■ Pakistan
Army rescues climber
Pakistan army helicopters yesterday plucked a Slovene climber from a Himalayan mountain where he had been trapped for three days. Mountaineer Tomaz Humar, 36, was "perfectly all right" after the ordeal, the army official said. Humar was reported to have been trapped in an icy shaft about 6,000m above sea level while climbing the Nanga Parbat mountain. He was reported to have been low on supplies and battling hypothermia. Around dawn yesterday, two Lama helicopters rescued Humar and moved him to Gilgit, a main town in the rugged Himalayan region, about 250km northeast of the capital Islamabad, an army statement said. Two other attempts to rescue Humar failed because of bad weather in the area, the army said.
■ South Korea
Computer gaming kills man
A 28-year-old South Korean man died of exhaustion in an Internet cafe after playing computer games non-stop for 49 hours, South Korean police said yesterday. Lee, a resident in the southern city of Taegu who was identified only by his last name, collapsed Friday after having eaten minimally and not sleeping, refusing to leave his keyboard while he played the battle simulation game Starcraft. Lee was quickly moved to a hospital but died after a few hours, due to what doctors are presuming was a heart attack, police said. Lee had been fired from his job last month because he kept missing work to play computer games, police said. Computer games are enormously popular in South Korea, home to professional gamers who earn big money through sponsorships and television stations devoted to broadcasting matches.
■ China
Graft buster busted
A Chinese official who said he had to wear a bulletproof vest for six years and hire bodyguards after receiving death threats during his fight against corruption has been charged with ... corruption. Huang Jingao, who in a letter to the Communist Party's mouthpiece newspaper a year ago styled himself as a graft-busting pit bull terrier, had been accused of taking bribes of nearly US$1 million in cash, gems, jewelry, a gold brick and a laptop computer, Xinhua news agency reported. The one-time party chief of Lianjiang County in southeastern Fujian Province also kept four mistresses and was fond of prostitutes, state media have said. Last August, when Huang posted his letter on the Web site of the People's Daily, he became a instant popular hero. But the party's provincial propaganda czars pulled the letter of the Web site and denounced him for fanning "social instability." Xinhua did not say when Huang would appear in court.
■ Australia
Plastic used to make steel
Australian scientists have developed a technique to use waste plastic in steel making, a process that could have implications for recycling scrap metal that accounts for 40 percent of steel production. Professor Veena Sahajwalla of the University of New South Wales has won a prestigious Australian science award for what she calls "the hottest research in town," which she hopes will turn an environmental headache into a valuable resource. Under the process, waste plastics are fed into electric steel-making furnaces as an alternative source of carbon and heated to 1,600?C. Sahajwalla said many waste plastics, from shopping bags to dishwashing-liquid containers and drink bottles, contain high enough levels of carbon to be useful in steelmaking. Carbon is used to add strength to steel.
■ United Kingdom
Murder by airgun
A 27-year-old man was found guilty on Tuesday of murdering a toddler in Glasgow with an airgun. Two-year-old Andrew Morton died in March last year after being hit in the head with an airgun pellet as he watched a fire engine near his home in the Easterhouse area of the city. Mark Bonini was found guilty of the murder at Glasgow's High Court on Tuesday. He had admitted firing the shot which killed the toddler but denied murder. Morton's mother Sharon McMillan looked relieved as she left court on Tuesday. "It doesn't really matter because it's not going to bring Andrew back," she told reporters.
■ United States
Skinny-dipper shows off
Weenie-waving by a nude swimmer has become an unwanted side dish at a waterside restaurant across the bay from San Francisco, the manager lamented humorously on Tuesday. "Most of the diners think it is quite comical," said Jeff Scharosch, manager of The Spinnaker restaurant in the town of Sausalito. "First, they can't believe anyone is actually swimming in the bay, which is cold and not the cleanest," he said. "Then, when they find out he is not wearing anything, it becomes more of a scene. No one really knew he wasn't wearing a bathing suit until he started doing back flips and sticking it up out of the water," Scharosch said, noting it was difficult to determine whether the swimmer's "periscope was up."
