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.
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
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
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