■ PHILIPPINES
WHO tests bird flu scenario
The WHO and Asian partners have conducted their first test of how rapidly they can contain the first signs of a pandemic, using a mock scenario of a human bird flu outbreak in Cambodia, WHO said yesterday. The exercise "Panstop 2007," slated for Monday and yesterday, involved a simulated scenario in which the influenza drug Tamiflu and personal protective equipment, like goggles and masks, were to be dispatched to Cambodia from a Japan-donated stockpile in Singapore. The secretariat of ASEAN, the governments of Japan and Cambodia and the Japan International Cooperation System were to take part in the drills scheduled to be held in Manila.
■ JAPAN
Arrest warrent issued
Police issued an arrest warrant for Tatsuya Ichihashi, yesterday -- one day after the body of a young British woman was found buried in sand at a bathtub in his suburban Tokyo apartment. The 22-year-old woman, identified by police as Lindsay Ann Hawker, worked as an English-language teacher. She failed to report to work on Sunday, leading her school to call a search. Police said an autopsy would be conducted to determine the cause of Hawker's death. They later issued an arrest warrant for Ichihashi, 28, on charges of abandoning a body.
■ JAPAN
Murakami wins Kiriyama
Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, a sometimes surreal collection of short stories, and Greg Mortenson's and David Oliver Relin's Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time, are this year's winners of the 11th annual Kiriyama Prize. The US$30,000 award, to be divided between the three, was announced yesterday in New York by Pacific Rim Voices, a nonprofit group "dedicated to celebrating literature that contributes to greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia." Three Cups of Tea tells of Mortenson's founding of the Central Asia Institute, which has built dozens of schools around Pakistan and Afghanistan.
■ INDIA
No smoking while driving
Smoking while driving was banned in New Delhi on Monday in an attempt to reduce the thousands of road accidents in the city annually. The Delhi High Court ruled that those caught smoking behind the wheel would be fined 500 rupees (US$10). Almost 2,000 people are killed on the city's roads with over 8,000 accidents every year, the Delhi Traffic Police said. The court also ruled that public transport drivers -- including state-run buses and taxis -- must have completed a minimum of 12 years of education, rather than just 10 years.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Girls shake up drug firm
Global drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline faces charges in Wellington today for misleading advertising after two high school girls found its blackcurrant drink Ribena contained almost no vitamin C. Back in 2004, 14-year olds Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo tested the drink for a class experiment against the firm's advertising claim that "the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges." They found the drink contained almost no trace of vitamin C, and one commercial orange juice brand contained almost four times more than Ribena. "We thought we were doing it wrong, we thought we must have made a mistake," Devathasan, now aged 17, told local newspapers.
■ UNITED KINGDOM`CSI' inspires students
Crime dramas such as CSI may have helped fuel a rise of nearly a third in the number of students taking degree courses in forensic and archeological science. The explosion in fictional and documentary screen portrayals of scientific analysis of crime scenes and cold case reviews has coincided with a 32.4 percent increase in undergraduates, figures revealed on Monday. Nearly 5,750 students were following such courses last year and though this was lower than the 11,045 following chemistry or 9,348 doing physics, the growth dwarfed the 2 percent and 0.9 percent rise in these more traditional subjects.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Man runs around world
A 40-year-old man was yesterday to become the first person recognized as having run around the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Robert Garside will run into Picadilly Circus in central London, where he began his first attempt to jog around the world in December 1996, to be presented with a certificate by authorities from the publication. Garside, then a 29-year-old psychology student, failed in that attempt, and it was only on his fourth try that he succeeded, ending up back in the Indian capital in June 2003.
■ GREECE
Search for Ithaca continues
A geological engineering company said on Monday it has agreed to help in an archeological project to find the island of Ithaca, which Homer made the kingdom of his legendary hero Odysseus. It has long been thought that Ithaki in the Ionian Sea was the island Homer used as a setting for the epic poem The Odyssey, in which the king Odysseus makes a perilous 10-year journey home from the Trojan War. Amateur British archeologist Robert Bittlestone believes the Ithaca of Homer is no longer a separate island but became attached to the island of Kefallonia through rock displacement caused by earthquakes.