■ Sweden
Dog can sniff out sperm
Police in Sweden say they have trained a dog to sniff out sperm left behind after a rape, which would help secure DNA evidence against perpetrators. The dog, a 4-year-old female Belgian Milois named Xena, has been practicing during the past few months and is now ready to use her unique skills at real crime scenes, said Lena Thor, a spokeswoman for the canine unit in Goteborg in southwestern Sweden. "It is the first dog in the country, and probably in the entire world" to learn to sniff out sperm, Thor said. Sperm can often be hard to find at outdoor rape scenes, but Thor said Xena may help locate clues that would otherwise vanish.
■ Israel
US extremist deported
Israel's attorney-general has ordered an Israeli-American deported to the US because of security forces' fears that he could carry out acts meant to derail Israel's planned evacuation of 25 Jewish settlements, the Haaretz daily reported yesterday. The American, Saadia Hirschkop, 18, from Crown Heights, N.Y., agreed to be deported for 40 days instead of serving jail time, the daily said. Hirschkop and two other extremists were arrested earlier this week at the funeral of an Israeli who had shot and killed four Israeli Arabs in an apparent effort to stop the pullout.
■ United States
Radio `smackfests' fined
New York radio station WQHT has agreed to pay US$240,000 to New York State authorities after it sponsored "smackfest" contests in which young women took turns slapping each other for a chance to win concert tickets and cash. In a statement, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and State Athletic Commission Chairman Ron Scott Stevens said that the station had also agreed to donate US$60,000 to a nonprofit group that promotes awareness of domestic violence.
■ United States
Mrs. `Superman' has cancer
Dana Reeve, the widow of Superman actor Christopher Reeve, has been diagnosed with lung cancer, she announced on Tuesday. Reeve, 44, who spent nine years caring for her husband after he was paralyzed in a riding accident, said she had decided to disclose her illness because a tabloid newspaper was about to print the story. "I have recently been diagnosed with lung cancer, and am undergoing treatment," she said in a statement. "I have an excellent team of physicians, and we are optimistic about my prognosis." She has taken over her husband's role as campaigner for stem-cell research, and has assumed chairmanship of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
■ United States
Shuttle scares locals
Dozens of frightened Californians called police to report a shooting early on Tuesday, but the loud noise that woke them up was the sonic boom of the Discovery shuttle returning to Earth, police said. Shortly after 5am, two sheriff's offices in Antelope Valley, north of Los Angeles, fielded several calls from people reporting loud detonations. "They heard a loud boom," said Dan Moore, an employee at the Lancaster city sheriff's department, which received some 20 calls. "They were pretty scared." NASA decided to move the landing to California due to bad weather over the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
■ United States
Ex-nurse helps convict
A former prison nurse opened fire on guards escorting her shackled husband from a Tennessee courthouse on Tuesday, killing one guard and escaping with her husband in a sport utility vehicle, authorities said. Convict George Hyatte, 34, shouted "Shoot 'em" to wife Jennifer Hyatte, 31, and she opened fire with at least six shots from a handgun, scattering dozens of witnesses outside the Roane County courthouse in Kingston, police said. Three bullets struck a guard, who died at a hospital. Jennifer Hyatte was once a nurse under contract to the Tennessee Department of Corrections in Tiptonville, but her contract was terminated when she struck up a relationship with her husband, a spokeswoman said.
■ United States
E-passports on the way
The US will begin issuing electronic passports in December to help tighten border and identity security, the State Department said on Tuesday. A computer chip will be embedded in passport covers and will hold the same information that is written on the inside: name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, dates of passport issuance and expiration, passport number and a photo. The chip will also have a unique digital signature designed to protect the data from tampering.
■ United States
Officer busted over Bush
An air force reserve officer could face criminal charges for allegedly vandalizing cars parked at Denver International Airport bearing bumper stickers supporting US President George W. Bush. Lieutenant Colonel Alexis Fecteau, director of operations for reserve forces at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, is believed to be responsible for defacing at least 10 vehicles, police said on Tuesday. A bait car left by police was also defaced, allowing them to track down Fecteau, who turned himself in on Friday. Fecteau is suspected of blacking out the Bush bumper stickers and then spraypainting an expletive and the president's name on the vehicles.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
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
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
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