INDONESIA
‘No sex’ signs mulled
Officials on the island of Bali are considering putting up “no sex” signs at Hindu temples besides the usual “no eating” and “no smoking” warnings after a lusty Estonian couple were caught in the act. Police took the pair in for questioning after they were found by youth leaders who had gone to check up on repairs at the temple in the village of Saraseda. “They said they really did not know that sex at temples was prohibited in Bali, so we just let them go and left it up to the village heads to decide how to handle the case,” Gianyar district police chief Hadi Purnomo said yesterday. “In the end, the village decided they wanted to hold a cleansing ceremony and ordered the couple to pay 20 million rupiah [US$2,063] to fund the ritual.” The couple admitted they had also used the temple’s outdoor shower before having sex, Purnomo said, and apologized.
SOUTH KOREA
‘Little Psy’ aims for fame
The impish boy who showed off his dance moves alongside Psy in Gangnam Style is hoping to go viral, too. The seven-year-old, nicknamed “Little Psy,” is releasing an electro-pop song next week through iTunes. The boy, whose real name is Hwang Min-woo, says he wants to gain global fame like his “big brother,” Psy. Sporting a black suit and a sleek haircut, Min-woo performed at a news conference on Wednesday. He is the latest recruit in the increasingly global K-pop industry. Min-woo is a second-grader and his mother comes from Vietnam. Meanwhile, the big Psy has released a Gangnam Style remix and is continuing his worldwide tour. The video released on YouTube in July last year has a record 1.39 billion views.
ZIMBABWE
Lions kill third victim
Lions claimed a third victim in the resort town of Kariba after a man’s head, ribs and pelvis were found on Thursday, the country’s parks authority said. Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the Civil Protection Unit in Kariba have asked professional hunters to help kill the cats after efforts to trap them failed, spokeswoman Caroline Washaya-Moyo said in a telephone interview yesterday from the capital, Harare. Hunters have shot and killed a zebra that will be used to bait the lions, she said. Two earlier victims were discovered on Tuesday, the state-controlled Herald reported. Kariba town, in the north of the country, sits on the shores of a man-made lake of the same name. The town is a popular tourist destination. A plan to poison the lions was rejected by National Parks as dangerous to other wildlife in the area. Elephant, hippo and antelope are commonly seen in Kariba, though lions rarely venture close to human habitation.
BRAZIL
Skulls cause bewilderment
Police in Sao Paulo are baffled by a macabre puzzle: someone has been leaving gift-wrapped human skulls around town. Investigator Paul Henry Bozon Verduraz described the case to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper in a story published on Thursday. The first skull in cherry-red wrapping was found on Feb. 20 in a planter near a residential building downtown. Since then, seven others have been found near Mormon temples or consulates, including those for Russia, the Czech Republic and South Africa. The skulls are old, with traces of dirt. Verduraz says security cameras captured images of a woman in an ankle-length skirt leaving the skulls. He thinks this may be part of some sort of ritual.
UNITED STATES
Man charged over fatal crash
A man arrested in connection with a New York car crash that killed a rabbinical college student, his pregnant wife and their baby has been charged with vehicular manslaughter and other offenses. Julio Acevedo was arraigned on Thursday in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn and was ordered held without bail. He arrived in the city earlier on Thursday after agreeing to be returned from Pennsylvania, where he had surrendered on Wednesday. Police in New York say Acevedo left the scene of Sunday’s fatal crash. He is accused of speeding down a Brooklyn street and crashing into a car carrying 21-year-olds Nachman and Raizy Glauber. Acevedo has told the Daily News he was fleeing someone who was trying to shoot at him.
UNITED KINGDOM
Bieber faints during show
Justin Bieber is recovering after fainting backstage at a concert in London. A spokeswoman for Bieber said late on Thursday that the 19-year-old pop star was given oxygen and took a 20-minute reprieve after fainting backstage at London’s O2 Arena. “Getting better,” Bieber later posted on Twitter. “Thanks for everyone pulling me thru tonight. Best fans in the world. Figuring out what happened. Thanks for the love.” Jazz Chappell, a 20-year-old concertgoer who brought her younger sister and her friend to the show, said a backup dancer helped Bieber off stage after he announced he could not breathe and needed water. She said many fans in the audience were gasping and crying, while others kept cheering for him to return. “I thought, ‘Give the guy a break. He just fainted. He’s not a performing horse. Let him rest a second,’” Chappell said. In a video of the concert posted online, Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, appeared on stage and told the crowd that the singer was feeling “very low of breath,” but would come back to finish the show. Chappell said Bieber, who is in London to perform four concerts at the O2, later returned and performed low-energy renditions of his hits Boyfriend and Baby.
RUSSIA
Female heading for space
Russia will send a female cosmonaut into space for the first time in two decades next year, an official at the space training center said on Wednesday. Yelena Serova, 36 and a professional cosmonaut, “is getting ready for a space flight in the second half of 2014,” said Alexei Temerov, an official at Russia’s Star City space training center. Russia will this year celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first woman’s trip to space. The feat was accomplished by Valentina Tereshkova on June 16, 1963. However, only one Russian woman has flown to space since the early 1980s.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion