■ China
Toxic waste floods homes
A local government in northern China drained a pool of industrial waste during a storm to prevent it from overflowing into the Yellow River, flooding nearby homes and farmland with seriously polluted water, state media reported yesterday. Fifty-seven households and 66 hectares were affected by the flooding in Bayannur League in Inner Mongolia, the China Daily said. The toxic waste mainly came from two local paper mills, it said. China's top environmental watchdog has ruled the local government is partly responsible for the April 10 incident because it broke environmental rules the China Daily said.
■ Singapore
Lemon fiend jailed
A bogus exorcist who molested a Singapore woman with a lemon has been sentenced to nine months in jail and three strokes of the cane, court documents obtained yesterday said. Singarahalli Chinnaswamy Manjaiah approached a 33-year-old housewife outside a shopping center on March 2, a statement of facts filed by the prosecution said. Manjaiah, 30, convinced her that he was a fortune teller and that she was possessed by a kutty-satan, or little demon. He told her she would die soon or become a prostitute if the kutty-satan was not removed by his prayer ritual at a cost of S$263 (US$166), the statement said. Believing she was possessed, the woman met Manjaiah two days later and he took her to a quiet spot at a public housing complex to perform the ritual, it said. Insisting that to cure her he must rub a lemon all over her body, "the accused inserted his right hand into the complainant's sari and rubbed the lemon on the complainant's breasts, stomach, navel and vagina," the prosecution stated.
■ Australia
Report on crime shocks
The federal government called yesterday for tougher policing of remote Aboriginal communities after a leaked report revealed a shocking culture of violence and abuse. The report, compiled for police in the Northern Territory over 15 years by an official at the province's Crown Prosecutor's office, was leaked to the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC). Crown prosecutor for central Australia. Crown prosecutor for central Australia Nannette Rogers told the ABC's Lateline news program her report cataloged crimes including the 2003 rape of a seven-month-old baby as well as the sexual assault and drowning of a girl by an 18-year-old man.
■ Thailand
Bomb explosion kills two
A bomb planted by suspected Muslim insurgents exploded in Narathiwat Province yesterday, killing an army officer and a villager and wounding three others, police said. The homemade roadside bomb exploded as an army van on patrol traveled past, said police Lieutenant Colonel Mustopa Mani of Cho Airong district. It killed the officer and a civilian who was driving past on a motorcycle, and wounded three other soldiers who were in the van, he said.
■ Nepal
Legless man climbs Everest
A New Zealand mountain climber who lost both his legs to frostbite has become the first double amputee to conquer Mount Everest, despite breaking one of his artificial limbs during the ascent. Mark Inglis, 47, called his wife, Anne, on Monday night to tell her he was standing on the summit of the 8,850m peak, the world's highest mountain, the New Zealand Herald reported. Media reports said one of Inglis's carbon-fibre legs snapped while climbing at around 6,400m and he was forced to repair it with spare parts. Separately, a South Korean, who also has a New Zealand passport, climbed the mountain from one side and descended from another, the third such climb in history, authorities in Nepal said.
■ South Korea
Abductees' parents meet
The father of a Japanese girl and the mother of a South Korean boy abducted by North Korea and believed to have married there came together yesterday for the first time, consoling each other in a sometimes tearful meeting. Shigeru Yokota, whose daughter Megumi was abducted by North Korean intelligence agents in 1977, and Choi Gye-wol, the mother of Kim Young-nam, believed forcibly taken to the North in 1978, held the emotional meeting amid flashing cameras in Seoul. The two shook hands and Choi, 78, bowed repeatedly. They then sat down and began to talk, with the somewhat frail Choi using a handkerchief to wipe away tears.
■ Philippines
Journalist killed in shootout
An armed journalist working for a Manila newspaper was killed yesterday after a street shootout with unidentified attackers, police said. Two gunmen in a van opened fire on Albert Orsolino, a photographer for the tabloid daily Saksi Ngayon, as he drove his car in Manila, a local press association said. Orsolino fired back before succumbing to five gunshot wounds, the statement also said. Police confirmed the attack but would not provide details. It was unclear if the shooting was related to the victim's work. "If it is proven that the killing of Orsolino is related to his work as a journalist, the attack was also an attack on press freedom," the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said in a statement.
■ Italy
Prodi ready to form Cabinet
Center-left leader Romano Prodi declared himself ready to form a Cabinet as early as yesterday evening, as Italy's new president scheduled a packed round of consultations aimed at quickly ending the nation's political limbo since parliamentary elections last month. It has been five weeks since Prodi, the center-left leader, scored a narrow victory over Silvio Berlusconi and the media mogul's conservative allies in the nationwide vote. The consultations by President Giorgio Napolitano, a former Communist who was sworn in on Monday, are aimed at sounding out a variety of political voices before giving the new premier the mandate.