■ ITALY
Bishop decries rights bill
The new head of the country's politically influential bishops conference decried as dangerous a proposed law to give many legal rights to same-sex and other unmarried couples, and encouraged faithful to turn out for a rally in Rome in May to denounce the government's plan. "As bishops, we cannot but appreciate and encourage [the May 12 rally] aimed at the common good," said Monsignor Angelo Bagnasco, the Genoa archbishop who was recently tapped to lead the Bishops Conference. Prime Minister Romano Prodi's center-left government has said that the proposed legislation will not legalize marriage between gays.
■ PORTUGAL
Speeding priest criticized
A group campaigning for safe roads has asked the Vatican to ensure that a priest who owns a souped-up Ford Fiesta "resist the temptations of speed." Father Antonio Rodrigues, Portugal's only owner of a 112 kilowatt Ford Fiesta 2000 ST, has boasted of his car's rapid acceleration to 210kph and "thanked God" for never being fined, the Association of Motorist Citizens said in a letter to the pope. "I am no speed freak," daily Correio de Manha quoted Rodrigues as saying on Monday. "I have a car that I like but I drive with prudence."
■ UNITED STATES
1980 parking ticket paid
A US$1 parking ticket from 1980 has been paid off, after the offender sent the payment along with a US$3 late fee to Ukesha, Wisconsin, police -- without giving a name. "It's kind of cool that someone took the time to take care of their obligation after 26 years," police Captain Mike Babe told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a story posted online on Monday. "Maybe their conscience got to them." The signature on the money order used to pay for the ticket is not legible, and the return address reads: ``Someone who keeps way too many old papers way too long.''
■ UNITED STATES
`Deadbeats' put on pizza
The search for "deadbeat" parents now has a delivery option: three pizzerias in Cincinnati, Ohio, have put wanted posters on their pizza boxes to help catch parents who don't pay their child support. Each box of pizza is plastered with a poster with 10 names, photos and last known addresses of parents who are not paying court-ordered support, along with a toll-free number that pizza-eaters can call to report the deadbeat parent. Cynthia Brown, head of the Butler County Child Support Enforcement Agency, said she came up with the idea after she ordered pizza one night and noticed coupons taped to the box.
■ UNITED STATES
`Life' magazine killed off
The owners of Life magazine, which practically invented photojournalism, killed off their publication for the third and possibly final time on Monday. Time Inc, which publishes Life, blamed the closure on "the decline in the newspaper business" and poor advertising predictions. When the publisher took over Life in 1936, it turned it into the premier forum for photojournalism. At its height, it sold more than 13 million, and provided a showcase for some of the best photojournalists of the day. After years of decline, Time Inc. ended Life's run as a weekly in 1972, after which it appeared intermittently until 1978.
■ Guatemala
Berger accepts resignations
President Oscar Berger accepted the resignation of the country's police chief and interior minister on Monday in Guatemala City after eight murders raised fears that senior officials were linked to drug gangs. Three Salvadoran politicians and their driver were murdered in the country on Feb. 19. Days later, four police detectives who were arrested for the murders were shot in prison. Opposition politicians say the events show corrupt police are working with death squads in return for protection from drug gangs. A government investigation of the murders is underway. Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann and the national head of police, Erwin Sperisen, tendered their resignations this month.
■ Guatemala
Boat captain meets judge
The captain of a custom, biodiesel-fueled powerboat trying to set a speed record for circling the globe met with a Guatemalan judge in Guatemala City on Monday over a recent collision with a fishing skiff that left a fisherman missing. Peter Bethune, captain of the 78-foot trimaran, said the meeting went well and he hoped to continue on his voyage later this week, although the delay cost them a week in their bid to break the world circumnavigation record of 75 days. "We met briefly, and there is another meeting scheduled for tomorrow. We are getting finished tomorrow, but it's not for sure," Bethune said. "It is going to be very hard to get the world record now."
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
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