delivered on Thursday to the offices of Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, accompanied by a letter arguing for a transfer to a jail nearer to the inmate’s family, a police official said. A Justice Ministry spokesman confirmed a piece of finger had been delivered. “It’s a sad affair, there are many inmates asking for transfers,” spokesman Olivier Pedro-Jose said. French jails are plagued by overcrowding, with the prison population hitting a record 67,000 this year compared with about 50,000 a decade ago, according to Justice Ministry figures.
NORWAY
Car misses moose, hits bear
A driver who swerved his car on a rural road to avoid running into a moose hit a bear instead, authorities said on Thursday. The driver spotted the moose on a country road near Hanestad, 225km north of Oslo, at about midnight on Wednesday and tried to go around the animal, not realizing that a bear was also nearby. “The driver had lost a bit of speed as he tried to avoid the moose, before hitting the bear,” said Svein Erik Bjorke of the local wildlife authority, who was out in the forest searching for the wounded animal. “We are currently tracking the bear and we have found traces of blood indicating internal injuries,” he said. The driver escaped uninjured, while his car suffered some damage.
UNITED KINGDOM
Killer spills grave location
Notorious jailed killer Ian Brady, who murdered five children in the 1960s, may have revealed the grave site of one of his victims to a long-term visitor, police announced on Thursday. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said in a statement that Brady, also known as the Moors Murderer, may have revealed the burial site of 12-year-old Keith Bennett, the only one of his victims whose body is yet to be found. The force also announced that it was questioning a 49-year-old woman after she was arrested in Wales on suspicion of preventing the burial of a body without lawful exercise. “On 30 July 2012, GMP received information that led officers to believe that Ian Brady had recently given details of the location of Keith Bennett’s body to one of his long-term visitors,” the GMP statement said. Officers made the arrest after working closely with Ashworth hospital, the psychiatric institution in northwest England where Brady, 74, is being held. Between 1963 and 1965, Brady and his partner Myra Hindley lured five children and teenagers to their deaths, burying four of them on remote moorland near Manchester. Hindley died in prison in 2002, aged 60.
UNITED STATES
Serial killer jailed
A Philadelphia man with a history of mental illness has been convicted of strangling three women during sex and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty against 23-year-old Antonio Rodriguez. DNA evidence linked Rodriguez with the deaths, which gripped the city’s Kensington neighborhood in late 2010. The victims have been described as struggling with addiction and sometimes working as prostitutes. Their half-nude bodies were found in trash-strewn abandoned lots or homes. Rodriguez did not testify at the non-jury trial. A judge also convicted Rodriguez on Thursday of a string of other charges, including the rape and abuse of a corpse.
UNITED STATES
Killer granny pleads insanity
Lawyers for a 73-year-old German woman accused of drowning her five-year-old grandson in a bathtub of a Florida Panhandle beach house say she was legally insane in part from injuries brought on by a World War II bombing raid. Marianne Bordt is facing a possible death sentence if she is convicted of murder in the death of Camden Hiers in January 2010. Her lawyer contends she is not guilty by reason of insanity, due in part to wartime psychological damage. The judge has encouraged lawyers to resolve the case by reaching a plea agreement.
UNITED STATES
Iraqi war donkey dies
Smoke, the Iraqi donkey whose journey from a desert battleground to a peaceful retirement in the US captured the attention of the world, has died in Nebraska. Smoke became lethargic and died this week after frolicking with miniature horses at Miracle Hills Ranch and Stable north of Omaha. Smoke had served as an equine therapy animal to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Smoke’s Facebook page has friends from around the world. Smoke was taken in by marines after he showed up malnourished and wounded at Camp Taqaddum in Anbar Province in 2008. Regulations prohibited keeping the donkey, but marine Colonel John Folsom of Omaha, then commander at the camp, found a navy psychologist to designate Smoke as a therapy animal because he reduced stress among marines. Folsom, now retired, said Smoke may have died of colic. “He was a great little donkey,” Folsom said.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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