■ Hong Kong
Ex-guard gets life for killing
A security guard who hacked to death a woman whose complaint had gotten him fired has been jailed for life, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. Fung Pak-cheung, 36, used his old uniform to enter the apartment block where he had worked until the victim, a 30-year-old resident, made her complaint in the fall of 2000. He gained access to her apartment by asking to use the toilet, but once inside attacked her with a 30cm-long watermelon knife, slashing an artery in her leg causing her to bleed to death. Fung said he had not meant to kill the woman, but a jury unanimously found him guilty, the newspaper said.
■ China
Beijing targets rat invasion
Beijing will target a 7.5 billion yuan (US$934 million) fund at repelling an invasion of rats eating their way across fragile wetlands on the Tibetan plateau, the China Daily said yesterday. Over the past decade, rats had chewed through one-third of the grasslands in the Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve in Qinghai Province, exacerbating erosion around the world's highest and largest wetlands, the report said. The funds to would be spent on developing "better poisons or methods which can kill the rodents, but not harm other animals and the environment," the daily said.
■ Singapore
Sex laws being tightened
Singaporeans who travel to other countries to have sex with minors face prosecution when they return under pending changes to the law, lawmakers heard on Thursday. Senior Minister of State Ho Peng Kee said that the measure and another making it an offence to have paid sex with anyone under 18 will kick in as soon as the a review of the Penal Code is completed.
■ Australia
Fishy heroin found
Customs officers found heroin hidden inside fish fillets in a Sydney man's luggage at Brisbane airport on Wednesday, news reports said on Thursday. Several condoms filled with white powder, later confirmed as heroin, were found sewn into fish fillets in two plastic containers, news agency AAP reported. The 40-year-old man had arrived on a flight from Cambodia when his luggage was selected for examination, a customs spokesman said.
■ Philippines
Mayor shot dead
A city mayor was shot dead yesterday in a provincial capital where al-Qaeda-linked extremists are active and investigators are trying to identify the attacker, who was slain by a bodyguard, police said. Mayor Luis Biel of Isabela City in Basilan Province, 900km southeast of Manila, was sitting in his car preparing to leave city hall when an unidentified man armed with a pistol fired at his chest, provincial police chief Superintendent Abdulwahab Karimuddin said. Biel died at a hospital, while his bodyguards shot and killed the gunman, he said. Five other people were wounded, but it was unclear whether they were hit in the crossfire, Karimuddin said.
■ Philippines
Japan to fund shelters
Japan will donate US$536,000 to build shelters for Filipinos who lost their homes in a killer landslide that struck on Feb. 17, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday. The aid comes on top of previous donations of tents and blankets and the dispatch of several disaster recovering teams. "Those who have lost their houses and properties in the landslide disaster area are now forced to stay in a seriously harmful situation without clear prospects for the future," the foreign ministry said in a release. On Thursday, authorities officially ended the search for bodies in the village of Guinsaugon, Leyte Island.
■ Singapore
Opposition slams court
Opposition politician Chee Soon Juan yesterday defended his claims that the nation's judiciary lacked independence, despite having been charged with contempt of court over the verbal attack. Chee was charged after making the allegations at a Feb. 10 court hearing in which he was declared bankrupt for failing to pay S$500,000 (US$309,000) in damages to former prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong for defaming them in 2001. The secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party, Chee said he hoped his case would draw international attention to the nation's courts."The Singapore judiciary must be the bulwark between the people and an authoritarian government," Chee said. "I hope this will be able to focus attention on the judiciary. This has got to stop for the sake of Singapore."
■ United Kingdom
One more charged in heist
A fourth person has been charged in connection with Britain's largest robbery, police said on Thursday. Jetmir Bucpapa, 24, was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery. He was due to appear in court yesterday morning. Earlier in the day, the first three people charged in the heist, which netted thieves £53 million (US$92 million), appeared at Maidstone Magistrates Court. John Fowler, 57, was charged on Wednesday with conspiracy to rob the Securitas Cash Management warehouse in Tonbridge. He was also charged with kidnapping the cash depot manager, his wife and their son. An additional charge of handling stolen goods was also lodged in court. Stuart Royle, 47, was charged with conspiracy to rob and Kim Shackleton, a 39-year-old woman, was charged with handling stolen goods.
