■ Laos
Monks exorcise high school
A high school in the central province of Bolikhamsay reported that on April 25 a girl began shaking uncontrollably in her classroom. On seeing her, 21 others began to exhibit similar symptoms, while the next day 14 more girls were similarly affected as they were walking into the school, according to the Vientiane Times. An ambulance was called and several girls were taken to the provincial hospital, where authorities could not establish the cause of the fits. The school was closed for the rest of the week, and monks were brought in to bless it "to get rid of evil spirits, as local residents believed that spirits were the cause of the strange phenomenon," the newspaper said.
■ Japan
Kids' population falling
The number of children in the country has fallen for 25 years in a row, bringing their ratio to the total population to a record low, according to a government survey. Children aged 14 or younger numbered 17,470,000 as of April 1, down by 180,000 from a year earlier and an annual drop for the 25th consecutive year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said in the survey released on Thursday. The ratio of children edged down by 0.1 percentage point to 13.7 percent, a record low and drop for the 32nd straight year, the ministry said.
■ Japan
Finder gets to keep cash
A Japanese waste disposal company that found almost US$275,000 in a consignment of industrial waste can keep the money, police said yesterday after six months of investigations failed to find the owner. "The finder gets the money half a year later if it is unknown who lost it. This general rule applies to this case," said an official at Tokorozawa Police Station, north of Tokyo. A company employee found the bundles of yen notes when he was separating rubbish in October. Local media said six people had come forward to claim the money, but none of them could prove it was theirs.
■ Sri Lanka
Meat display banned
The government announced a ban on the open display of meat in markets to coincide with the 2,550th anniversary of Buddha's death. "We have decided to stop the selling of animal flesh in stalls openly displaying it to the public,'' government spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said on Thursday. Buddhism, which teaches that animals should not be killed, is followed by many of the nation's majority ethnic Sinhalese. Yapa said markets would still be able to sell meat, and the ban on its display would mainly affect shops in urban areas and along the country's main roads.
■ United Kingdom
Man arrested for murder
A 21-year-old man was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of murdering teenager Terry Edmonds, whose body was discovered last week in a suitcase in a supermarket car park in the prosperous town of Royal Tunbridge Wells. Kent police said the local man was being questioned by detectives over the death of 17-year-old Edmonds who was strangled. Police say they believe she was also sexually assaulted. A police spokeswoman said the man was the third person to be arrested over Edmonds' murder. Two people have already been released without charge.
■ United Kingdom
Elderly woman expecting
A 63-year-old hospital consultant who is to become one of the world's oldest mothers after undergoing fertility treatment abroad told reporters on Thursday she was delighted with her pregnancy. Patricia Rashbrook, a child psychologist from Lewes, East Sussex in southeast England, and her 61-year-old husband John Farrant posed briefly for photographers and camera crews outside their home. "We take our responsibilities very seriously and regard the best interest of the child as paramount. What we would wish now is to be allowed the right to pursue our family life in private," the couple said in a statement.
■ United Kingdom
Poop snatcher jailed
A would-be mugger fell foul of the law after he told a woman to hand over her bags in the west of England, only to discover they contained fresh dog excrement. Drug addict David Carlisle, 32, held a knife to Marion Budd's stomach as she walked her dog in Bristol, and demanded she hand over her bags and cash. When Budd, 52, told him the bags had just been used to scoop up her pet's poop, he fled empty-handed. Carlisle appeared at Bristol Crown Court earlier this week and was sentenced to four years in prison for the attempted robbery which happened last July. The sentence will form part of the seven-year jail term he is currently serving for carrying out a string of burglaries.
■ Greece
Old gods to be unbanned
It has taken almost 2,000 years, but those who worship the 12 gods of ancient Greece have finally triumphed. An Athens court has ordered that the adulation of Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Athena and others is to be unbanned, paving the way for a comeback of pagans on Mount Olympus. "What we want, now, is for the government to fully recognize our religion," Vasillis Tsantilas said. "We will petition the Greek parliament, and the EU if that fails, for access to worship in places like the Acropolis, for permission to have our own cemeteries," he said. About 98 percent of Greeks are Orthodox Christian, and all other religions except Judaism and Islam had been banned.
■ Hungary
Builders in real rum do
Builders who drank their way to the bottom of a huge barrel of rum while renovating a house got a nasty surprise when a pickled corpse tumbled out of the empty barrel, a police magazine Web site reported. According to online magazine www.zsaru.hu, workers in Szeged in the south of the country tried to move the barrel after they had drained it, only to find it was surprisingly heavy and were shocked when the body of a naked man fell out. The body of the man had been shipped back from Jamaica 20 years ago by his wife.
■ United States
"`Flea' hopping mad
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have lashed out at a music pirate who leaked the band's upcoming album onto the Internet, and urged fans not to download it illegally. In an open letter, the band's bass player, Michael "Flea" Balzary, said he and his colleagues would be heartbroken if fans downloaded the album before its release. "For people to just steal a poor sound quality version of it for free because some asshole stole it and put it on the internet is sad to me," he said.
■ Canada
Cruel mom to be deported
A Japanese woman who left her two young children to starve to death in an empty apartment in Calgary while she visited a boyfriend in a nearby town will be deported on her release from prison, officials said on Thursday. Rie Fujii, 28, will be freed on Monday after serving most of an eight-year sentence for two counts of manslaughter, according to National Parole Board documents. Fujii left her one-year-old boy and three-month-old baby girl at home with no food, water or supervision for what she said was supposed to be one night. But, she missed a bus the next day and became stranded. More than a week later, she returned to the apartment to find both children dead of dehydration and starvation.
■ United States
Sex crime legislation passed
The Senate on Thursday passed sweeping legislation to set mandatory minimum sentences for people convicted of sex crimes against children and set up a public database linking US state lists of sex offenders. The House passed a similar measure in March as part of a broader crime bill. The bills, which differ on matters ranging from courthouse security, hate crimes and registration of juvenile sex offenders, must be reconciled by negotiators from each chamber before the legislation is sent to the White House for President George W. Bush's signature.
■ Guatemala
Suspected robbers lynched
Villagers killed three suspected bus robbers, attacking them with machetes and sticks and setting them on fire, police said on Thursday. The mob from the hamlet of Ojer chased three men into the mountains with local police after a bus was attacked on a nearby highway late on Wednesday, local authorities said. Police left after failing to find the suspects but around 800 people kept searching. They caught three men and dragged them to the police station in Santa Apolonia, about two hours from Guatemala City. "Police tried to negotiate with the mob to take the men into protective custody and bring them to court, but [they] refused," a police spokesman said.
■ United States
Kennedy crashes car
Representative Patrick Kennedy crashed his car near the Capitol, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, the son of Senator Edward Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, said in an initial statement: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident." Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis. "Some time around 2:45am, I drove the few blocks to the Capitol Complex believing I needed to vote,'' his second statement said. ``Apparently, I was disoriented from the medication."
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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