■ Japan
Death sentence upheld
The Tokyo High Court yesterday upheld the death sentence against the Aum Shinrikyo cult's "home minister" who was convicted of several attacks, including the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. Tomomitsu Niimi, 42, was accused of bringing Sarin gas to a subway station for the rush-hour attack that killed 12 people and injured thousands of others. Niimi was also accused of helping to carry out the cult's first Sarin attack in 1994 in Matsumoto that killed seven people. He was also a key conspirator in the murder of an anti-Aum lawyer, his wife and their small child. He was sentenced to hang by the Tokyo District Court in June 2002.
■ Hong Kong
Spurned lover sought
A manhunt was continuing yesterday for a man suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend and her lover in front of the woman's eight-year-old son. The woman, 33-year-old Wu Pui, and boyfriend Kwun Man-kin, 37, were stabbed to death with a butcher's knife after an intruder dressed as a woman tricked his way into their apartment on Monday. The intruder tied up Wu's son and grandmother and lay in wait for the couple to return home for five hours, police say, stabbing them to death with a butcher's knife in front of the boy. After the intruder fled and the boy and grandmother freed themselves and phone for help, police say. The boy has since received counseling for trauma.
■ Australia
British agree to review ban
Britain's TV advertising regulator has agreed to review a ban on an Australian tourism campaign centered on the phrase "bloody hell," officials said yesterday. "It's a bloody good result," Australian Tourism Minister Fran Bailey said after she flew to London to save the campaign. "My faith in British justice and humor has been restored and I am now hopeful that common sense will prevail," she said. Britain's Broadcasting Advertising Clearance Center had banned the ads from TV because of concerns over the campaign's use of the word "bloody" and ordered censored ads run in their place.
■ New Zealand
Women `marrying down'
Women are "marrying down" -- choosing partners who are poorer and not as well educated as themselves -- because of a shortage of men in the 20-49 age group, the Press reported yesterday. Demographer Paul Callister told the newspaper that there had been a 10 percent increase in the number of highly educated women marrying men with fewer qualifications and lower paid jobs in the last 20 years. With a shortage of 33,000 to 53,000 men in the marrying age group, there was a lack of eligible partners of equal educational or economic status, he said. Callister said the trend was likely to continue.
■ Australia
Military may ease policy
The military is considering scrapping its tough anti-drugs policy in order to attract more recruits. Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said he was considering scrapping some rules, saying a person's character and ability should be the main tests for new recruits. Under current rules, a person is automatically rejected as a recruit if they admit to having taken illegal drugs. Nelson said that meant someone who lied about drug use could be accepted, while an honest person would be rejected. Nelson said he had taken responsibility for recruitment as defense forces struggle to meet recruiting targets amid a tight labor market.
■ Spain
Lost property auctioned
The city of Madrid is clearing out decades' worth of lost property in a very modern way -- on eBay. Pocket watches, brooches and Spanish shawls are some of the classier items mislaid between 1924 and 1970 which are being offered over three days on the Internet auction site. So far, a gold and platinum cross studded with diamonds is leading the running, priced at 1,640 euros (US$1,964). Another of the 110 lots, enticingly titled "various pieces and metal watch", languishes at 4.50 euros. Other objects on offer include signet rings, bracelets, a pair of opera glasses and a medal inscribed: "All for the Fatherland."
■ United Kingdom
Sex consent ads launched
The government launched a series of advertisements on Tuesday warning men that they must get consent from their partner for sex, or risk going to jail. The ads, which will be published in several men's magazines, displayed in public toilets and broadcast on the radio, target 18 to 24-year-olds, the Home Office said. One magazine ad shows a man sitting on a bunk bed in a prison cell along with the warning: "If you don't get a `yes,' who'll be your next sleeping partner?" Another shows a woman with an "off limits" symbol on her underwear accompanied by the message: "Have sex with someone who hasn't said yes to it, and the next place you enter could be prison."
