■ Cambodia
Sex workers kidnapped
About 30 men and women, some armed with handguns, attacked a shelter in Phnom Penh and kidnapped more than 80 sex workers that authorities rescued earlier this week, The Cambodia Daily said yesterday. The attackers surrounded the shelter on Wednesday, assaulted its guards and forced the women -- half whom were underage -- into SUVs, said Somaly Mam, president of Afesip, a French group helping abused wo-men. Authorities rescued
the 83 women and girls on Tuesday from a brothel.
"The girls were very afraid," Somaly Mam told newspaper. "They told me the boss of the hotel has a lot of power, and that he will come to take them." She said two Interior Ministry policemen were on duty during the raid, but were too afraid to stop the attack.
■ Thailand
Bombs disrupt rail service
Train services in three southern provinces were temporarily halted yesterday following simultaneous bomb explosions on railway tracks in a region stalked by an escalating Muslim insur-gency, officials said. Chit-santi Dhanasobhon, head
of the State Railways of Thailand, said four bombs were planted on tracks in Yala, Pattani and Songkhla provinces, with three of them exploding simultan-eously and the fourth being destroyed by an anti-bomb squad. The bombs went off as cars, each carrying six police officers and three railways officials, were on daily routine trips to inspect the tracks and detect any explosives. No casualties were reported and only minor damage was caused by the blasts.
■ Australia
Rogue hairdressers nabbed
Police said yesterday they had smashed a gang of rogue employees who staged a string of firebombings aimed at a rival in Sydney's hair products supply market. Police arrested three men in a series of raids late Wed-nesday and charged them over 12 arson attacks on
warehouses over the past six years that have caused damage estimated at A$80 million (US$61.6 million). The alleged ringleader, the owner of a hair salon supply business who was arrested at a warehouse in suburban Sydney, was also charged with ordering an attack on a rival business operator. The police said the accused were part of a conspiracy to dominate Sydney's lucrative hair products market.
■ Malaysia
Pigsty was a brothel
Police busted a brothel in
an abandoned pigsty after housewives complained that their husbands spent a surprising amount of time there, officials said yester-day. The pigsty, with 20 cubicles, had been furnished with tables, fans, a bar serving alcohol, neon lights and a sound system, a Selangor state police official said. Police had placed the pigsty under surveillance before moving in on Wednes-day, arresting three prostitutes from China, a Malay-sian pimp and 30 clients, the official said. Other prosti-tutes managed to escape. Police released the clients after taking their statements.
■ Thailand
World Bank official dies
A South African World Bank official has been found dead in a five-star hotel in Bang-kok, sources said on yes-terday. A spokesman for the bank confirmed that a staff member had died at a Bang-kok hotel and that an investigation was continuing. Police at the forensic division said the body of Laura Walker arrived from the Shangri-La Hotel on Wednesday afternoon.
■ Italy
Company sells single shoes
It is the oddest offer ever made available in shoe shops: "Buy two, get a third for free." Yet, this is precisely what two Milan-based entrepreneurs have come up with as they seek to break the monopoly of pairs and revolutionize a fashion principle that has resisted bravely for several thousand years. Simone Cassola and Jack Ray, both in their late 30s, run "ADD's" -- oddly enough, the world's first single shoe manufacturer. Their motto is Scoppia la coppia, an Italian play on words loosely translated as "Split the pair." "We have two feet which are different from each other, so why should shoes be in pairs," Ray said.
■ United Kingdom
Contraception ad withdrawn
A Christmas campaign for an "immaculate contraception" morning-after birth control pill has been scrapped by a drug company in Britain after causing offence on religious grounds. The poster, which appeared on London Underground trains, asked: "Immaculate contraception? If only." "It might be Christmas time," it read, "but condoms still split and pills still get forgotten. So if your contraception lets you down, ask your pharmacist for Levonelle One Step." Schering Health Care, a subsidiary of Schering AG of Germany, said in a statement it had decided to withdraw the "inappropriate" ad after receiving several letters.
