■ North Korea
More children wanted
The duty of North Korean women is to bear many children and raise them as workers for the state, Pyongyang said yesterday as it celebrated the anniversary of a gender equality law. The population of the state where famine is believed to have killed more than a million people since the mid-1990s has shrunk to about 22.5 million from 22.8 million in 1999, government figures show. Leader Kim Jong-il described the North's 1946 gender equality law as "unthought of in any other country," said the Rodong Sinmun, the daily newspaper of the ruling Workers Party of Korea.
■ China
Cannibal to get death
A woman who killed her gambler husband and then cooked and ate part of his body has been sentenced to death in northern China, a news report said yesterday. Zhang Shuzhen clubbed her husband to death in April after arguing with him over how he always left her to play mahjong. She then chopped up his body, cooked the pieces and ate part of it, putting what was left in a pot, according to the South China Morning Post. Zhang, from Jilin province, reportedly told police: "I wanted my husband to be always with me, so I ate part of him."
■ South Korea
Student fined for attack
A South Korean student has been fined 10 million won (US$8,500) for taking part in a group attack on three American soldiers that triggered an official US protest, court officials said yesterday. The 24-year-old was sentenced Thursday for his part in the assault in September 2002. After the attack on a Seoul subway train one of the off-duty soldiers was forcibly detained for several hours by the students and paraded at a memorial ceremony for two girls who were killed in an accident involving a US military vehicle.
■ Cambodia
Acid thrown on mother, baby
A jealous mistress in Cambodia took revenge by going to the home of her boyfriend's wife and hurling a bottle of acid over her and into the face of her infant son, police said on Friday. The woman had been feeling neglected by her 32-year-old boyfriend since his wife had given birth to their four-month-old son, a deputy provincial police chief said. Police allege that in an act of revenge, the mistress bought some acid and knocked on the family's door in the early hours of Thursday morning. The new mother carried her baby with her on her hip to answer the door and the pair caught the full force of the acid in their faces. Police said the mother and child were not expected to live and that the baby was in a particularly serious condition.
■ Turkey
Crash kills 26
A truck collided with a bus in eastern Turkey, triggering a chain-reaction crash that killed 26 people and injured about 30, police said yesterday. An Iranian-registered truck crashed into the intercity bus late Thursday, near the town of Tercan in Erzincan province, some 700km east of Ankara, a police official in Tercan said. A minivan then crashed into the two, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The driver and another passenger in the truck were killed along with the bus' driver and 23 passengers inside, the police official said. Passengers riding in the minivan were injured.
■ Belgium
Blast kills at least 15
At least 15 people were killed and 100 injured in a huge explosion at a gas works yesterday outside Brussels, authorities said. The explosion in the industrial area of Ghislenghien, about 30km southeast of Brussels, was felt 10km away, authorities told Belgian media. Jean-Jacques Perrin, police inspector in nearby Ath, told the Belgian news agency Belga that at least 10 people died and others were injured. There were no details on the cause of the blast. The E429 motorway through the area was closed in both directions, with cars forced to exit at Ath or Enghien.
■ Great Britain
Olympic Committee scandal
At least one member of the International Olympic Committee flouted strict rules regarding the selection of the venue for the 2012 Games, the BBC reported yesterday. The British public broadcaster's investigative Panorama television team conducted a year-long probe, in which members of the team posed as consultants acting for clients in London who want the Games to come to the city. London, along with Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow, are contending to host the Games. Panorama: Buying the Games, will be broadcast on Wednesday evening. The program alleges professional agents promised to secure the votes of some of the 124 voting members in exchange for money.
■ Great Britain
Dead man sailing
A British yachtsman who was presumed to have drowned after his boat smashed onto rocks has returned home safely to his family -- a month after the accident. Police in Dorset, southeast England, have no idea where Justin Griffin has been in the meantime, the Daily Telegraph said yesterday. Griffin went missing on June 28, and later his 6m yacht was found damaged off the shoreline close to his home, the report said. Griffin's wife said at the time that she was "praying for a miracle" -- one that was answered on Wednesday night when he suddenly arrived home.
■ France
Crickets not Nice
Millions of crickets have invaded Nice airport in southern France, causing no direct threat to air traffic but attracting birds who could pose a danger, airport officials said. Frederic Gozlan, head of technical services at the airport, said efforts were underway to clear the crickets, which are believed to have flown in from Italy or North Africa. "We have to hunt them down before they eat all the grass by the runways," he said, adding that the grass was needed to hold dust and gravel in place when planes land and take off.
■ Canada
Ex-Black Panther arrested
A former Black Panther who spent 30 years on the run after being charged in the attempted murder of a police officer was awaiting extradition, or possibly deportation, to the US on Thursday, authorities said. The long arm of the law finally caught up with Joseph Pannell late on Tuesday, after he finished up a shift at a reference library in Toronto, Canada, where he had worked for the past 13 years. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested the 55-year-old, who was living under the assumed name Douglas Freeman.
■ United States
Israeli missile tested
A US-Israeli anti-ballistic missile successfully intercepted a Scud missile launched on Thursday in a test-firing off the California coast, the US Missile Defense Agency said. The test of the Arrow missile defense system was based at the Point Mugu Sea Range, about 75km northwest of Los Angeles. The system has been developed by Israel with US funding. "The objective of the test was to demonstrate the Arrow system's improved performance against a target that represents a threat to Israel," the agency said in a press release.
■ United States
There's not much to thongs
Two men who strolled through a supermarket in thongs and T-shirts won't be prosecuted for taking part in what they said was a "triple-dog dare," authorities said. The 30-somethings from Colorado pulled up to a Walmart Superstore in Scottsbluff, western Nebraska, bought a couple of thongs and slipped them on in a changing room. Police arrested the 35- and 36-year-olds for disorderly conduct, but let them go. "There wasn't much to it," said Police Sergeant Tony Straub.
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,
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
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
DEFIANT: Ukraine and the EU voiced concern that ICC member Mongolia might not execute an international warrant for Putin’s arrest over war crimes in Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin was yesterday visiting Mongolia with no sign that the host country would bow to calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The trip is Putin’s first to a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since it issued the warrant about 18 months ago. Ahead of his visit, Ukraine called on Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the EU expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant. A spokesperson for Putin last week said that the Kremlin
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