IRAQ
SWAT soldiers killed
At least 14 SWAT soldiers were killed on Thursday when they entered a house rigged with explosives in the western province of Anbar, where the army is engaged in a near-three month conflict with Sunni militants. Security and medical sources said more than 20 SWAT entered the house in the provincial capital, Ramadi, after gunmen left the area. The building then blew up. Security forces have been fighting insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Ramadi and another city, Fallujah, since January. The arrest of a Sunni lawmaker and the clearing of an anti-government protest camp in December prompted a tribal revolt and allowed ISIL to set up fighting positions within the cities.
UNITED KINGDOM
Dating book wins odd award
A tongue-in-cheek book that purports to deal with an awkward but critical issue, How to Poo on a Date, yesterday scooped an award for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. The winner of the Diagram Prize, awarded annually since 1978 and based on a public vote since 2000, beat out titles including Are Trout South African? and Working-Class Cats: The Bodega Cats of New York City. The prize, which carries no cash award, is run by The Bookseller, a British-based business magazine and Web site for the book industry. “The public have chosen wisely. Not only have they picked a title that truly captures the spirit of the prize, they have selected a manual that can help one through life’s more challenging and delicate moments,” Horace Bent, described as “custodian of the prize,” said in a press release.
VATICAN CITY
Vatican digitizing library
Ancient manuscripts in the Vatican library penned from East Asia to the pre-Colombian Americas will be digitized by a Japanese company as part of a global project to make the collection available for free viewing by the public. Japan’s NTT Data will digitize 3,000 historical works and put them online over a four-year period in an initiative costing 18 million euros (US$22.6 million), the company said at a press conference in the Vatican on Thursday. The library began digitizing its books a couple of years ago and the deal with NTT Data will bring the total of manuscripts converted to 15,000 by 2018.
SOUTH AFRICA
Pistorius selling home
Oscar Pistorius plans to sell the 5 million rand (US$459,400) house where he shot dead his girlfriend to cover spiraling legal fees for his murder trial, his lawyer said on Thursday. The Paralympian has not gone back to the house in Pretoria since he killed Reeva Steenkamp in an upstairs bathroom last year. “It has become necessary to sell Mr Pistorius’ home to raise the necessary funds to cover his increasing legal costs,” lawyer Brian Webber said. “This is due to the unexpected extension of the trial beyond the three-week period for which it was originally set down.”
UNITED STATES
No jail time for general
A general received a reprimand on Thursday from a judge, but no jail time and no discharge from the army after he pleaded guilty to mistreating a subordinate in an adulterous affair. Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair at one point had faced serious sexual assault allegations in the closely watched court-martial, but the prosecution’s case collapsed and the charges were dropped under a plea agreement. Instead, Sinclair, 51, admitted to having an affair with a female captain 17 years his junior, mistreating her, using a government credit card for expenses related to the affair and other misconduct. In a court room in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the military judge, Colonel James Pohl, ordered Sinclair to forfeit US$5,000 a month in pay for four months, but he will be permitted to keep his pension and other benefits, officials said.
United States
Officers want sex exemption
Honolulu police officers have urged lawmakers to keep an exemption in state law that allows undercover officers to have sex with prostitutes during investigations, touching off a heated debate. Authorities say they need the legal protection to catch lawbreakers in the act. Critics, including human trafficking experts and other police, say it is unnecessary and can further victimize sex workers, many of whom have been forced into the trade. Police have not said how often — or even if — they use the provision, but when they asked legislators to preserve it, they made assurances that internal policies and procedures are in place to prevent officers from taking advantage of it. A bill cracking down on prostitution was originally written to do away with the sex exemption for officers on duty, but it was amended to restore that protection after police testimony.
United States
Haiti poll agreement lauded
A political agreement over Haiti’s legislative elections brokered without foreign intervention is a significant milestone for the country, the head of the UN’s Haiti mission said on Thursday. The agreement, reached after mediation by the first Haitian cardinal in the Catholic Church, Chibly Langlois, provides for Oct. 26 polls and allows Haiti out of a long-running political impasse.
United States
Police release Cobain pics
With the 20th anniversary of the suicide of Kurt Cobain coming up next month, Seattle police knew they would be getting plenty of questions about the Nirvana frontman. So a detective reviewed the case files. He found no new information to change the conclusion that Cobain took his own life, but did discover four rolls of undeveloped film from the suicide scene. Late on Thursday, Seattle police released two previously unseen images. One showed a box containing drug paraphernalia, a spoon and what looks like needles on the floor next to half a cigarette and sunglasses. The other shows the paraphernalia box closed, next to cash, a cigarette pack and a wallet.
Brazil
Lawmaker’s sentence upheld
The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a final appeal from a lawmaker convicted of trading free sterilization surgery for women for votes. Asdrubal Bentes of the Democratic Movement Party, part of the ruling coalition, was found guilty in 2011 and sentenced to three years in jail for offering illegal sterilization to women. He appealed, but the court confirmed the sentence.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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