■ United Kingdom
Kids flee language classes
British schoolchildren have for generations battled the nuances lurking in the French subjunctive and the complexities of the German noun, but no more. A change in the syllabus rules means that learning a modern European language -- usually French -- is no longer compulsory, and the kids have deserted the French and German classes in droves. The attitude appears to be that the continentals should learn English, although there has been an uptick in Spanish. Many British youngsters take their summer holidays in Spain. Education Secretary Charles Clarke changed the rules from the beginning of the school year.
■ France
Winegrowers stage protests
Thousands of French wine-growers staged protests around the country Wednesday to demand government aid to offset a crisis of collapsing markets. In what organizers described as the industry's biggest ever day of action, demonstrations were held in most main wine-producing areas. Protesters handed out tracts pressing for financial help as well as the suspension of a government publicity campaign against alcoholism which they say is unfairly hitting demand. "Stop lynching us with your lying advertisements and start helping us sell our wines abroad!" said Alain Vironneau, president of the Union of Bordeaux Wines.
■ United Kingdom
Copter crashes off coast
A British navy helicopter carrying four people crashed off the coast of England on Wednesday while conducting a search and rescue mission, officials said. The Royal Navy Lynx helicopter went down in the ocean off Cornwall, a rural province in southwestern England, the Royal Air Force and the Ministry of Defense said. There was no immediate word on the fate of the crewmen, who had been called from their base in Cornwall to join the search for a man who reportedly had fallen overboard from a ship, the RAF and the ministry said. It was unclear where the report of a man overboard came from.
■ United States
Who's the most honest?
Nurses get top marks when it comes to honesty and ethics, and car salesmen are the least trusted people, according to Gallup's annual US survey of professions released on Tuesday. Nurses were given a "very high" or "high rating" by 79 percent of those surveyed nationwide in telephone interviews with 1,015 adults, aged 18 or older, conducted Nov. 19-21. Grade school teachers were next highest on the chart of 21 professions at 73 percent, one point higher than pharmacists and military officers. Car salesmen brought up the rear with only 9 percent rating their honesty and ethics as high. That was one point lower than for people in advertising. Journalists did not fare much better in public approval. TV reporters (23 percent) and newspaper reporters (21) ranked below auto mechanics (26) and nursing home operators (24) on the list.
■ Colombia
Tribal leaders slain
Armed men dragged three Indian leaders from their straw huts and killed them execution-style in Colombia's banana-growing region, the local mayor said Wednesday. Arturo Domico, Misael Domico and Horacio Bailarin, were members of the Embera tribe, said Jose Fidel Comandero, mayor of the municipality of Apartado, 450km northwest of Bogota. "They were community leaders and always promoted peaceful living," the mayor told local Caracol radio. Comandero said the killings took place Tuesday and tribal members on Wednesday buried them and then marched in protest into Apartado.
■ Haiti
Gunmen attack marketplace
Gunmen opened fire in a crowded market place in Haiti's capital on Wednesday, injuring at least one person and drawing fresh complaints about the beleaguered police's inability to cope with rising violence. Renold Cherisier, a 42-year-old cosmetics salesman, was shot in the neck as the gunmen tore through the Cow Head Market in downtown Port-au-Prince, shooting into the air and setting fire to merchandise.
■ Canada
Nazi may lose citizenship
Canadian investigators will travel to Italy to find witnesses in a case to strip the Canadian citizenship of a man convicted in Italy on charges of torture and murder at a Nazi detention camp during World War II. The case hinges around Michael Seifert, an 80-year-old of Ukrainian origins who has lived in Canada since 1951 and was given a life sentence by Italian authorities in 2000. He was charged in Italy with 18 counts of murder and acts of torture committed in 1944 to 1945 at a Nazi camp in the northern Italian city of Bolzano. A Canadian federal court judge in Vancouver has "authorized the search for Italian witnesses," said Patrick Charette, a spokesman for Canada's Justice Ministry.
■ United States
Rescue chopper crashes
A Coast Guard helicopter crashed into the Bering Sea with 10 people aboard while conducting a rescue on Wednesday after a powerless bulk freighter was grounded on an island in southwestern Alaska. The Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley picked up four of the 10 people. Six were unaccounted for, the Coast Guard said. The Selendang Ayu, a 225m-long freighter loaded with soybeans and 1.7 million liters of fuel, broke in two when it ran aground on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian chain, the Coast Guard said.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
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