AFGHANISTAN
Three British troops killed
Three NATO troops killed by a roadside bomb were British, officials said yesterday. The three soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers died on Tuesday when their vehicle was hit on a routine patrol in the district of Nahr-e Saraj, part of Helmand Province. The British Ministry of Defence said that security in Helmand, a hotbed of the Taliban insurgency, was improving, but that it remained a risky and dangerous environment for British troops.
SOUTH KOREA
Psy immortalized in print
The story of rap sensation Psy’s ascent to global stardom with his megahit Gangnam Style has now been immortalized in full color in a comic book. Fame:Psy, which went on sale in the US and South Korea yesterday, focuses mainly on what went into making Gangnam Style, which catapulted the singer to global fame and became YouTube’s most popular song ever with more than 1.5 billion hits. “Has he fallen from the sky? Has he risen from the earth?” the comic begins, with illustrations showing Psy — in the suits he made famous in Gangnam Style and striking poses from his “Horse Riding Dance” — descending from heaven and bursting through the earth.
JAPAN
Mount Fuji in line for honor
The iconic Mount Fuji will likely win recognition as a World Heritage site. The Agency for Cultural Affairs issued a notice yesterday saying it had received notification that the site was recommended for World Heritage status by the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a body affiliated with UNESCO. Formal approval is expected in June at a meeting in Cambodia. Mount Fuji would be the country’s 13th cultural World Heritage site.
AUSTRALIA
Iconic banknote on auction
The nation’s first banknote, printed 100 years ago and found in a letter in England in 1999, has gone on sale for A$3.5 million (US$3.6 million), auctioneers said yesterday. The 10 shilling note, with the serial number M000001, was issued on May 1, 1913, and presented by then-prime minister Andrew Fisher to Judith Denman, the five-year-old daughter of the governor-general at the time, Lord Denman. It was discovered in 1999, nearly 12 years after Denman died, when her effects were being sorted out.
MALAYSIA
Fair elections under threat
Opposition and clean-polls activists said yesterday that the integrity of this weekend’s elections was in doubt after revelations that indelible ink meant to prevent fraud was easily washed off. The country’s long-ruling government is introducing indelible ink in Sunday’s vote. However, reports say that security personnel who took part in early voting had easily been able to clean off the ink, which is applied to a person’s finger to show they had voted and is supposed to remain visible for at least a week.
MYANMAR
One dead in fresh unrest
One person was killed and nine injured after mobs attacked mosques and burned homes in central parts, authorities said yesterday, in the latest religious unrest to erupt in the nation. Riots sparked on Tuesday in the small town of Oakkan, around 100km north of Yangon after a woman accidentally knocked into a young monk, authorities said, amid acute Buddhist-Muslim tensions following a series of attacks in March.
UNITED STATES
Suspected juice spiker jailed
A northern California woman has been arrested on suspicion of spiking orange juice bottles with a deadly dose of rubbing alcohol and stocking the bottles at a Starbucks coffee shop, law enforcement officials said on Tuesday. Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, was arrested at her San Jose home on Monday night and booked into the Santa Clara County Jail on charges of attempted murder and poisoning, San Jose Police Sergeant Jason Dwyer said.
UNITED STATES
Thief mails back ashes
A thief with a soft-hearted streak, who inadvertently nabbed some cremated remains along with thousands of rare gems in a truck burglary in Washington state, has anonymously mailed back the ashes to their owner, police said on Wednesday. The truck owner had been golfing in a Tacoma suburb when his vehicle was broken into by a thief, who stole a briefcase filled with 3,000 prized Oregon sunstone gems, more than 30 silver and gold sunstone rings, and a bracelet with 34 multi-hued stones, Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said.
UNITED STATES
Roth honored for advocacy
Philip Roth’s latest honor was as much for what he has done for other writers as for his own work. On Tuesday night, Roth received the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award. He was cited for such novels as Sabbath’s Theater and American Pastoral, but also for his advocacy in the 1970s and 1980s for writers in then-Czechoslovakia and other Eastern bloc countries during the Cold War. PEN is an international writers’ organization that advocates for human rights and free speech. The 80-year-old Roth spoke before hundreds gathered for the PEN Literary Gala at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Attendees included Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Jay McInerney.
GUATEMALA
Police officer shot dead
A police officer was killed on Tuesday when security forces clashed with opponents of a Canadian-owned gold and silver mine project, who had taken 23 officers hostage in the southeast of the country. The officer was shot in the chest and died on the spot near the mine run by Tahoe Resources in the rural town of San Rafael Las Flores, 105km southeast of Guatemala City, Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez said. Five others were wounded. The battle took place when security forces were sent in to free 23 police officers who had been taken hostage and disarmed by hundreds of townspeople the previous day. The hostages were freed. Residents fear the mine will destroy a mountain and drain their water resources.
PERU
Ambassador in shop fracas
A supermarket altercation involving the Ecuadoran ambassador to Peru has many Peruvians calling for the envoy’s expulsion. Ambassador Rodrigo Riofrio allegedly struck and kicked a Peruvian mother and daughter after accusing the two of cutting into a line. The mother said he called them “ignorant Peruvians” and made a disparaging reference to the country’s indigenous population. She told a TV channel that Riofrio hit and kicked her and her daughter on Saturday in front of dozens of witnesses. However, she did admit that her daughter had struck the first blow, slapping Riofrio’s wife in the face after she insulted her. Video taken afterwards showed Riofrio being harangued by witnesses. Ecuador’s embassy issued an apology on Monday, but said it does not accept the women’s version of events.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number