SERBIA
Aussie arrested after biting
An Australian national has been arrested for biting off part of a waiter’s finger in an argument, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred in Novi Sad on Friday when the 26-year-old, identified only by his initials S.M., entered a cafe with his own bottle of liquor and wanted to drink it, a police statement said. The young man attacked the waiter who asked him to put the bottle away, it added.
RUSSIA
Smoking ban takes effect
A law that bans smoking in public places has taken effect, a contentious move in a country with one of the highest smoking rates in the world. The ban, which came into force on Saturday, prohibits smoking in workplaces, schools, universities and on public transportation. More restrictions will be applied next year. Authors of the ban have pointed to the hundreds of thousands of citizens who die of smoking-related illnesses every year. The measure has been approved by both houses of parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin. Cigarettes are much cheaper than in the US and Europe, with the price of a pack starting at about US$1. About 40 percent of the population smoke.
AUSTRIA
Bank employee loses cash
A bank employee has found himself in hot water after he unloaded bags containing 90,000 euros (US$117,000) from his car boot to fix a puncture — only to see the money to fall into a river below. The incident reportedly happened on May 7 as the employee was transporting the cash from a small bank branch in Obertauern in Salzburg Province to the main office in Radstadt, the daily Salzburger Nachrichten reported on Saturday. As he was repairing the flat tire, the bags of money which he had placed on a steep slope slipped into the river below, the worker said. The police, fire department and mountain rescue teams conducted a thorough search of the waterway, but were only able to recover 3,000 euros, the Austria Press Agency said. No witnesses have confirmed the employee’s story, but the police said no criminal investigation has been launched.
SOMALIA
Drone crashes in Puntland
An official in the semi-autonomous Puntland region said a surveillance drone has crashed. Ports and Anti-piracy Minister Saeed Mohamed Rage said on Saturday the drone crashed in Qaw Village, about 20km west of Bossasso. The US military flies aerial surveillance drones from Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles to monitor piracy off the East African coast, but Rage said it is not clear whose drone crashed. The US also flies drones that occasionally fire at Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebels in south and central Somalia. The al-Shabab rebels on Tuesday posted pictures on Twitter of what they claimed was a surveillance drone that had crashed.
EGYPT
Court convicts lawyer
A court has convicted a Coptic Christian lawyer in Assiut on charges of blasphemy and sentenced him to one year in prison with hard labor. The verdict against Roman Murad Saad was handed down on Saturday. It is the latest in a surge of blasphemy cases following the nation’s 2011 uprising. Saad was sentenced in absentia. If he is arrested or surrenders to authorities, he will be given a retrial and will have to pay 10,000 Egyptians pounds (US$1,400) in fines. Court officials say Saad was found guilty of ridiculing the Koran, at a lawyers’ union library.
UNITED STATES
Morgue fridge for sale
New York’s Office of General Services has turned to eBay in an attempt to sell off a huge, steel morgue refrigerator now located at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital. Bidding on Saturday afternoon was up to US$475 for the four-drawer unit. Buyers have to be willing to remove the fridge themselves from the Manhattan Psychiatric Center. Office of General Services spokeswoman Heather Groll told the New York Post that the ad is no hoax. She says the agency does get unusual surplus items to sell from time to time, including barber chairs from prisons and police cars.
UNITED STATES
Disabled pig lands book deal
In many circumstances, a piglet without the use of its hind legs would be put down, but Chris P. Bacon’s unusual condition has made him an international star and an inspiration to those with disabilities. When Chris was born in Florida, a woman brought him into Len Lucero’s veterinary office, assuming the animal would be euthanized. However, Lucero brought it home and built a wheelchair out of some of his son’s toys so Chris could move around, then found a dog-sized harness and cart. Chris is now 10kg. His Facebook page and Web site recently helped him land a three-book publishing deal.
UNITED STATES
New lanes protect whales
An effort to avoid large ships striking and killing endangered whales has led to new traffic lanes off the California coast. The changes that started on Saturday affect ship traffic in and out of San Francisco Bay, the Santa Barbara Channel and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Migrating blue, fin and humpback whales are prone to strikes since they are lured to the California coast in years where there is plentiful krill to feed on. All three species are endangered.
CHILE
Neruda’s ‘killer’ sought
Forty years after the death of poet Pablo Neruda, a judge has issued an order for police to make a portrait of and find the man who prosecutors allege may have poisoned him. Neruda’s death was attributed at the time to prostate cancer, but the case’s plaintiff lawyer, Eduardo Contreras, says there is new evidence showing he was likely murdered by agents of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Contreras said Sergio Draper, who originally testified that he was with Neruda at the time of his death on Sept. 23, 1973, is now saying there was another doctor named “Price” with the poet. However, Price did not appear in any of the hospital’s records as a treating doctor and Draper said he never saw him again after the day he left him with Neruda. Moreover, Price’s description of a blond, blue eyed, tall man, matches Michael Townley, the CIA double agent who worked with the secret police under Pinochet.
COLOMBIA
Deal with NATO planned
The defense ministry later this month is to sign a cooperation agreement with NATO, in hopes of joining the international military alliance, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday. Santos said the army could become an international player if his government can bring off a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and end Latin America’s longest-running insurgency. “If we can achieve peace, the army will be in a place where it will be able to distinguish itself internationally as well. We are already doing it on many fronts,” Santos said.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the