■Hong Kong
Boy dies of anthrax
Health officials announced here on Tuesday night the death of a 2-year-old boy from anthrax, but said that the case did not appear to involve biological terrorism. The anthrax appears to have entered the boy orally, first affecting the back of his throat, and does not appear to have been inhaled, said Dr. Tse Lai-yin of the Hong Kong Health Department's disease prevention and control division. Terrorists would be more likely to disperse anthrax in such a way that victims would inhale it, not ingest it, she said.
■ Laos
Journalists arrested
Police in the communist country of Laos have arrested two European journalists and an American citizen in connection with the murder of a Laotian villager, the state news agency said yesterday. Frenchman Vincent Reynaud, Belgian Thierry J.L. Falise, and an American citizen of Laotian origin, Mua Naw Kari, were arrested June 4 in Xieng Khuang province, the official Lao News Agency said in a report monitored in Bangkok. It said the "three foreigners ... cooperated with bandits to kill a village security man of Khai village, Phoukhout district ... when he was on the mission."
■ Australia
Saudis free alcohol trader
An Australian man jailed for two years and sentenced to 600 lashes for trading alcohol in Saudi Arabia has been released early after 10 months in jail, Australian officials said yesterday. A spokeswoman from Australia's foreign office said Robert Laroo, from Queensland state, was arrested and detained last August but convicted in April this year for alcohol trafficking. He did not contest the charges. But after receiving 75 strokes of the cane, he was granted an early release. A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said Laroo, 37, was freed on June 7 but did not know the reason for his early release. Saudi daily Arab News reported he had received a royal pardon and was then deported.
■ China
`Swingers' club raided
Police arrested three people after raiding an upmarket wife-swapping club in China, a news report said yesterday. Officers raided the club in an hotel room in Shenyang, and arrested the people they say were the key members, according to the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily. The raid came after a newspaper reporter pretended to be interested in joining the "swingers" club to learn more about their activities and later informed police. Club organizer Wang Hong, who graduated from a prestigious university, said most of the club's members were educated people earning good salaries. They were brought together over the Internet and Wang organized parties at hotels where couples could swap spouses and lovers for sex.
■ China
Detained church leader ill
The leader of the banned South China Church in central China is ailing from being mistreated in prison, a New York-based rights group said yesterday, citing information from his family and friends. Gong Shengliang, head of the underground Protestant church in central China's Hubei province, is passing blood, has lost his hearing and is unable to leave his bed, Human Rights in China said in a statement. It cited an open letter signed by 34 friends and family members of Gong and addressed to organizations such as the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the UN Commission on Human Rights.
■Canada
First gay wedding held
Two Toronto men were married Tuesday in the country's first same-sex wedding just hours after an Ontario appeals court ruled that Canada's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The appeals panel declared the current legal definition of marriage invalid and ordered Toronto's city clerk to issue marriage licenses to the homosexual couples involved in the case. Shortly afterward, Michael Leshner and Michael Stark wed in a civil ceremony observed by Leshner's 90-year-old mother and about 50 friends and observers, most of them from the news media.
■ Mexico
Accused terrorist extradited
Mexico's highest court on Tuesday ordered the extradition of an Argentine ex-navy officer to Spain, where he faces charges of genocide and terrorism connected to Argentina's "dirty war" of the 1970s. A majority of the Supreme Court's judges voted to extradite Ricardo Cavallo, who was arrested in Mexico in 2000 and is accused by a Spanish judge of committing human rights atrocities against Spanish-born citizens in Argentina. Mexico had resolved to extradite the Argentine last year but his lawyers obtained a stay while they appealed the decision. Some 30,000 people died or disappeared during a crackdown on leftist rebels and suspected civilian supporters during military rule in Argentina in the late-1970s.
