■ Australia
Oldest vertebrate found
A fossil believed to be the oldest vertebrate fossil ever found has been discovered in Australia, a paleontologist said yesterday. The fossil resembles an elongated tadpole. It is thought to be at least 560 million years old, at least 30 million years older than the next oldest vertebrate, a fossil discovered in China several years ago, Jim Gehling told national radio. It was found in South Australia's Flinders Ranges in sandstone by a farm owner, he said.
■ Australia
Police probe art `porn'
Police in Australia have investigated pornography claims against an art gallery which exhibited a painting drawn from a 19th-century woodcut by the Japanese artist Hokusai. The painting, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, is by an Australian, David Laity, and is valued at US$9,000. It is being shown in a Melbourne gallery. Like the 1814 original, it depicts a woman copulating with an octopus. Laity said: "It's a really lovely wild image. It's meant to be a dream image." The gallery's director, Brian Kino, said: "Haven't people progressed in 200 years that they're still shocked by this sort of thing?" After taking legal advice, the police agreed that the painting could be shown.
■ Japan
Man fakes royal wedding
A Japanese man has been arrested for fraud after he duped hundreds into believing he had royal blood and staged an extravagant wedding, collecting ?12.7 million (US$115,000) in gift money, officials said Tuesday. Yasuyuki Kitano, 41, and his two co-conspirators, Harumi Sakamoto, 45, who pretended to be his bride and 42-year-old Shinya Kusunoki, were arrested Monday, a Tokyo Metropolitan police spokesman said on condition of anonymity. More than 350 guests attended the spectacle that the trio mounted in April at an exclusive Tokyo club with convincing knockoffs of traditional imperial wedding robes.
■ Australia
Conservationist charged
The award-winning producer of British TV's wildlife series Survival was charged with wildlife smuggling by a court in Perth, Western Australia, on Tuesday. Mike Linley was arrested at Perth international airport on Tuesday allegedly carrying more than 200 live reptiles, frogs and lizards in his luggage. The animals were spotted as his two suitcases were X-rayed after customs officers were tipped off by a member of the public. The haul, believed to be Western Australia's biggest seizure of smuggled wildlife, included frogs, frilled neck lizards, geckos, skinks, bearded dragons and cockroaches.
■ New Zealand
Duck blamed for foul odor
A very relieved female duck is being blamed for an intriguing mystery in which a New Zealand house was splattered with a foul smelling substance. A house under the main flight path into the capital city Wellington was splattered with the material two months ago, prompting the owners to complain to the Civil Aviation Authority, claiming an aircraft toilet load had been dumped on them. But after a month of investigation, Department of Conservation water foul biologist Murray Williams said the material came from a single female duck. "She's been incubating on a nest. She will not have relieved herself for several hours, anything up to 12 hours," he told Radio New Zealand. "The first thing she wants to do when she flies off is void all that material, and she will do it at some distance away as she flies away from the nest."
■ United Kingdom
Lords repeal fox-hunt ban
The House of Lords on Tuesday reversed a complete ban on fox hunting in legislation approved by the House of Commons, and sent it back to the Commons for another vote. The amendment, allowing limited, regulated hunting to continue, was passed by 261 votes to 49, setting the Lords on collision course with the Commons once again in the long-fought battle over hunting with dogs. The sport, in which hunters on horseback follow packs of dogs in pursuit of foxes arouses strong feelings around the country, with opponents calling it cruel and unnecessary, and supporters calling it a valued country tradition that provides needed jobs. In order to become law, the bill must ordinarily be approved by the Lords, Parliament's unelected upper chamber, which can amend and delay legislation.
■ Russia
Hindu center delayed
Alfred Ford, a great-grandson of the motoring legend Henry, has outraged the conservative Russian Orthodox Church with his plans to build a huge center for Hare Krishna and Vedic religion worshippers in the centre of Moscow. The Orthodox Church, whose influence in Russia is rocketing since the fall of Communism eased religious worship, is furious at the prospect that a building big enough to hold 8,000 Hindu worshippers would be built a few kilometers from Red Square. The first stone was supposed to be laid in November when the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, visits Moscow.
