EGYPT
Beer-maker’s tomb found
The government on Friday said a Japanese archeological team has discovered the tomb of a leading beer producer from the pharaonic period in the country’s famed temple city of Luxor. The tomb of Khonso Em Heb, who lived 3,200 years ago, was “one of the most important discoveries made in the city of Luxor... at the Thebes necropolis,” Minister of Antiquities Mohammed Ibrahim said. The tomb has on its walls and ceilings landscapes and diverse sculptures. One piece of artwork shows Khonso Em Heb, who also headed the royal storehouses during the pharaonic Ramesside period, making offerings to the gods along with his wife and daughter. The archeologists discovered the site while cleaning the courtyard of “another tomb belonging to a top official from the reign of King Amenhotep III of the 18th dynasty,” said Jiro Kondo, head of the Japanese team from Waseda University.
ITALY
Navy saves 1,000 migrants
The navy on Friday said it had rescued in 24 hours more than 1,000 migrants attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean by boat in rough winter seas. A total of 823 migrants were picked up on Thursday and another 233 were rescued on Wednesday as part of a major ongoing search and rescue operation to save the lives of thousands of immigrants heading for Europe in overcrowded and rickety boats, the navy said. The immigrants, including 30 women and 42 minors, mainly hail from Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan and Tunisia. Six military vessels and several helicopters were involved in picking them up and transferring them to the coastal town of Augusta in Sicily. The immigrants were rescued as part of the Italian government’s “Mare Nostrum” operation, which mobilizes warships, amphibious vessels and aircraft to try and prevent further tragedies like the two shipwrecks in October last year, in which more than 400 immigrants died.
SPAIN
Cocaine carried under wigs
Police on Friday said they caught two women flying in from Brazil with 1.2kg of cocaine each hidden under their wigs. The two women, who were Portuguese and aged 18 and 28, arrived at Madrid’s Barajas airport on different days from Sao Paulo, police said in a statement. They hid the drugs in six packages, which were held in place by a black sock and tape under their long curly-hair wigs, the police said. “This new method of smuggling narcotics is very elaborate and difficult to detect due to the realism of the fake hair,” said the statement issued jointly by Guardia Civil police and the Ministry of the Interior. “The packages were perfectly adhered and did not stick out from under the wigs, which made the narcotics imperceptible.”
GERMANY
World War II bomb kills man
The driver of an excavator was killed and 13 other people injured when a World War II-era bomb blew up during earthworks on Friday, police said. The blast wave from the sleeper bomb blew out nearby house and car windows, ripped off roof tiles and could be felt several kilometers away. The accident, in which two of the wounded suffered serious injuries, shook an industrial area in the town of Euskirchen near Bonn. The ground below many Germany cities still contains unexploded ordnance dropped by Allied and Soviet forces in the Second World War, but most is safely defused when found.
UNITED STATES
Phil Everly dies at 74
Phil Everly, whose high, close-harmony singing with his elder brother, Don, made the Everly Brothers one of the biggest rock and country acts of the 1950s and early 1960s, died on Friday at the age of 74, the Los Angeles Times reported. Everly died in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his wife, Patti, told the Times for a story on the paper’s Web site. The Everly Brothers profoundly influenced 1960s-era groups and singer-songwriters ranging from Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who early in their careers called themselves the Foreverly Brothers, to Simon and Garfunkel, the Byrds, the Hollies and the Beach Boys. “Perhaps even more powerfully than Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers melded country with the emerging sound of Fifties rock & roll,” Rolling Stone magazine said in placing the brothers at No. 33 on its list of the “100 Greatest Artists.”
UNITED STATES
Politician resigns in Klingon
On Thursday, David Waddell used the Klingon language to write his letter of resignation from a town council in North Carolina. Waddell said he chose to use Klingon, the language of a warrior race in the Star Trek TV shows and movies, as an inside joke. Mayor Michael Alvarez called the letter unprofessional. Waddell said he is resigning at the end of this month. His four-year term expires in December next year. Waddell said he needs to devote time to mounting a write-in campaign on the Constitution Party’s platform against US Senator Kay Hagan.
CANADA
H1N1 flu outbreak kills 5
An H1N1 flu outbreak in Alberta has sickened nearly 1,000 people and killed five, the province’s health minister said on Friday, urging everyone to get vaccinated. “Over the past few weeks, we have seen a surge in the number of influenza cases across Alberta. Many of those affected are healthy young adults,” Health Minister Fred Horne said in a statement. In total, 965 cases of the flu have been confirmed by health authorities in the province, with just more than 250 requiring hospitalization, he said. “Sadly, five Albertans admitted to the ICU have died,” Horne said, emphasizing that the age and health of the patients was unusual. “It is concerning that we are seeing younger, working-age adults being hospitalized,” he said. So far, only about one in five residents have gotten flu shots, which are needed to protect “you, your friends, family, co-workers and everyone you come into contact with,” he said. To encourage vaccination efforts, the province has increased the number of centers offering the shot and extended the hours.
BRAZIL
Heat sets off sprinklers
Soaring temperatures in Rio de Janeiro set off the fire sprinklers on Friday in a downtown shopping mall as the thermometer topped 40°C. In the sunshine, temperatures rose to 50°C, leaving residents of the metropolis gasping. However, customers taking refuge indoor at Shopping Leblon gained unexpected relief when the sprinklers came on. “Owing to the high temperature registered in the city we had the sprinklers come on automatically. Things got back to normal in 20 minutes and the mall has been cleaned up,” the center said on its Twitter feed. The Meteorological Office recorded temperatures soaring from a low of 24°C to beyond 40°C at some points of the city, sending residents and New Year tourists alike streaming to the beaches to seek respite in the sea.
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