■ CHINA
World's tallest man marries
After searching high and low, the world's tallest man has married a woman two-thirds his height, a Chinese newspaper reported yesterday. Bao Xishun (包喜順), a 2.36m tall herdsman from Inner Mongolia, married saleswoman Xia Shujian, who was 1.68m tall, several days ago, the Beijing News reported. Bao's 28-year-old bride is half his age and hailed from his hometown of Chifeng even though marriage advertisements were sent around the world, it said. "After a long and careful selection, the effort has been finally paid off," the newspaper said. Bao was confirmed last year by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's tallest person.
■ CHINA
Burglar steals a night's sleep
A Beijing worker who broke into luxury villas to steal property and get a good night's sleep has been jailed for a year, state media reported on Tuesday. The court heard that Ye, a migrant worker, broke into five villas "out of curiosity," took showers, tried on clothes and slept in beds -- even when the householders were at home, the Shanghai Daily said. When Ye found a woman sleeping in the house on his third break-in, he took a carton of milk from the fridge and went to bed on a separate floor, the paper said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Monster cane toad found
A huge cane toad the size of a small dog has been captured in the Australian tropical city of Darwin, startling environmentalists who are fighting to stop the poisonous reptiles from spreading across the country. "It's a monster toad," said Paul Cowdy from FrogWatch, which captured the cane toad on Monday night. "We've never seen a cane toad this big," he said on Tuesday. "It's a male and normally females are bigger." The cane toad, regarded as a major pest in Australia, was one of 39 caught by a group from FrogWatch near Lee Point in Darwin. It measures 20.5cm in length and weighs 840g -- twice the normal weight.
■ Afghanistan
Suicide bomber blends in
A suicide bomber trying to blend in with street beggars exploded himself near a top intelligence official in a crowded part of the capital early yesterday, killing four people and wounding 12, police said. The bomber apparently targeted the investigations chief of Afghanistan' intelligence service, said deputy police chief General Zulmay Khan. The explosion went off near Kabul's main market place, killing four people and injuring 12, Afghanistan's intelligence service said. The attack's apparent target, Kamulladeen Khan Echekzai, is a powerful Afghan elder from the southern city of Kandahar.
■ CAMBODIA
Thieves poison elephant
Thieves in the northeast part of the country poisoned a domesticated elephant before sawing off its valuable tusks to sell on the black market, police said on Tuesday. The 62-year-old bull elephant was found dead on Saturday some 100m from its owner's home in Ratanakkiri province, police said, adding that it appeared to have been fed jack fruit laced with rat poison. "The elephant's tusks, measuring between 70cm to 80cm long each, were sawed off," said deputy provincial police chief Hor Ang. He said the tusks could fetch thousands of dollars on the illegal ivory market. No one had been arrested for the killing, Hor Ang said, adding the elephant's body had since been butchered for meat.
■ West Bank
Jewish settlers forced out
Hundreds of Israeli police in riot gear dragged squatters from the ruins of a Jewish settlement yesterday, ending a three-day showdown between the government and Jewish settlers trying to reclaim an area. The confrontation played out in the former Homesh settlement, dismantled in 2005 as part of Israel's unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank. On Monday, some 2,500 protesters had marched to the ruins of Homesh, pledging to rebuild it. Demonstrators set up large canvas tents on the site and started piling up rocks, in a symbolic attempt at reconstruction.
■ GAZA STRIP
Croc smuggler stopped
A Palestinian woman wearing a strangely bulging robe was caught at the Gaza-Egypt border trying to smuggle three baby crocodiles strapped to her waist, an official said on Monday. The reptiles, their jaws tied shut, were apparently bound for a Gaza zoo, said Maria Telleria, a spokeswoman for European observers who run the Rafah crossing. "She looked strangely fat," Telleria said, explaining why the woman was ordered by a policewoman to submit to a search as she tried to enter Gaza from Egypt last Thursday. Surprised by the three crocodiles, the policewoman screamed, other guards raced to the scene.