■ United States
General investigated
The Pentagon has launched an investigation into a general who made controversial remarks tying the war on terrorism to religion, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday. Lieutenant General William Boykin, an evangelical Christian, had said in a series of speeches during the past two years that the US Army was the "army of God" and Muslims hate the US because it is a Christian nation. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon he granted Boykin's request for an investigation. Rumsfeld has been under growing pressure to sack or reassign the general.
■ United Kingdom
`Rings' going to West End
Indian composer A.R. Rahman and a Finnish folk troupe have been commissioned to write songs for a musical stage version of The Lord of the Rings, the show's producer announced Tuesday. Rahman, a veteran Bollywood songwriter who scored the Andrew Lloyd Webber-produced musical Bombay Dreams, will collaborate with the group Varttina on the adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein's fantasy trilogy. "We are recreating Middle Earth and we needed the music that goes with it to be unique," said Kevin Wallace, who is producing the West End show.
■ United States
Separated twins recovering
Separated twin Ahmed Ibrahim was removed from a ventilator and joined his brother Mohamed, who has been breathing without assistance since the weekend. The two-year-old Egyptian boys, who were born fused at the tops of their heads. Ahmed remained in critical, but stable, condition Tuesday. Doctors said Ahmed is more alert and responded to his mother's voice with smiles. Mohamed, who was taken off the ventilator Sunday, is listed in serious condition.
■ South Africa
Victims may go to court
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who led South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said on Tuesday apartheid's victims had the right to go to any court to seek compensation from companies who profited from white rule. But the Nobel laureate said he would prefer the issue to be resolved in South Africa. US lawyer Ed Fagan has sparked controversy in South Africa by filing a string of multi-billion dollar class-action lawsuits in the US against multi-national firms, accusing them of benefiting from apartheid. They include mining giant Anglo American, General Motors, Barclays and IBM.
■ Canada
Man survives Niagara
A man who went over Niagara Falls with only the clothes on his back and survived will be charged with illegally performing a stunt, park police said. Kirk Jones, 40, of Canton, Michigan, is the first person known to have gone over Niagara Falls without safety devices and lived. He could be fined US$10,000. Stunned tourists described seeing Jones float by on his back on Monday in the swift Niagara River, go headfirst over the churning 54m waterfall and then pull himself out of the water onto the rocks below. Jones was not seriously injured and was hospitalized in Niagara Falls in stable condition.
■ United States
Canada's help needed
American drug regulators said on Tuesday they can't do much to compel a Canadian company exporting cheaper prescription drugs to the US to follow federal drug laws, so they will seek help from the Canadian government. Ontario-based CanaRX has been accused of breaking the laws and had until Tuesday to begin following them. Tom McGinnis, director of pharmacy affairs for the Food and Drug administration, said the problem is that the company is not located in the US. "It's very tricky dealing with entities outside FDA's jurisdiction," McGinnis said. "We can't go into court. We're going to need to rely on Health Canada."
■ United Kingdom
Baby stabbed to death
A 10-month-old boy was stabbed to death in his pushchair on Tuesday in a busy baker's shop in Carlisle, north-west England. His 20-year-old mother had run into Greggs bakery after she was pursued by a man with a knife who began yelling at her as she pushed her son through the city center shortly after 11am. The unnamed boy was stabbed in the neck. He died in Cumberland Infirmary a short while later. His mother sustained lacerations to her wrist as she attempted to prevent the attack.
■ Norway
Witch gets state subsidy
A witch has won subsidies from the Norwegian state to run a business of potions, fortune-telling and magic. Lena Skarning, 33, won the unprecedented start-up grant of 53,000 crowns (US$7,400) after promising not to try out harmful spells with her business, Forest Witch Magic Consulting. Skarning, who owns a white cat and says she has been practising witchcraft for 13 years, said the runaway success of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books about a boy wizard may have made society more tolerant of sorcery. She said the government subsidy would help her tell fortunes from Tarot cards, teach magic tricks at corporate seminars and develop products like magical bath oil, water potions or face creams meant to help users have clearer dreams at night.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
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