■ India
Jail term for sex testers
A doctor and his assistant have been jailed for two years for carrying out a test to determine the sex of an unborn baby, the first such conviction in a country where thousands of female fetuses are aborted each year. A court in the town of Palwal, 135km south of the capital, New Delhi, in the state of Haryana, sentenced Anil Sabhani and his technician, Kartar Singh, on Monday after finding them guilty of conducting a sex determination test in 2001.
■ Singapore
Disease shuts care centers
Three childcare centers have shut their doors amid a sharp increase in youngsters catching hand, foot and mouth disease, health officials said yesterday. More than 785 cases of the viral infection were reported last week, compared to 372 during the previous seven days. A Ministry of Health task force tightened the guidelines for closures of preschools, kindergartens and childcare centers to thwart the transmission of the disease. Of the three centers that closed for 10 days, two did so voluntarily. Most of the recent cases have been mild, but three out of four of the 2,180 children infected this year have had the more virulent EV71 strain, the ministry said.
■ Japan
Court rejects labor suit
A court yesterday dismissed a ¥1 billion (US$8.56 million) damage suit filed by Chinese forced laborers on the grounds that their right to receive compensation was voided by the statute of limitation. The 45 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Mitsui Mining Co and Mitsubishi Materials Corp, as well as the Japanese government, for forced labor at mines in Japan's Fukuoka Prefecture during World War II.
■ Australia
Blind drunk tourist busted
It's a giant red rock jutting out of an Outback plain, but one tipsy Australian tourist couldn't spot Uluru (Ayers Rock) despite parking only 100m away with his headlights pointing at the landmark, police said yesterday. A 44-year-old man state flagged down a car late on Tuesday night thinking it was carrying park rangers and asked directions to Ayers Rock. Unfortunately for the hapless tourist, the car was carrying police. "The police officer breathalyzed the driver after pointing out his headlights were shining right at the rock," Northern Territory Police said in a statement. The man was found to be driving with excess alcohol in his blood and without a license. He was ordered to appear in court on May 18.
■ New Zealand
Tsunami homes unfit
About 10,000 houses built by international aid agencies for tsunami victims in Indonesia are unfit for human habitation and may have to be rebuilt, a newspaper reported yesterday. Heru Prasetyo, a director at BRR, the agency in charge of rebuilding Indonesia's Aceh Province and nearby Nias Island revealed the housing problems during a visit this week to New Zealand, Wellington's Dominion Post reported. Indonesian officials told New Zealand aid agencies that some new houses built in Aceh were substandard and had no running water, sewerage or wastewater outlets. Prasetyo said the faulty houses would have to be rebuilt, but he would not name the aid agencies responsible.
■ India
Rape victim threatened
A German student who was raped by the son of a senior policemen said yesterday she fears for her life after being bombarded with mobile phone text messages demanding she withdraw her complaint. "I am constantly receiving SMS messages. I am very scared, he may even kill me," the student told NDTV news channel. The 26-year-old research scholar from Berlin says the man raped her on March 20 at a hotel in Alwar, Rajasthan, where the two had travelled together. According to the victim's lawyer, a German friend of the woman claimed that the father of the accused has said that his son is ready to marry the woman he raped. The lawyer said a crucial witness has already withdrawn from the case after being "intimidated" by relatives of the accused.
■ China
Leak resists capping
Workers in Kaixian County, near Chongqing, were trying to seal a leaking natural gas well yesterday as the country's top industrial safety official arrived at the site to oversee operations, the Xinhua news agency reported. More than 11,500 villagers have already been evacuated from their homes after the leak was discovered last week. A government official from Kaixian who refused to give his name said six schools have temporarily closed because of the leak. Workers tried on Monday and Tuesday to shut down the well, but they were forced to stop efforts as gas pressure built up near the mouth of the well, Xinhua said.
■ Australia
Cyclone heads for northwest
Mining towns on the northwest coast were bracing yesterday for Category 5 Cyclone Glenda to bring raging seas and winds. Glenda could make landfall this morning between Port Hedland and Dampier. Forecasters said even if Glenda didn't make landfall its winds could be destructive.
■ United States
British family killer indicted
A British man accused of fatally shooting his American wife and infant daughter in Massachusetts and then fleeing to England was indicted on Tuesday on first degree murder charges by a grand jury. Prosecutors charged that Neil Entwistle shot his wife in the head before turning the .22 caliber gun on his nine-month-old daughter as the two lay together in bed on Jan. 20. Entwistle has been held without bail in jail since pleading not guilty during a Feb. 16 arraignment. The double murder in a colonial home in the quiet, affluent Boston suburb of Hopkinton drew intense media coverage.
