■ Afghanistan
Militants killed in ambush
US warplanes killed five suspected militants near the Pakistani border, after guerrillas launched an overnight attack on US and Afghan military positions. The planes were scrambled after insurgents fired 13 rockets at two US bases in the southeastern province of Khost and turned rockets and guns against three border posts late Tuesday, the US military said. "Coalition aircraft killed five insurgents," the statement said, adding that US troops also responded with artillery fire from their bases near Khost city.
■ Japan
Pundit turns pervert
A famous Japanese economist and TV pundit was fined Wednesday for trying to peak underneath a 15-year-old girl's skirt on the escalator of a Tokyo train station. The professor, Kazuhide Uekusa, 44, was caught red-handed as he placed a mirror under the girl's skirt in April last year in a bid to get a look at her underwear. Uekusa, who denied the allegation, was fined ¥500,000 (US$4,750). Uekusa was a well-known professor at Waseda University's graduate school, one of the top schools in Japan, and chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute. The university fired Uekusa after the case emerged.
■ Singapore
Kitten defenestrator jailed
A woman who threw a box containing two kittens from her ninth-floor Singapore flat was jailed for two months, news reports said Tuesday. Victorie Marie-Madeleine Hyde Coupland, 42, told the court she originally planned to care for the abandoned kittens, but their conditions deteriorated, the Straits Times said. One of the cats had already died and the second had fallen into a semiconscious state, she told the court Monday. Coupland put the animals into a box and threw it out of her window on January 23. A neighbor called the police. The woman was not accused of cruelty to animals, but was charged with committing a rash act by tossing the kittens out in the box, which endangered the personal safety of others.
■ New Zealand
Shar-pei in tissue shocker
A New Zealand mother demanded that a local toilet roll manufacturer stop using a cuddly-looking dog to advertise its product after her 4-year-old son was mauled by a dog of the same breed, a newspaper reported yesterday. Racheal Stark of Christchurch said that her boy, Jacob, had surgery Sunday after a friend's shar-pei dog attacked him when he went to pet it. She said she had complained to Purex "because the way I see it, it's almost false advertising," she told the paper. "They were originally Chinese fighting dogs, and they're not the cuddly things you think," she said.
■ Australia
Sheep protest approved
Australian woolgrowers failed Tuesday in a legal bid to stop a high-profile animal rights group organizing a boycott of their products to protest at alleged industry cruelty towards sheep. Australian Wool Innovation had been seeking damages which could have totalled millions of dollars from the US-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) over its campaign for a global boycott of Australian wool until the practice of "mulesing" is stamped out. Woolgrowers acknowedge the procedure, which involves cutting away strips of the sheep's hindquarters, is painful but argue it is necessary to spare sheep a painful death from fly-strike -- an infestation of the flesh by maggots from blowflies.
■ Italy
Gangsters kill ex-mobster
A former Italian mobster who turned his back on crime after his son died of a heroin overdose, has been shot dead in the southern port city of Naples, authorities said on Tuesday. Nunzio Giuliano, 57, was killed by gangsters late on Monday near his prosperous neighborhood of Chiaia, far from the central Forcella sector where his name was synonymous with organized crime. It was one of the most high-profile mob shootings in Naples, where more than 30 people have been killed so far this year in turf wars by the Camorra -- the Naples version of the Sicilian Mafia.
■ United States
Prisoners riot, one killed
A gang-related melee broke out in the gymnasium of a privately run prison, with inmates flailing away with softball bats and other weapons, authorities said. One inmate was killed and 13 others were hurt. About 50 to 60 inmates at the Cimarron Correctional Facility were involved, said Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie. The prison was locked down on Tuesday and state corrections authorities went to the scene. Two gangs were involved in the melee, which was brought under control within 10 minutes, officials said.
■ United Kingdom
Scotsman tops for SMS
A Scottish factory worker has been crowned the world's fastest text-messager after punching out a complicated message in record time. Craig Crosbie, 24, took just 48 seconds to type out the 160-character message: "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human." He beat the previous record holder by 19 seconds, Guinness World Records said on on Tuesday. Crosbie, who has been texting since the age of 16, sends about 75 messages a day.
■ Austria
Crash testers probed
Scientists who used corpses in research to develop better crash-test dummies could face criminal charges of violating the dignity of the dead, a prosecutor said on Tuesday. Horst Sigl, a prosecutor in the southern city of Graz, said authorities were investigating whether researchers at the Technical University of Graz properly obtained consent before using the corpses in the tests. The university used 21 bodies in tests carried out from 1994 to 2003, the university's spokeswoman said. She said the tests were carried out under strict ethical standards, and "never" disturbed the peace of the dead.
■ Spain
`Anti-pope of Seville' dies
A Spanish religious leader who proclaimed himself Pope Gregorius XVII has died at age 59 in Palmar de Troya near the southern city of Seville, where he had lived with followers for several decades, officials said on Tuesday. Ordained by a Vietnamese archbishop, Clemente Dominguez Gomez was never recognized by the Catholic Church. Accusing the church of having become "infiltrated by the Devil," Dominguez proclaimed himself pope in 1978, three years after losing his eyesight in a car accident. In his own "Vatican," the man known as "the anti-pope of Seville" issued a series of "papal documents," canonizing Christopher Columbus and Spain's 1939-75 dictator Francisco Franco. He also excommunicated the royal family, whom he saw as communists. Dominguez and his followers erected a basilica in Palmar de Troya, where he claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary in 1969.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
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