■ Bangladesh
Bombs strike movie theaters
Two near-simultaneous bomb explosions outside movie theaters killed a 13-year-old boy and injured seven other people in a northeastern Bangladeshi city, and police said yesterday they were questioning six men
about the attack. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts Thursday night in Sylhet city, 190km northeast of the capital Dhaka, and police gave no word on a possible motive. The unidentified boy was killed instantly by a bomb outside Rangmahal cinema, said Ali Imam Chowdhury, a senior police official in the area. A second bomb injured at least seven people outside Monika, another movie theater in the same city, Chowdhury said.
■ Japan
Possible West Nile case
A Japanese woman who recently returned from a trip to the US is suspected of having West Nile virus in what would be Japan's first case of the mosquito-borne illness, an official said yesterday. Pre-liminary results from blood tests and a spinal tap on the 42-year-old women, from Japan's southernmost island of Okinawa, were positive for the disease but more precise tests were being carried out at an institute in Tokyo, Health Ministry official Tatsuhiro Isogai said. Test results are expected as early as Monday, he said. Japanese media reported there was a possi-bility that the woman has Japanese encephalitis, which also is spread by mosquitos. Isogai said Japan has had no cases of West Nile, and that even if the woman had the virus, an outbreak here would be very unlikely because
the disease is normally transmitted to humans by mosquitos that have fed on infected birds. "It's very likely that she became infected in the US, not on the plane or in Japan," he said.
■ Vietnam
Fish bomber killed
A man was killed on Tuesday while using explosives to fish in northern Vietnam, a police officer said yesterday. Nguyen Ngoc Hien, 30, and two of his relatives were fishing by throwing homemade mines into a stream near their home, said Dinh Van Chuc, chief of Dan Ha commune police. The 300g mine exploded in Hien's hand when he was about to throw it into the water, the police official from Hoa Binh province, 80km west of Hanoi said. Hien lost his right arm and suffered severe head and chest injuries. He was rushed to hospital by his relatives but died 36 hours later.
■ New Zealand
Drugs in lava lamps
Customs officers discovered crystal methamphetamine with a street value of US$5.75 million in five lava lamps imported from China, the New Zealand Herald Web site reported yesterday. Police said it was thought to be the biggest seizure of illegal drugs ever made in New Zealand. About 9kg of illicit drugs were suspended in the liquid inside the lamps. Police arrested and jailed a 23-year-old Chinese student at the Auckland address the lamps were consigned to.
■ Indonesia
Model banned from prison
An Indonesian model has been banned from visiting the son of former president Suharto in a maximum-security prison after a recent visit turned into a three-day stay, news reports said yesterday. Officials ordered the prison to blacklist Sandy Harun from visiting former billionaire playboy Hutomo Mandala Putra, better known as Tommy, the Jakarta Post said. Tommy is serving a 15-year sentence in an island prison off Java for graft and arranging the killing of a Supreme Court judge who had convicted him of corruption in a land deal.
■ Canada
Skating thief on the loose
Police were on the lookout on Wednesday for a rollerblading criminal who robbed a woman while she waited in her car at a fast food restaurant's drive-through lane. The woman told investigators in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby that the man rolled up to her car window on in-line skates late on Tuesday, brandished a knife and demanded cash. She complied and the man skated away with the money. "The female victim clearly remembers that this male smelled strongly of liquor," the Royal Canadian Mounted Police also noted in a press release.
■ United Kingdom
Murder sparks sales spree
Sales of a violent video game, linked to the brutal murder of a British teenager, were soaring on Thursday across the UK as buyers rushed to buy their copy before the game is banned. Publicity surrounding the Manhunt game has sparked a consumer frenzy in the UK, with copies flying off the shelves in stores where it is still available. Many multi-media retailers withdrew the game from their stores last week in the wake of media coverage about the murder of 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah, killed in February by his friend, Warren Leblanc, 17, who was said to be obsessed with the game.
■ United States
`Lez' in Scrabble shocker
It wasn't a four-letter word, but it was close enough to cause a stir at the National Scrabble Championship in New Orleans. In the final round on Thursday, eventual champion Trey Wright played the word "lez," which was on a list of offensive words not allowed during the tournament. Normally, no word is off-limits, but because the games were being taped for broadcast on cable sports channel ESPN, certain terms had been deemed inappropriate, including the three-letter slang for lesbian. "There are words you just can't show on television," Scrabble Association executive director John Williams said.
■ United States
Hiker drives off bear with ax
Officials closed a back-country area of Denali National Park in Alaska after a hiker told rangers he had driven off an attacking grizzly bear by burying his ice ax in the animal's back. Park Service spokeswoman Kris Fister said Roberto Cataldo, 29, of Modena, Italy, reported the encounter on Monday. A 130km2 tract where Cataldo said he had hiked was closed indefinitely. Fister said much of what he told rangers has not been corroborated, but the park had to take protective measures. A wounded bear "poses a threat to anyone going into the area," she said on Thursday.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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