■ Indonesia
Official caught buying drug
A top Indonesian religious affairs official was arrested for alleged possession of crystal methamphetamine, police said yesterday. Burhanuddin Mamasta, head of the religious affairs bureau at the ministerial-level state secretariat, was nabbed on Monday for allegedly buying the drug at a Jakarta nightspot, a city police spokesman said. Mamasta was travelling in a car with his 26-year-old date and a male friend when he slammed the vehicle into a police patrol car after trying to elude anti-narcotics policemen, the spokesman said.
■ China
Schooling receives boost
China will spend 218 billion yuan (US$27 billion) on rural education over the next five years, part of a drive to improve schooling in the countryside and narrow the gap with booming coast areas. The fund would be jointly provided by central and local governments, after the decision by China's State Council, a report said. Currently, rural schools owe their teachers more than 10 billion yuan in back pay, and failure to pay teachers salaries has resulted in a severe shortage of qualified teachers in the countryside.
■ South Korea
Indicted by phone
Prosecutors will start telling people they have been indicted via text messages, an official said on Monday. In a country where about 75 percent of the population carries mobile phones, prosecutors felt it was time to move away from sending legal notices on paper and send them electronically instead, said Lee Young-pyo, an administrative official. The indictments by text messages are not intended to take people by surprise. "People will receive a text message of a legal notice only after they apply for the service," he said.
■ Italy
Man sues train company
A commuter who says that repeated delays on the Italian rail network are making his life a misery is planning to sue the train company for allegedly causing him "existential damage." Mauro Brunetti, a teacher who travels by rail every day to his job in a school in Savona, says he is so exasperated by the constant uncertainty of whether his train will arrive on time that he sometimes wonders if his life has any value or meaning. The failings of local train services have been making his life impossible and affecting his sense of self, he said. While researching recent court cases, he found references to people sustaining "existential damage" as a result of the behavior of another person or legal entity and he decided he could apply the same arguments to Trenitalia, the national rail group.
■ Germany
Thief busted at police party
Police in Berlin made their easiest arrest of the year at their annual Christmas party, after spotting a man rummaging through the pockets of their coats in the cloakroom. Officers of the Federal Police criminal investigations unit said the unlucky pickpocket had not known that the revelers in a Berlin brewery were law enforcers. "He was definitely surprised," said a police spokesman in Berlin. "He did not realize who he was dealing with." Confronted with 35 officers, the 45-year-old Albanian, who police said held a forged passport and was wanted for other offences, offered no resistance.
■ United Kingdom
Ambassador goofs again
The US embassy in London was forced to issue a correction on Monday to an interview given by the ambassador, Robert Tuttle, in which he claimed the US would not fly suspected terrorists to Syria, which has one of the worst torture records in the Middle East. A statement acknowledged media reports of a suspect taken from the US to Syria. Torture is banned in the US but the CIA has been engaged in a policy of rendition, flying terrorist suspects to countries in the Middle East and other parts of the world where torture is commonplace.
■ France
Village inherits fortune
Inhabitants of a small village in northwest France were on Monday debating how to spend a fortune left to it by one of its sons who made his money on the other side of the world. Jean Kerfers died earlier this year at Noumea in the Pacific Ocean archipelago of New Caledonia. He had left the village after World War II to work in Australia. He was 80 and childless and his remains were buried in Noumea. He bequeathed to his native village of Mael-Crahaix, population 1,580, in the middle of Brittany a legacy of 1.4 million euros (US$1.65 million).
■ France
Army faces genocide probe
The French army has been put under official investigation on charges of having taken part in the Rwandan genocide. Despite official attempts to block the move, a military court is to look into claims that soldiers serving as part of Operation Turquoise in Rwanda not only failed to stop the killing but participated in the slaughter of about 800,000 people. Six Rwandans who survived the 1994 genocide have brought the claim of "complicity to genocide and/or crimes against humanity" against French forces. The military court dismissed four of them but is focusing on the cases of two Rwandans.
■ United States
Surfer's punch deters shark
A surfer saved his leg -- and possibly his life -- when he punched a great white shark that had latched onto him in the nose, ABC news reported on Monday. Brian Anderson, 31, was surfing on Saturday off the coast of the northwestern state of Oregon when he felt something grab his leg. Anderson turned around and punched the shark in the nose. "I acted on instinct," Anderson told ABC news. The shark let go, and despite losing blood Anderson made it back to shore, where he tied his wound as he waited for an ambulance. "I wanted to get to shore as soon as I could. The thought crossed my mind that I might not make it back in," he told ABC. Anderson, who is in the hospital and is expected to fully recover, said he learned about sharks from television shows. "I'll go back out, eventually," he said, adding: "It probably will be awhile."
■ United States
Thieves take man for a ride
Two women suspected of shoplifting at a Kmart store had their getaway foiled by a man who clung to their car's windshield wipers as they sped away. Michael Cornwell, 30, his fiancee and his mother were going into a Kmart about 10:30pm on Friday when two women ran from the store chased by employees. Cornwell stepped in front of their car and told the women to stop. After he ignored the driver's demand to move, the driver bumped Cornwell twice with the car before he jumped on the hood and she accelerated, according to police. "I was just hanging on for dear life," Cornwall said. He said he hung on for about 1.6km -- at what he estimated to be 113kph-129 kph -- before the driver pulled into a mobile home park and the women fled. The suspects were arrested and charged with aggravated robbery, felonious assault and theft.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on Friday failed to attend in person an initial hearing at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as he faces crimes against humanity charges over his deadly crackdown on narcotics. The 79-year-old, the first ex-Asian head of state charged by the ICC, followed by video during a short hearing to inform him of the crimes he is alleged to have committed, as well as his rights as a defendant. Sounding frail and wearing a blue suit and tie, he spoke briefly to confirm his name and date of birth. Presiding Judge Iulia Motoc allowed him to
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