■ Thailand
Police issue piranha alert
Thai police have issued a warning that flesh-eating piranhas may be lurking in Bangkok's waterways. "Let me warn people who live by the river or canals to be careful when going into the water," said a police colonel, according to a report Sunday in the Bangkok Post news-paper. Although none of the fish, native to South Amer-ica, have yet been found in Bangkok's network of rivers and canals, authorities fear they could be there. Police raids on wildlife dealers illegally trading piranhas may have inspired others to release their stock into waterways, the paper cited a wildlife official as saying.
■ Thailand
Man overdoses on durian
An elderly man in northern Thailand died after eating a large amount of durian, a pungent but wildly popular fruit that can overheat the body's metabolism, a news report said yesterday. Thavin Chaiya, 68, purchased one of fruits on Sunday in Chiang Mai province and was feasting with friends on the durian's yellow flesh. Villagers were quoted by The Nation newspaper as saying Thavin suddenly called for water and then his eyes bulged and he fell to the floor and began convulsing. He died on the way to hospital. Medical officials said he was the second person to die from eating durian in the past month.
■ South Korea
Deceitful wife must pay
A court ordered a woman to pay her husband 50 million won (US$42,380) in com-pensation for having a baby with another man. The 26-year-old woman told her husband in February 2002 she was pregnant with his baby, and demanded that they marry. The man grew suspicious when relatives complained that the baby didn't look like him at all.
■ Saudi Arabia
Wife-beater sentenced
A husband who severely battered his wife, a popular TV presenter, has been sentenced to six months in jail and 300 lashes, a newspaper reported yesterday, after a national outcry in Saudi Arabia. Muhammad Bakar Yunus Al-Fallatta repeatedly smashed his wife's head into the walls and tiled floor and dumped her unconscious at hospital on April 4, Arab News said. Rania al-Baz, who suffered 13 facial fractures and is still having reconstructive surgery, agreed to have photographs of her injuries published in the press in a campaign to raise awareness of a kingdom-wide problem. Al-Fallatta was found guilty Saturday of severe battery after an attempted murder charge was dropped.
■ Pakistan
Security stepped up
Police stepped up security patrols yesterday while Islamic hardliners called for a nationwide strike after a leading pro-Taliban cleric was gunned down, touching off massive rioting by his followers. The situation was tense but there was no immediate outbreak of violence following a day of unrest that saw police fire tear gas and warning shots to disperse rioters who set fire to banks, shops, a police station and a KFC fast-food restaurant. Police formed a special task force to investigate the slaying of Nazamuddin Shamzai, a cleric in his seventies who had been a strong supporter of the Taliban.
■ Great Britain
Terror measures considered
Britain is considering radical anti-terrorism measures, including closed-door legal hearings overseen by "security-cleared" judges and restrictions on suspects, in in an attempt to tackle Islamic terror groups, according to a newspaper report yesterday. The ideas, part of a Home Office review launched in February, come amid growing concern that the 562 arrests under Britain's current anti-terror laws since the September 11 attacks in the US have led to only 14 convictions, the Financial Times reported. The closed-door hearings would be part of a two-tier trial system.
■ Great Britain
Bacteria could cure cancer
Genetically modified bacteria could provide a potent new weapon against cancer, scientists believe. Researchers have used engineered E.coli bacteria to wipe out a variety of cancer cells in the laboratory. They also succeeded in slowing down the progression of skin cancer in mice. The bacteria were used to smuggle a tumor-busting enzyme into cancer cells. Normally the enzymes would be barred from entering cells or broken down before they can take action. The researchers modified the bacteria to ensure they were harmless, and gave them the ability to penetrate cell membranes.
■ Malaysia
Woman dances on nails
An instructor of Indian traditional dance swirled and swayed on a bed of nails for more than 30 minutes in Kuala Lumpur, leaving her with slightly bloodied feet and claims to a record. S. Mathevi, in bare feet and traditional Indian costume, performed a dance called Baratham on a floor of about 10,000 nails in the central city of Ipoh to help raise awareness of the non-nail version of the art form. "I practiced dancing on hot sand four times a day for a month to strengthen the soles of my feet," said Mathevi, 25. "My tutor would also hit the soles of my feet with a stick for the same purpose."
■ Italy
Bush `normal': Berlusconi
US President George W. Bush is often misunderstood by those who do not know him personally and are unaware of his sensitive side, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in a television interview on Sunday. "He's a normal man, absolutely open to everyone's feelings. He's a family man, a husband, a father of two children who he loves very much. He's someone absolutely like us," Berlusconi, who revels in the role as Bush's closest European ally behind British Prime Minister Tony Blair, told RAI3's Telecamere. "He has very deep feelings, especially for the US victims [in Iraq] ... his pain is deep."
■ Spain
ETA fails to kill for a year
Spain on Sunday marked its first full year for more than three decades -- barring truces -- without a killing by the armed Basque separatist group ETA, as one of Europe's oldest and bloodiest terrorist groups was confirmed to be in serious decline. Not since the early 1970s, when the group was starting out during the Franco dictator-ship, have its attempts to plant bombs or carry out attacks failed so consis-tently. The only previous year-long gap in the killing came when ETA called a unilateral, but temporary, ceasefire in 1998. At its height, in the late 1970s and mid-1980s, it killed between 30 and 90 people a year.
■ United Kingdom
Bono planning Live Aid 2
Bono, lead singer of Irish rock group U2, is planning a second Live Aid concert, 20 years after the original charity extravaganza raised US$110 million for famine-hit Ethiopia, a British newspaper reported yesterday. The proceeds from Live Aid 2 would go to reducing the international debt of developing nations, The Sun tabloid reported. Bono, 44, is a long-time advocate for the cancellation of third world debt. U2 took part in the original 1985 Live Aid extravaganza, which was the brainchild of fellow Irish pop star Bob Geldof.
■ United States
Bush gets Saddam's gun
US President George W. Bush keeps in his White House offices a trophy of one his high points in the Iraq war -- the pistol that Saddam Hussein held when soldiers pulled him from his underground hideaway. Military specialists mounted the sidearm, and soldiers who helped in the deposed Iraqi president's capture presented it to the president, the White House said on Sunday. The president keeps the gun in a small study adjoining the Oval Office. Major-General Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said Saddam had the loaded pistol on his lap but didn't move to use it on Dec. 13.
■ Russia
Huge Tsar Bell rings again
Russia's largest church bell rang on Sunday in the sacred Orthodox town of Sergei Possad for the first time since it was torn down from its tower during a 1930 Stalinist purge against religion. The huge Tsar Bell, which is 4.55 meters high and weighs 72 tons, was hoisted into the tower of the Trinity St. Sergius monastery in April. It rang for 5,000 worshippers on Sunday at the monastery 35 miles northeast of Moscow. The bell was cast at a shipyard in Russian President Vladimir Putin's home city of St. Petersburg and bear the president's name in a centuries-old tradition that the tsar's name was engraved on the bell. Putin's administration has been criticized for its authoritarian tsarist nature.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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