■ Cambodia
Girl bites lewd stepfather
A 17-year-old Cambodian girl nearly bit off her stepfather's tongue to thwart his alleged rape attempt, local media reported Saturday. The English-language Cambodia Daily said the stepfather, Mok Ya, 44, was charged on Thursday with rape and possession of an illegal weapon in southeastern Svay Rieng province's Kampong Ro district. The man's wife reportedly told authorities the day before that her daughter bit and nearly severed his tongue when he began to kiss her. Police told the Daily that Mok Ya had already raped his stepdaughter twice this year but the mother had been too ashamed to go to police.
■ United States
Gorilla goes on rampage
Three people, including a 3-year-old boy, were recovering Friday after an escaped 135kg gorilla charged them at the Dallas Zoo, biting and hitting them and tossing them around. Jabari, a 13-year-old lowland gorilla, escaped from his enclosure at the zoo Thursday and went on a rampage for 40 minutes before he charged police officers who shot and killed him. Police marksmen and zoo employees had tried to fire tranquilizer darts at the gorilla, but zoo director Rich Buickerood told The Dallas Morning News that Jabari was moving in a thickly forested area of the zoo, making finding him difficult and taking a shot dangerous. "Immobilization weapons are powerful enough to kill a person," Buickerood told the newspaper. "We worried about a missed shot."
■ Germany
`Lolita' based on `Lolita'
Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita apparently was adapted from a short story by a long-forgotten German writer, according to a newspaper report. A short story entitled Lolita is among a volume of stories written by Berlin journalist Heinz von Lichberg and published in 1916, according to the report in yesterday's edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The newspaper, which obtained a copy of the book, said the story's plot was virtually identical to that of Nabokov's 1955 novel. Lichberg was a well-known newsman in the 1920s and 30s, and wrote a bestselling book about the trans-Atlantic crossing of a dirigible airship and gave a stirring live radio eyewitness report of Nazi stormtroopers marching through Brandenburg Gate the night Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933.
■ The Philippines
Strawberry cake sets record
A northern Philippine town is attempting to bake itself into the Guinness Book of Records with what it claimed was the world's biggest strawberry buttercake. The northern town of La Trinidad, which calls itself the Philippines' strawberry capital, has been baking giant cakes for the last three years. But Mayor Nestor Fongwan said the town has outdone itself this time with the giant dessert weighing 11,146kg. At 10 pesos (US$0.18) a slice in the town hall, the massive cake was expected to feed 55,000 townspeople.
■ Argentina
Menem's pardons annulled
An Argentine judge on Friday annulled pardons granted by former president Carlos Menem to six military officers accused of gross human rights violations during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. The move by federal Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral opened the way for the three surviving officers to face prosecution in a case involving torture and assassinations of political prisoners in an army detention camp. The suspects are under house arrest while they await trial in separate case.
■ Israel
Officer charged over Jenin
An Israeli tank commander is to be charged with negli-gent homicide after having authorized his tanks to shell a group of Palestinians in a market, killing three child-ren and an adult. The lieutenant-colonel was in charge of an incursion into Jenin in June 2002 when one of his officers saw hundreds of civilians in an area that he believed was under cur-few -- though it was not. The officer sought per-mission to open fire and the lieutenant colonel gave it. Israeli rules of engagement permit soldiers to fire a small number of shells or bullets into a vacant open area to warn crowds to disperse. But the tank crews fired about 10 explosive rounds and several long volleys of machine-gun fire.
■ United States
Radio skit offends Muslims
An Islamic rights group filed a federal complaint against talk radio station KFI-AM and parent Clear Channel Communications because of a skit mocking the new Iraqi Constitution saying it advocated killing Jews and banned such Western teach-ings as "bathing on a regular basis." The station issued an on-air apology -- saying it didn't intent to bash Mus-lims -- after the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission. According to the skit Iraqi adults would be allowed relationships with "camels and goats."
■ Britain
NHS sets a new record
The state-run National Health Service is now the world's third-largest employer, beaten only by China's People's Liberation Army and India's rail network, according to a report. The NHS a total workforce of 1.3 million people, according to a new employee census
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
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