SWAZILAND
Judge in fight over dog
A high court judge has become entangled in battle over custody of a dachshund puppy, which he is accused of dognapping from a neighbor using a falsified court order. Judge Jacobus Annandale allegedly sent police officers with a fake court order to nab the long-bodied pup a few days after selling it. Annandale argues that his neighbor Bhekiwe Dlamini abused the dog and is seeking an interdict to keep it. According to court papers seen on Friday, Annandale alleges Dlamini left the canine to sleep in the cold, infested with flies. Dlamini refused to sell the dog back at double the US$240 asking price, and says the alleged abuse did not concern the judge. A judge last week granted an interim interdict against the neighbor so that a veterinarian can examine the puppy.
FRANCE
‘Psy’ crashes Cannes
A man pretending to be South Korean rapper Psy talked his way into glitzy parties at the Cannes film festival and posed with fans until he was spotted drinking champagne by the real Psy’s manager. Psy, in Singapore on Thursday night to perform at the inaugural Social Star awards, said that Scooter Braun spotted the impostor, took a photograph and sent it to the musician. “He sent it to me, and I tweeted that, like, five, six hours ago, so everybody in France, they know,” Psy told Reuters television at the Singapore ceremony. “Real Psy is here.” Psy became a global sensation last year when the video for his song Gangnam Style went viral. It became the first video to receive more than 1 billion hits on video sharing Web site YouTube.
ZANBIA
Man survives python attack
A truck driver who was forced to kick, bite and stab his way from the clutches of a giant python, said on Friday he was lucky to be alive. Kelvin Katoka, 25, unknowingly ran into the giant snake while driving his excavator in the bush at a copper mine in the northwest. “Within no time, the python was all over my body and it then threw me on the ground,” he said by telephone from his hospital bed, where he has been recovering for nearly a month. Rock pythons are Africa’s largest snake and can grow up to 7m long. Katoka managed to bite the python as it coiled around him and held on in a “long struggle.” “It then clicked to my mind that I had a small knife in my work suit pocket and quickly, I rushed for it,” he said. “I stabbed it in the sides of its body and slowly it started loosening itself, but by then, I had become weak.” The snake once again wrapped itself around his body and “started to apply saliva all over my face in readiness to swallow me,” he said. Two workmates came to where he had been working in Mwininlunga. They killed the python, carried Katoka away and took him to hospital.
SPAIN
Pilot survives plane crash
Officials say the pilot of a small plane carrying three passengers is the only person to survive a crash on the island of Mallorca. The Cessna 172 single-engine plane took off from the island’s Son Bonet de Marratxi airfield just after 5pm on Friday, failed to gain altitude and crashed into a nearby field, a regional Interior Ministry spokesman said. Two men and a woman, all Spanish nationals, died in the accident and the pilot was rescued from the flaming wreckage, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Television images on state broadcaster TVE showed firefighters battling flames and rescuing the badly injured pilot.
UNITED STATES
Teen takes model to prom
A Southern California teenager turned heads at his prom when he showed up with a Danish model as his date. Sports Illustrated model Nina Agdal agreed to step in as Jake Davidson’s date for the traditional high-school dance on Thursday night after he was turned down by supermodel Kate Upton. The teenager appeared in a YouTube video that was viewed more than 2.5 million times asking Upton to be his date. After Upton declined because of a scheduling conflict, Agdal volunteered to go, saying she never got to attend her own prom. The Danish model appears as the bikini-clad sunbather in a Carl’s Jr ad. Davidson told the Los Angeles Daily News he had an incredible night and said Agdal was down to earth.
UNITED STATES
Ohio hero refuses burgers
A man who put aside his McDonald’s hamburger to help rescue three women held captive in an Ohio house said he is not endorsing a group of restaurants offering him free burgers for life. The restaurant where Charles Ramsey worked as a dishwasher initially created a burger named in his honor, then more than a dozen area eateries decided a larger tribute was due. Ramsey said in a written statement released through his attorney on Friday that he does not endorse the northeast Ohio restaurants that are offering burgers bearing his name or promoting a lifetime of free burgers for him. The restaurant group told the Plain Dealer newspaper it will drop the Ramsey burger from the menu and said it is saddened he is not taking the offer in the spirit intended.
UNITED STATES
Actress in court over bong
Actress Amanda Bynes appeared in court on Friday and denied charges of possessing marijuana and tossing a bong out of the window of her 36th-floor Manhattan apartment. The former Nickelodeon child star was released on her own recognizance after spending a night in jail after her arrest on Thursday. She was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana, reckless endangerment and attempted tampering with physical evidence, according to court documents. All the alleged offenses are classified as misdemeanors rather than felonies. Her attorney at the hearing denied the charges and accused police of entering the actress’ apartment illegally. The actress, 27, who has had several brushes with the law in the past year and is on probation for driving on a suspended license in California, was ordered to return to court on July 9. New York police were called to Bynes’ 47th Street midtown high-rise building after an employee there reported that someone was smoking marijuana in the building’s lobby. Police said they were then directed to Bynes’ apartment, where the actress invited them in. Officers said they detected a strong smell of marijuana in the apartment and observed the bong — a tube-shaped water pipe commonly used for smoking marijuana — in the apartment. Bynes then grabbed the bong and threw it out the window and the actress was taken into custody, police said.
ITALY
Bullets sent to prosecutor
The prosecutor in former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sex trial has received a series of anonymous threatening letters, including one with two bullets, Milan’s chief prosecutor said on Thursday. The letters sent to Ilda Boccassini have become more frequent since she requested a six-year jail sentence and a lifetime ban on holding public office for Berlusconi, Edmondo Bruti Liberati said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not