■ Saudi Arabia
Women banned from carts
The longstanding ban on female drivers went an extra mile this week when women were barred from using golf carts to move around a cultural festival, according to local newspapers. Men were permitted to use carts during the first 12 days of the Janadriya Heritage and Cultural Festival when only male visitors are allowed to attend, but the carts were withdrawn during the last three days which are reserved for women. Saudi traditionalists object to women driving. Although there is no specific law to forbid women from driving, they cannot obtain driving licenses.
■ Israel
Golden arches add blue
Under pressure from Tel Aviv's chief rabbi, two McDonald's branches in the city have changed the color of their trademark signs to assure diners that their burgers and fries are kosher. In a first for McDonald's Corp, the golden arches at the two branches have new blue backgrounds, replacing the trademark red ones. The new signs also display the word "kosher," both in Hebrew and English. The changes were made after Tel Aviv's chief Rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, demanded that a distinction be made. "I was worried people would be confused, especially tourists who do not know Hebrew," Lau said.
■ Sweden
Old cow proves mad
Tests have confirmed the first case of mad cow disease in the country, officials said yesterday. Final results from Britain confirmed that the 12-year-old cow had tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known as mad cow disease. The farm near Vasteras, some 100km west of Stockholm, remained cordoned off and a probe was ongoing into how the cow contracted BSE. "We have been the only country in the European Union that did not have BSE, so it is sad," Agriculture Minister Ann-Christin Nykvist told Swedish radio. Nykvist said it was an old cow likely contaminated by fodder before even stricter rules were introduced.
■ United Kingdom
Pigeon disables chopper
A Chinook helicopter, which has seen action in the Falklands War, Afghanistan and Iraq, was taken out of action last month after a head-on smash-up with a pigeon, the Royal Air Force said on Wednesday. The 10-tonne chopper was forced into an emergency landing after suffering a cracked windscreen when the bird slammed into it during a training mission over southeast Scotland. The Chinook is now back in action.
■ United States
What are your rights? `D'oh!'
Most Americans have an easier time naming members of the cartoon Simpsons family than listing the five freedoms granted by the US Constitution, a survey released on Wednesday said. Here's a hint: one of them is not the right to own and raise pets, an error committed by one in five respondents. Half of 1,000 Americans randomly surveyed by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum in Chicago could name at least two of the five members of Fox Television's Simpson family. Just 28 percent could name more than one of the five freedoms listed in the First Amendment -- about the same proportion that could name all five Simpson family members or the three judges on Fox TV's American Idol. Just 8 percent could recall three First Amendment freedoms.
■ United States
Boy sticks gum on painting
Painter Helen Frankenthaler's landmark abstract work The Bay just got a little more abstract -- to the dismay of Detroit museum officials. A 12-year-old boy visiting the Detroit Institute of Arts with his school group on Friday stuck a wad of chewing gum on the painting, which is worth an estimated US$1.5 million, the Detroit Free Press said. The barely chewed Wrigley's Extra Polar Ice gum left a residue stain about the size of a quarter in the lower left-hand corner of the painting, the paper said.
■ United States
Dr. Phil unmasks bigamist
A man charged with bigamy after his girlfriend's sister saw him profiled on a television talk show has pleaded guilty. Charles Edward Hicks, 62, has been married seven times in 40 years. He was charged with bigamy involving his fifth and sixth wives, and he pleaded guilty in Chesapeake, Virginia, on Thursday. He faces up to 10 years in prison. Hicks was profiled on an episode of Dr. Phil last December, when two women who had learned they both were married to Hicks went on the show. A viewer recognized Hicks as her sister's boyfriend and called authorities.
■ Honduras
Ex-president called a looter
President Manuel Zelaya, who took office in January, is accusing his predecessor of looting government coffers and leaving the country near bankruptcy. "The manipulated figures on the state of public finances reflect only half truths and obscure information that we all have a right to know," Honduran media on Wednesday reported Zelaya as saying. The government of past president Ricardo Maduro "left state institutions literally looted and near bankruptcy," he said. Ex-ministers for the former president, however, said Zelaya's attacks "were to justify his inability to fulfill his campaign promises." Seventy-one percent of Honduras' 7 million people live in poverty.
■ Brazil
State pushes green banking
The government could require private banks to veto loans for projects that don't have a government environmental license, Environment Minister Marina Silva said on Thursday. Government banks are obliged to veto such projects, and the government could extend the requirement to the private sector, Silva said at a meeting of the Ethos Institute of Business and Social Responsibility. "That way you are linking financing to compliance with the law, which will guarantee environmental sustainability," she said. Silva said more Brazilian companies today are voluntarily complying with environmental protection laws. Her ministry wants to make sustainable development compatible with environmental laws, she said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
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