■ Ireland
Strip poker record eyed
Ireland will play host to the world's biggest ever strip poker contest if bookmaker Paddy Power gets its way. The idea was originally floated as an April Fool's joke but generated so much interest that Dublin-based Paddy Power has decided to look seriously at organizing a contest it hopes will find a place in the Guinness Book of Records. "We got almost 100 requests to take part," the company's spokesman, also called Paddy Power, said. "We're trying to investigate whether it's possible or whether we'll get put in prison for it."
■ Germany
Workers need soccer time
Employers in the World Cup host nation should grant their workforces the flexibility to down tools and watch soccer matches during their shifts, the head of a major workers' union was quoted as saying. With kick-off times for World Cup matches beginning as early as 3pm local time, the chief of one of the most powerful unions argued that workers should be given the chance to see at least part of the games. "Employers should be flexible about working hours in order that their workforces can follow the matches," Frank Bsirske, head of the public services union Verdi, told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper in an article on its Web site. Adidas has agreed to allow its employees to watch the matches at their desks, the paper said.
■ Ireland
Web users world's loneliest
The republic may be enjoying stellar economic growth and seen as one of the best places in the world to live, but its inhabitants are apparently also the globe's loneliest. Google Trends, which works out how many searches have been done via the Internet search engine on particular terms, showed the word "lonely" was entered most frequently by Internet users in the country. The Irish, enjoying new-found wealth and a flood of immigration following more than a century of economic decline, are followed in the misery stakes by residents of Singapore and New Zealand.
■ Netherlands
Bears make meal of monkey
Bears killed and ate a monkey in a Dutch zoo in front of horrified visitors, witnesses and the zoo said on Monday. In the incident on Sunday at the Beekse Bergen Safari Park, several Sloth bears chased the Barbary macaque into an electric fence, where it was stunned. It recovered and fled onto a wooden structure, where one bear pursued and mauled it to death. The park confirmed the killing in a statement, saying: "In an area where Sloth bears, great apes and Barbary macaques have coexisted peacefully for a long time, the harmony was temporarily disturbed during opening hours on Sunday."
■ United States
Spacecraft, satellite collide
A robotic NASA spacecraft designed to rendezvous with an orbiting satellite instead crashed into it, according to an investigation released on Monday. Investigators blamed the collision on faulty navigational data that caused the Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) spacecraft to believe that it was backing away from its target when it was actually bearing down on it. "The inaccurate perception of its distance and speed ... prevented DART from taking effective action to avoid a collision," the summary said. The 360kg DART spacecraft was supposed to rendezvous with a defunct Pentagon satellite last year. DART successfully located the target satellite orbiting 759km above Earth and moved within 90m of it. But problems arose when DART tried to circle the satellite.
■ United States
Teens popping more pills
Teen smoking and drinking continued to drop, but teenage abuse of prescription drugs has become "an entrenched behavior" in the US that many parents fail to recognize, a survey released yesterday showed. For a third straight year, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America study showed that about one in five teens have tried prescription drug painkillers such as Vicodin or OxyContin to get high -- about 4.5 million teens. "It's really a case now of accepting the fact that it's here," Partnership president and CEO Steve Pasierb said. "Clearly, this is a true problem in US society."
■ Bolivia
Nationalization continues
The government pushed ahead with its moves to re-nationalize its energy industry, ordering foreign financial companies to surrender control over shares they administer for a public pension fund. The government on Monday gave Spanish Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, or BBVA, and Futuro SA of Swiss Zurich Financial Services three days to hand over the assets they administer for a fund used to pay pensions. Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said attempts to negotiate with the financial institutions had been unsuccessful and the government was forced to issue a decree. "Nobody is going to stop the program," Garcia Linera said after signing the decree.
■ United states
Thief spoils Mother's Day
Paris Hilton's mother can only imagine what her celebrity daughter got her for Mother's Day. That's because thieves stole the gifts before Kathy Hilton received them. A gift bag containing nearly US$10,000 worth of Christian Dior shoes, sunglasses, handbags and perfume was taken from outside the Hilton home, spokesman Elliot Mintz said on Monday. A delivery person set the package down outside the home's gate to ring the intercom when a passenger in a passing car snatched the gifts. "A fellow just whizzed by and grabbed the package," Mintz said.
■ Iraq
Saddam trial hears testimony
The trial of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein over the killing of Shiites in the 1980s began hearing the testimony of defense witnesses yesterday, marking a new stage in the long-running process. Saddam was not in court for the hearing, the day after he defiantly refused to plead to detailed charges against him. The session opened yesterday with just three former Baathist officials in court who are accused of assisting Saddam's regime in finding the names of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail who were executed in the mid-1980s.
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
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
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
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