■ China
Man hacks 8 people to death
A farmer has been arrested in China for hacking eight people to death with an axe after being released from prison for the rape of a woman who became one of his victims, state media reported Friday. Jian Xueliang, 35, from Shaanxi province, was caught Wednesday hiding in a mountainous area after carrying out his killing spree last week, the China Daily said. His victims included children aged four and 10, a pair of 15-year-old twins and a man of 80. The dead were from two related families from Jian's home village Mingxing. Jian had been jailed in 1999 for raping Yu Xiaojun, a new bride.
■ India
Husbands killed in feud
Two sisters have shot dead each other's husband in an upscale Bombay neighborhood in an apparent dispute over property, police said Thursday. Farida Ahmad and her younger sister Gazala, who uses only one name, have been arrested after the killings which took place early Wednesday. "The dispute was probably over property, but we're yet to ascertain all the facts," deputy police commissioner Amitabh Gupta reporters. According to Gupta, Farida used her husband's revolver to shoot dead her brother-in-law. Her sister then retaliated by snatching the gun out of Farida's hands and pumping three bullets into its owner.
■ Thailand
Powerful bomb detonated
Bomb experts destroyed a powerful explosive minutes before it was set to detonate early Friday in Thailand's troubled Muslim-dominated south, police said. The 10kg device was found by a worker outside a Thai Military Bank branch office in the Takbai district of Narathiwat province along the Malaysian border, police Lieutenant Colonel Metha Singhara said. The bomb was set to explode half an hour after the bank employee found it and alerted police, he said. Experts used a water cannon to destroy the bomb made from ammonium nitrate, sharpened nails and two types of plastic explosives -- C-4 and Power Gel, which is commonly found at mining and construction sites.
■ Australia
Tourist murder trial begins
An Australian mechanic will stand trial next April over the outback murder three years ago of British tourist Peter Falconio, court officials said Friday. Bradley John Murdoch was this week ordered to face trial for murdering Falconio and abducting and assaulting his girlfriend Joanne Lees in July 2001. The public prosecutor's office said the trial would begin on April 26 and was likely to last six weeks. It would be preceded by a two-week hearing of preliminary issues from March 7. Falconio, 28, disappeared on a lonely stretch of highway north of the central Australian town of Alice Springs in July 2001 and his body has never been found despite one of the largest manhunts in Australian history.
■ China
Traffic jam angers motorists
If there is a competition for the world's worst traffic jam, several thousand drivers on China's route 307 would have been able to offer themselves up as contenders this week after a 10-day, 60-mile snarl-up left them stranded in driving rain and searing heat. Roadworks and a sharp increase in traffic volume were blamed for the tailback, which stretched across the provinces of Hubei and Shanxi until it was finally cleared after a five-day police operation. Even by the standards of China -- where one-or two-day jams are not uncommon on the most remote rural roads -- the congestion between Jiuguan in Shanxi and Luquan in Hubei made headlines in many newspapers.
■ Russia
51st way to leave a lover
A woman in Veliki Novgorod in northern Russia killed her husband with an umbrella during a domestic dispute by plunging it into his chest, local police said on Thursday. The 42-year-old man died instantly after the tip of the umbrella pierced his heart, the police said. His wife admitted to having dealt the fatal blow.
■ United States
Bear of a hangover
Workers at a US resort were stunned to find a black bear passed out drunk on their lawn after he guzzled down 36 beers in a night of drunken revelry, they said Thursday. "The strange thing is that he appeared to like only Rainier (a local brand) beer, and he tried one can of Busch but didn't even finish it," Broxon said of the picky wildlife reveller. The bear was caught and safely relocated to an area well away from human -- and liquor stores -- following the incident three weeks ago, Broxon said. "This is the first time I've heard of a bear drinking beer. He was obviously a party animal."
■ Netherlands
Chimps kicked to curb
Dozens of chimpanzees from a Dutch research laboratory face a housing crisis after plans for their early retirement on the Spanish coast collapsed because of residents' fears they would carry infectious diseases. A personal visit in July from renowned chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall failed to sway town officials. The 39 chimps were living at a research center when the Dutch government forbade any further testing on chimpanzees. The simian saga illustrates the dilemma of what to do with research chimps as more countries decide it is no longer acceptable to use humankind's closest genetic relative for experiments.
■ United States
Dr Seuss' widow blackmailed
A man tried to extort the widow of the legendary US children's author known as "Dr Seuss" by threatening to circulate a painting of his famous characters engaged in sexual acts, police documents showed on Thursday. Charles Augustus Steen, 33, was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to undergo anger management classes after pleading guilty to attempting to extort US$2.5 million from Theodor Geisel's widow, according to court records. Geisel, known under his pen name of Dr Seuss, created The Cat in the Hat and The Grinch. In a series of threatening e-mails sent last year to 83-year-old Audrey Geisel and her lawyers, he also demanded cash compensation for a Dr Seuss story he claimed was plagiarized from his own work.
■ United Kingdom
Brothel in church's shadow
Setting up a brothel requires a certain disregard for the law in the UK, but to establish one on the very doorstep of the Church of England's spiritual home shows a particular cheek. Police said on Thursday they were investigating complaints that an apartment 100m from Canterbury Cathedral had been turned into a brothel. Neighbors complained to police after seeing suspicious movements at the apartment and a red light illuminating it at night.
■ United States
Stunt pilots to snag stardust
NASA has recruited two Hollywood helicopter stunt pilots for an especially tricky maneuver -- snagging a capsule full of stardust as it parachutes back to Earth next month, mission managers said on Thursday. The mid-air retrieval 1,219m above the Utah desert on Sept. 8 is the planned climax to the space agency's Genesis mission, which began three years ago with the launch of a space probe to collect charged particles blown toward Earth from the sun. The scheme for snaring the re-entry capsule is aimed at sparing the canister from a rocky landing that could damage the delicate samples inside.
■ Paraguay
Search for victims resumed
Paraguay on Thursday renewed a search for victims of a supermarket blaze that killed nearly 400 people after relatives said 49 people were still missing almost three weeks after the disaster. "We have found a bone and some hair and we're going to check with forensics to see if they are human. The task will go on despite the risks of the building collapsing," Carlos Torres, Paraguay's fire chief, told reporters. Fire swept through an Asuncion supermarket on Aug. 1, killing at least 361 people.
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
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
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