■ United States
Suicide closes murder case
When Heyward and Ellen Brown were found bludgeoned to death inside their ransacked Long Island, New York, home more than five years ago, the police suspected it was a burglary. But almost from the start, the pieces did not all appear to fit. Two years later the couple's younger son, Steven Brown, filed a civil wrongful-death lawsuit accusing his brother, Harvey, of committing the murders. Recently, the Suffolk County district attorney decided to take a second look at the case. But on Monday Harvey Brown committed suicide in Florida on his 39th birthday. Steven Brown said he interpreted Harvey's suicide as a long-delayed admission of guilt.
■ United States
I love Paris?
Film director Woody Allen, known for his fierce devotion to New York, is working as a pitch man for France. In a French tourism promotion video, Allen, whose movies are enormously popular in France, says it is time to put behind them the animosity over France's opposition to the US invasion of Iraq, which soured the long-standing relationship. "Recently there has been a lot of controversy between the two countries, and I would hope that now the two countries could put all that behind them and start to build on what really has been a great, great friendship," he said in the video, called Let's Fall in Love Again.
■ United States
Mammoths polished rocks
Using an electron microscope, Californian scientists have found further evidence that Ice Age beasts rubbed their hides up against Sonoma Coast rocks, leaving the rocks with a glistening polish where human climbers trek today. "It doesn't look anything like the polishing done by coastal water," said Steve Norwick, a Sonoma State University environmental professor. But scientists are stopping short of renaming Sunset Rock, now a favorite hangout for rock climbers, Mammoth Rock.
■Germany
Bomb scare snarls traffic
The main railway station in the western Germany city of Cologne was evacuated for two hours on Tuesday due to a bomb scare that proved unfounded, police said. Specialists aided by sniffer dogs inspected the abandoned bag at the major rail hub after thousands of stranded passengers were cleared from the building, but discovered only clothing and other personal belongings inside. The incident at the key hub serving 230,000 passengers per day snarled rail traffic across Germany for hours with tens of thousands of travelers facing delays.
■ Georgia
UN hostages released
Three UN military observers and their Georgian translator arrived in the Georgian capital Tbilisi yesterday after their abductors freed them following six days of captivity. Gunmen had grabbed the four on Thursday as they patrolled the tense Kodori Gorge, a region disputed by the Georgian government and Abkhazian separatists. The kidnappers had demanded US$3 million in ransom, but Georgian officials said they paid nothing, local media reported. The government pledged not to detain the captors in exchange for the release, the reports said.
■ United States
Regan dies of cancer
Donald Regan, a former US treasury secretary and powerful member of president Ronald Reagan's Cabinet, died on Tuesday at the age of 84, his former employer Merrill Lynch said. Regan was treasury secretary in the Reagan administration from 1981 to 1985, then became White House chief of staff from 1985 to 1987, in the president's second term. Regan was forced to resign from the White House in 1987 in the wake of the Iran-contra "arms for hostages" scandal. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Ann Buchanan Regan, four children and nine grandchildren. He had been treated for cancer before his death.
■ United Kingdom
Blair gets e-mail address
For a leader who proclaims himself as a great modernizer, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has fallen into ignominious company. Along with Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro, he has until recently been one of only a handful of world leaders not hooked up to e-mail. Needless to say, every other leader in the G8 is on e-mail. Officials are likely to say that Blair has had enough to worry about recently. But there may be a simple explanation: despite attending computer classes he appears to be clueless about technology. An e-mail address has now been set up for him, and it is: rthontonyblairmp@hotmail.com.
■ United States
Eccentric keeps sex slaves
A retired handyman known as a local eccentric pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that he kidnapped five women and held them captive in a bunker under his suburban yard so he could force them to have sex. John Jamelske, 68, admitted in Onondaga County Court here that he kidnapped the women, ranging in age from 14 to one in her early 50s, over the last 15 years. Jamelske told prosecutors last month he decided to kidnap the women after his ailing wife was no longer able to have sex. "His reason was that he wanted a sexual relationship with monogamous partners who he was sure were not out getting diseases," said the first chief assistant district attorney, Rick Trunfio.
Agencies
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
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