■ ISRAEL
Pot banned during Passover
In bad news for its religious Jewish supporters, a pro-marijuana party announced on Tuesday that pot is forbidden on Passover. Cannabis is among the substances Jews are forbidden to consume during the week-long festival, which begins next Monday, said Michelle Levine, a spokeswoman for the Green Leaf party. Biblical laws prohibit eating leavened foods during Passover. Later injunctions by European rabbis extended those rules to forbid other foods like beans and corn, and more recent rulings have further expanded the ban to include hemp seeds, which today are found in some health oils -- and in marijuana.
■ UKRAINE
Sniper shoots businessman
A Russian businessman allied with Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was shot dead by a sniper on Tuesday as he was being escorted from a Kiev courthouse by police, an official said. A police officer who was guarding Maksim Kurochkin, 38, was seriously wounded in the incident, which occurred during a break in his extortion trial, said Volodymyr Polishchuk, head of the Kiev department of the federal Interior Ministry. He died on the spot after being hit by a bullet fired from a building neighboring the Svyatoshynsky District Court, Polishchuk said.
■ FRANCE
Bove trial postponed
A court postponed the trial of anti-globalization farmer and presidential candidate Jose Bove and 38 others suspected of destroying a genetically modified crop, Bove's lawyer said on Tuesday. Marie-Christine Etelin said the court postponed the trial, which was to take place on Tuesday, to Oct. 2 because "one of the defendants is a presidential candidate." The two-round vote takes place April 22 and May 6. Bove and the other activists are to stand trial for allegedly destroying a field of genetically modified corn near the town of Saint-Hilaire on July 31 last year.
■ UNITED STATES
Underwear thief nabbed
A Washington state man was charged with theft and burglary after police said they found 42kg of women's panties, brassieres and other underwear at his home. Investigators believe Garth Flaherty, 24, took as many as 1,500 undergarments from apartment complex laundry rooms before he was caught, police Commander Chris Tennant said. A man was seen taking underwear from two laundry rooms on Saturday, a witness recorded his license number, and Flaherty was identified from photographs, Tennant said. Police found enough underwear in his bedroom to fill five garbage bags, Tennant said.
■ UNITED STATES
Snow's cancer returns
A growth that was surgically removed from White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, 51, was cancerous and the cancer has spread to his liver, the White House disclosed on Tuesday. Snow, a colon cancer survivor, underwent surgery on Monday to remove the growth from his abdomen and all indications going into the procedure were that it was not cancerous. Snow had his colon removed in 2005 and underwent six months of chemotherapy.
■ NETHERLANDS
Mushroom effects probed
The health minister will order an investigation into the health risks of hallucinogenic mushrooms, he said on Tuesday, after a teenage French tourist jumped to her death after eating them. Pressure for an outright ban grew in parliament after the girl, identified as 17-year-old Gaelle Caroff, jumped off an overpass earlier this month. Her mother, Nathalie, was quoted by De Pers newspaper as saying that hallucinogenic mushrooms were responsible for her daughter's death and should be outlawed.
■ MEXICO
Investigation office closed
A special prosecutor's office created by former president Vicente Fox to investigate political crimes was shut down on Tuesday without having attained any convictions. Regular federal prosecutors will now handle the office's open cases, including one against former president Luis Echeverria, who has been accused of genocide. The decision to shut down the office was made by Fox just before he handed power to President Felipe Calderon, but it took three months to take effect.
■ UNITED STATES
Family gets US$2.4m for son
Authorities in Bay County, Florida, have agreed to pay US$2.4 million to the family of a teenager who died last year after being roughed up in a state-supervised boot camp, an attorney for the family said on Tuesday. The settlement with the county where the camp was located brings the total settlement to more than US$7 million, including US$5 million that Governor Charlie Crist has asked the state to pay the family of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, attorney Ben Crump said. Anderson's family initially had sued for US$40 million.
■ UNITED STATES
Rare eagle spotted
A threatened eagle native to coastal Europe and northern Asia has made a surprise appearance on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. "This is history in the making," said Brenda Zaun, a wildlife biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who confirmed sightings of the white-tailed eagle. It is not unheard of to see the species outside of its range covering Norway, Iceland, Poland,Greece, Siberia and northern Asia. One eagle lived on Kauai for 17 years until its was reportedly killed by a helicopter, Zaun said.
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
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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