■ 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.
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
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
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
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