■ United Kingdom
Man held for letter bombs
Police have arrested a suspect in a series of letter bombs sent to offices linked to traffic enforcement, authorities said yesterday. The man was arrested in Cambridge, England, following attacks dating back to last month. The bombs exploded in offices in London, Wokingham, which is 65km southwest of London, and in Swansea, Wales. The letter bombs injured eight people over a three-week period which ended about two weeks ago. Six of the seven companies targeted in the bombings provide technology or services to law enforcement agencies. Media speculation about the identity of the bomber has focused on a disgruntled motorist or animal rights extremists.
■ Australia
Stewardess fired for fling
Qantas Airways has fired a stewardess who gave a detailed account to a newspaper of a midair tryst with actor Ralph Fiennes in an airliner toilet cubicle. It had previously suspended Lisa Robertson pending an investigation into reports she had sex with Fiennes during a flight from Darwin to Mumbai, India, on Jan. 24. Qantas said in a statement yesterday that Robertson's employment contract had been terminated, but didn't give a reason. The statement came a day after Robertson's account of a fling with Fiennes on board the flight and later at a hotel in Mumbai was published in a British newspaper. Fiennes has not commented on the incident, but spokeswoman Sara Keene was quoted as saying in some British newspapers that the actor was seduced by the airline stewardess. "She initiated the encounter," Keene was quoted as saying. "She was the sexual aggressor."
■ Israel
Couple fined for car sex
Police investigating why a car was blocking traffic on one of the country's main highways on Sunday found a couple inside having sex. "A vehicle was stopped on the highway north of Raanana junction [near Tel Aviv] and blocking traffic," a police spokesman said. "A police patrol went to the scene to investigate the vehicle which was causing an obvious danger to other drivers ... They were surprised to find two individuals engaged in sex acts and asked for their papers." The couple was charged with "endangering themselves and others." They were fined 1,000 shekels (US$240) each, the price of a deluxe hotel room in Tel Aviv.
■ Japan
Four dead in group suicide
Four people were found dead inside a parked car in an apparent group suicide in the mountains in Kyoto, police said yesterday. A driver notified police on Sunday that he saw a car with four people inside and a box of charcoal outside, a local police official said. When the police arrived, all four people -- two men and two women -- were dead and there were two charcoal stoves inside the car, the officer said. Police said the four are believed to be in their 30s and 50s.
■ Italy
Man freezes dad for money
A 63-year-old man kept his father's body hidden in a freezer in a northwestern town for three years so he could continue collecting his pension money, the ANSA news agency reported on Sunday. The body was discovered when the dead man's grandson happened to open the freezer, the agency reported. An autopsy of the body had been ordered, but a preliminary investigation indicated that the man had died of natural causes.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate