■ India
Railway track blown up
Leftist extremists have blown up a railway track and a telephone exchange in separate incidents in eastern India, television networks said yesterday. Suspected members of the Maoist Communist Centre and the People's War Group -- both banned organizations active in pockets of eastern and southern India -- blasted a portion of a railway track near Gaya in Bihar state, the reports said. In another incident, a group of extremists blew up a telephone exchange at Hariharganj in neighboring Jharkhand state's Palamau district, paralyzing phone links in the area, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
■ Japan
Bird-flu case reported
Initial tests for bird flu at a poultry farm in the western Japan city of Kyoto produced positive results, following the death of 10,000 chickens there, central and local government officials said yesterday. "This is a suspected case of bird flu," a farm ministry official said, adding that further tests would be done to confirm the results. A Kyoto local government official said three dead chickens and two live ones had tested positive for the virus. The local official said Kyoto prefecture first received reports on Thursday night that more than 1,000 chickens had been dying each day since around Feb. 20.
■ Vietnam
Death for stealing US$2
A 19-year-old unemployed man will face the firing squad in Vietnam after being convicted of murdering a pensioner to steal less than US$2 in local currency, court officials said yesterday. Nguyen Dang Chung was handed the death sentence on Wednesday by a court in Bac Ninh for the murder of his 80-year-old neighbor in August last year. Chung's accomplice, Dao Van Cuong, 19, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Knowing that the old man lived alone, the pair entered his house and stabbed and beat him to death before fleeing with US$1.50. At least 16 people have been given the death penalty this year, while 11 others have been executed.
■ New Zealand
Man punches shark
A 15-year-old New Zealand surfer on Friday described how he punched a shark in the eye to fend it off as it bit his thigh about 100m off a beach in the South Island city of Dunedin. Chris Blair said he thought a seal was attacking him as he sat straddled across his board until he saw a dorsal fin and the shark's head wrapped around his upper leg. "I punched it in the eye and it let go straight away," he said. "I got back on my board and put my legs up. ... It came back after me and went under my board," he told the Otago Daily Times. The teenager said he yelled to fellow surfers who helped him to shore as the shark swam off. "At the time, I was just sort of in a bit of shock -- just a bit freaked out," he said.
■ Thailand
Wife chopped up
Israeli tourist Eli Cohen denied yesterday that he had killed his wife in a hotel room in the Thai capital, chopped up her body and dumped the parts in a canal. "I love my wife and I have two children. I am innocent. I never do anything like this," the disheveled, bespectacled Cohen told reporters. The 36-year-old faces death by lethal injection if found guilty. Police said they had arrested Cohen on charges of torturing and murdering his wife Carol, 26. Cohen was arrested after the discovery of a torso in a suitcase dumped in a Bangkok canal.
■ Germany
Debtor loses his teeth
A German man who failed to settle a gambling debt called police after his dentures were seized as collateral, police said on Thursday.
"He called us saying he was afraid he might have to live off liquid food for the next few days," said a police spokesman in the western city of Dortmund. Police persuaded a 51-year-old
local man to hand over the dentures after the owner promised to settle a 150 euro (US$187) debt. "He gave us
a great big smile at getting them back," police said.
■ United States
Ornate gate worth the wait
An ornate wrought-iron
gate that guarded the New England cemetery plot of 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson has been found at an antique shop after being missing for two decades, a descendant said on Wednesday. Robert Magovern, president of
the Dickinson Family Association, said he wanted to bring the gate, which disappeared in the mid-1980s, back to Amherst, Massachusetts, as soon as possible. He said he would even pay the US$300 an antiques dealer was asking for the piece when it was recognized on the front porch of the dealer's store
in Newfane, Vermont.
■ Brazil
Condom samba man fired
A Rio de Janeiro samba school on Wednesday sacked its Carnival artistic director whose pro-condom parade had upset the Catholic church and whose Kama Sutra float had been censored as too steamy. Academicos do Grande Rio school fired Joaosinho Trinta just before the winner of this year's world-famous Carnival was named. The judges,
who evaluate the schools' sambas, costumes, creativity and all-round enthusiasm, gave Grande Rio a lowly 10th place. Trinta, 70, brought
the theme Let's Put On a Condom, My Love to the Sambadrome parade avenue.
■ Child Porn
Internet ring busted
Police smashed Internet pedophile networks in 10 countries around the world on Thursday, arresting 40 people in one of the biggest operations conducted
by Europol against child pornography networks. "Today's operation has exposed a complex and organized hierarchical structure that Internet networks of pedophiles
and child molesters are
using to protect themselves by hiding their identities and their atrocious activities," Europol deputy director Mariano Simancas said. Police in Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Spain and Sweden were involved in the combined swoop.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
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