■ United states
Rescue couple arrested
A couple sought on drug charges after their rescue from the mountains of Oregon were arrested in Washington state, authorities said. Elbert and Becky Higginbotham were stopped on Tuesday near the coastal city of Long Beach, a Pacific County dispatcher said. The Higginbothams were in the same motor home where they spent 17 snowbound days this month. Their March 21 rescue attracted national attention. But the joy quickly turned sour when Arizona authorities recognized the Higginbothams as a couple who had been caught with methamphetamine and a shotgun, reneged on a promise to cooperate with investigators and disappeared.
■ United states
Honest man hands in riches
John Suhrhoff found a Louis Vuitton bag on a Sausalito park bench. Inside, police say, were a diamond ring, jewelry, a Cartier watch, and roughly US$500 in cash. The contents were worth US$1 million. But Suhrhoff did not think of heading to a pawn shop -- he took the bag to police. The bag is now en route to a Toronto family who had been in northern California for a wedding. The Canadian family told the Marin Independent Journal they were sightseeing on Sunday in Sausalito when they realized the bag was missing. The family went to police and did not have any luck -- and were told chances were slim the bag would be returned.
■ GAZA strip
Hamas Cabinet approved
A Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament approved the Islamic militant group's Cabinet and program on Tuesday, clearing the way for it to take control of the government two months after its shock election victory. Chanting "God is Great" after the 71-to-36 vote, Hamas lawmakers hugged a teary-eyed Ismail Haniyeh, the incoming Palestinian prime minister, who vowed not to abandon the fight against Israel. "The Koran is our constitution, jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is our highest aspiration," lawmaker Hamed Bitawi said.
■ United Kingdom
Valuable paper retained
Britain's leading academic body paid £1 million (US$1.75 million) for a 17th-century document written by noted scientist Robert Hooke just before it was to be auctioned on Tuesday, winning a campaign to keep it in the country. "This is great news for science and great news for Britain," said Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society. "Robert Hooke was a colossal figure in the founding of modern science." The manuscript, a fellow and curator of experiments at the Royal Society, shows its thinking from 1661 to 1682 on some of the developments of the day, including the microscope and the first sightings of micro-organisms.
■ South Africa
Dominatrix not welcome
A dominatrix has given up her battle to live in a vicarage, telling the church's congregation they can "shove" the disputed residence, a local newspaper reported yesterday. The Pretoria News said Marianne Ellis had been renting the manse, or vicarage, at the Doornkloof Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk near Pretoria for some time when church elders discovered her sideline as a local dominatrix and asked her to move. Ellis and her husband at first sought to fight the church in court, but on Tuesday decided to back down, the newspaper said.
■ South Africa
Fire kills 12
A fire swept through a downtown building early yesterday, killing 12 people and injuring 33 others trapped inside by locked security gates and belongings piled in the passageways. Johannesburg Fire Department spokesman Malcom Midgely said the dead, who appeared to be illegal immigrants from Malawi, suffocated because they could not get out of the building. Hospital officials said nine people were in critical condition and 19 others were seriously hurt. Midgely told the South African Press Association that it was not clear how many people were living in the building when the fire broke out, but he estimated there were 150 beds inside.
■ United States
Teen threatens president
A 13-year-old boy from Florence, Kentucky, was charged with threatening President George W. Bush -- who is scheduled to travel to nearby Cincinnati next week -- in two e-mails sent to the mayor, police said. Investigators did not find anything in a search of the boy's home to make them think he was planning to carry out the alleged threats, police Captain Linny Cloyd said. The teen was in the custody of his mother at their home on Tuesday. He faces one felony count of making a terroristic threat and is to appear in Boone County Family Court within two weeks. The investigation began after Mayor Diane Whalen received an anonymous e-mail threatening Bush, Cloyd said. A second e-mail was also sent to Whalen, he said.
■ United Kingdom
Hostages shown movie
A British peace campaigner held hostage in Iraq for four months said his captors had shown him a film of the life of Jesus in Arabic during his captivity. Norman Kember was rescued by special forces last week from a house west of Baghdad along with two Canadian colleagues from Christian Peacemaker Teams, an international peace group. Another colleague also held hostage, American Tom Fox, was found shot dead two weeks earlier. In an interview with Britain's Baptist Times published yesterday, Kember said his time in captivity meant four months of his life had been "stolen" from him.
■ United states
Caspar Weinberger dies
Caspar Weinberger, who oversaw the Pentagon's biggest peacetime spending increase as former president Ronald Reagan's defense secretary and later was indicted for his role in the Iran-Contra affair, died on Tuesday. He was 88. Weinberger had been hospitalized in Bangor, Maine, with a high fever and pneumonia brought on by his age, according to his son, Caspar Weinberger Jr. President George W. Bush called him "an American statesman and a dedicated public servant" who strengthened the military and helped end the Cold War.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
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