■ Lebanon
Relations demanded
Leaders of rival factions agreed on Tuesday to demand that Syria establish diplomatic relations, but continued to spar over the fate of the country's president and the disarmament of the militant Hezbollah group. The 14 faction leaders -- Muslim and Christian, pro- and anti-Syrian -- did agree on disarming Palestinian guerrillas outside Lebanon's refugee camps, and on the Lebanese identity of Chebaa Farms, a sliver of disputed territory on the southern border. The convener of the national conference, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, told reporters at the end of Tuesday's session that the talks had been adjourned to March 22.
■ Italy
Dashing diner banned
A 42-year-old gourmet food junkie has skipped out on her restaurant bill so many times that she has been banned from the city of Rome, police said on Monday. Described as the "mooch artist" by police, the hungry culprit has struck at some of Rome's fanciest restaurants -- ordering expensive wines, three-course meals and then feigning surprise when the check arrives. "She came in here and racked up a 70 euros (US$83.52) lunch bill," griped Giovanni Cappelli at Il Chianti restaurant, which specializes in Tuscan food. "Then she said her wallet was in her other purse." Police identified her only as "D.N.," a resident of the nearby town of Viterbo, and said she had continued to sneak into Rome despite a five-year ban from the city.
■ Belarus
Activists arrested
Authorities arrested nearly two dozen opposition activists and confiscated the entire print run of the largest independent newspaper, as voters cast early ballots for Sunday's presidential vote, which the opposition fears will be rigged in favor of the authoritarian incumbent. After pushing through a widely contested referendum scrapping presidential term limits, Alexander Lukashenko is seeking a third term as president.
■ Sweden
Totem pole goes home
A totem pole from Canada's Pacific coast that was sent to Sweden in the 1920s was returned to a Canadian Aboriginal tribe on Tuesday during an emotional ceremony in Stockholm. "Today the old pole is set free," Louisa Smith, a member of the Haisla First Nation tribe of British Columbia, told guests attending a ceremony at the Museum of Ethnography. The pole was donated to the museum in 1929 by Sweden's then vice consul to British Columbia, Olof Hansson, who had it chopped down. He claimed at the time that he had bought it from the Haisla, but there were no documents to prove the sale and the Swedish government therefore decided to return it. The pole will be loaded on a ship to set sail for Canada on March 24.
■ United States
Pot smokers forget more
People who regularly smoke marijuana may find their memories growing hazy over time, a study published on Monday suggests. In a study of long-term and shorter-term marijuana users, researchers in Greece found that both groups performed more poorly on tests of memory, attention and other cognitive abilities than a comparison group who had only occasionally used the drug. Long-term users showed the greatest deficits. The findings, published in the journal Neurology, add to the conflicting body of research on the effects of marijuana on the brain.
■ South Africa
Man caught with crocodiles
A man appeared in court on Tuesday after being caught with 1,067 baby crocodiles in his car. Paul Gildenhuys of Cape Nature Conservation's environmental crime unit told the South African Press Association that the man faced charges of possession and transport of the crocodiles without the necessary permits. "Everything that flies, walks, swims and crawls has a price on its head. That's a fact of life," Gildenhuys said. Gildenhuys said recent figures from the international police agency, Interpol, showed that trade in flora and fauna was now the second largest illegal trade in the world, after narcotics.
■ Brazil
Extradition requested
Lebanon has asked Brazil to extradite a Lebanese woman suspected of involvement in the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, news reports said on Tuesday. Rana Abdel Rahim Koleil, 39, was arrested Sunday in Sao Paulo on charges of corruption. Police allege she offered a US$200,000 bribe to police officers who came to arrest her. The extradition request will be handled via international police agency Interpol, which had a warrant out for Koleil's arrest, as Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Brazil, Brazilian television station GloboNews reported. Police said Koleil denied all charges in initial questioning.
■ United States
Anti-gay group targets Ford
A conservative Christian group has launched a boycott of Ford Motor Co, saying the automaker had reneged on a pledge to drop its advertising in gay publications and support of gay rights groups. The Tupelo, Mississippi-based American Family Association first threatened a boycott in May, but suspended the move in June after several Ford dealers stepped in to broker a settlement. In December, Ford decided pull advertising for its Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands from gay publications, but then reversed course after coming under fire from gay-rights activists for having conceded to pressure from the AFA.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
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