Fri, Jun 01, 2007 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ South Korea
  

  Judge falls for kidnap scam
  

  A judge who was conned out of US$64,500 is among the latest victims of rampant telephone fraud in South Korea, prosecutors said yesterday. The district court chief in the southeastern city of Ulsan received calls from a man who claimed the judge's son had been kidnapped and demanded ransom be transferred to a bank account. The judge tried his son's mobile but was unable to reach him. He transferred 60 million won to the bank account and reported what he believed was a kidnapping to the prosecution office. "But it turned out to be a telephone scam. The money was already collected from the account which was opened under a Chinese name," a senior prosecutor in Ulsan said.
  

  
  

  ■ Philippines
  

  Gunmen free foreigners
  

  Gunmen freed four people, including a German and his Filipino-American wife, hours after they were seized in the southern Philippines yesterday, the military said. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a Muslim rebel group that has a ceasefire with the government, negotiated their release with the abductors, who were identified as cattle rustlers, Major-General Ben Mohammad Dolorfino said. Dolorfino, head of a government-rebel joint action group, said soldiers and MILF guerrillas had cordoned off the area where the gunmen held the four -- German Thomas Wallrat, his wife Sharon Jackson, their driver and a Filipino woman -- to pave the way for the negotiations.
  

  
  

  ■ Australia
  

  Aboriginal veterans honored
  

  Aboriginal war veterans were officially remembered for the first time yesterday at a wreath-laying ceremony in Sydney. About 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders served in World War I and as many as 5,000 in World War II, but they had received no official recognition until the ceremony at the Anzac Memorial in central Sydney. New South Wales state Education Minister John Della Bosca said the ceremony coincided with Reconciliation Week, meant to bring Australia's black and white communities together.
  

  
  

  ■ China
  

  Beijing pushes `wonder' wall
  

  Beijing is so worried that its iconic Great Wall will not be named one of the "new" seven wonders of the world that it has launched a campaign to get Chinese people to vote for it, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. More than 45 million votes had so far been cast in an online campaign by the non-profit New7Wonders Foundation to choose the world's seven "new" wonders, the foundation said. The final result will be unveiled on July 7. According to the Academy of the Great Wall of China, the wall has recently dropped out of the top seven and it blamed the voting process, saying relatively few Chinese used the Internet and those that did had poor English-language ability.
  

  
  

  ■ South Korea
  

  `Robocop' gets school duty
  

  A robot is to be deployed as a security guard at a Seoul juniorhigh school in what its creators claim is a world first, the Korea Times reported yesterday. The makers of the robot, dubbed OFRO, said it will be the first time a robot has been used to guard a school. "One possible scenario is that OFRO will alert officials when it detects someone trying to seduce a student," DU Robo chief executive Kang Jung-won told the newspaper. Teachers could then either warn the offender through a loudspeaker or send human guards. OFRO moves at 5kph and can either patrol pre-programmed routes or be manually controlled.
  

  
  

  ■ United Kingdom
  

  Boy finds pal in Queen
  

  A four-year-old British boy who released a balloon with a message hoping to find a pen pal in a foreign land ended up having a correspondence with the Queen. Instead of flying half way around the world, Tom Stancombe's balloon landed inside Windsor Castle, the Daily Mail reported. The Queen instructed her personal assistant to reply and so the monarch and the boy, helped by his parents, exchanged a series of letters, mostly about the fact that one of the boy's ancestors, an artist, had works in the royal art collection. Asked if he thought his son would be exchanging any more letters with the Queen, Tom's father said: "I don't expect we'll get another one, but I think it's incredible they bothered replying at all."
  

  
  

  ■ Ireland
  

  Rare golden eagle born
  

  A pair of golden eagles have produced the first chick to be hatched in Ireland in nearly a century after the species was hunted to extinction in the country. Golden eagles, which have a wingspan of about 1.8m when fully grown, were wiped out in the early 20th century by trigger-happy pleasure-shooters and egg collectors. In 2001, conservationists began reintroducing adult golden eagles to the northwest of Ireland from Scotland. Lorcan O'Toole, project manager with the Golden Eagle Trust Ltd, one of the bodies which manages the program, said on Wednesday the chick was born five weeks ago. He said they had waited before announcing the news to minimize possible disturbances to the hatchling's growth.
  

  
  

  ■ Russia
  

  Putin slams quality of TV
  

  President Vladimir Putin said yesterday Russian television was polluting young people's minds with cheap imports and urged broadcasters to embrace wholesome home grown entertainment instead. Railing against the bosses of national TV stations who were among the officials attending a Kremlin meeting on culture, Putin said: "They buy anything on the international market as long as it is cheap." Network executives are likely to take Putin's criticism to heart. Soccer league matches were moved to free channels after Putin said it was not fair that fans had to pay to watch them on satellite TV.
  

  
  

  ■ South Africa
  

  Blair visits Johannesburg
  

  British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived yesterday in Johannesburg on the final leg of his farewell tour of Africa ahead of his departure from office next month. Blair, who flew into Johannesburg airport from Sierra Leone, is expected to meet with President Thabo Mbeki and his predecessor as president, anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, during his two-day visit here. The Zimbabwe and Darfur crises, world trade and the G8 summit next week in Germany will all feature in a speech he will deliver at the University of South Africa Business School, his office said.
  

  
  

  ■ United Kingdom
  

  Teachers to search pupils
  

  Headteachers now have the power to authorize the search of pupils for knives and other offensive weapons without the child's consent, the government announced yesterday. Teachers will be able to use the new power in tandem with the ability to screen pupils for violent weapons using devices such as x-ray arches and "wand" metal detectors. "Schools now have the law behind them so they can take the necessary action to prevent weapons from coming through the front gate," Education Secretary Alan Johnson said.
  

  
  

  ■ Canada
  

  Tiger prefers French
  

  Everyone likes the sound of French it seems and a zoo in western Canada has asked visitors to speak French to its Siberian tiger. "We hope people will come to the zoo and speak French to him to keep him company," said Jan Archbold, a spokeswoman for the Edmonton Valley Zoo. She said the cat "seems to enjoy hearing French" — despite being a Siberian tiger named Boris. "When our zoo keepers tried to speak to him in English, he obviously didn't understand what they were trying to tell him, so he remained indifferent," Archbold explained.
  

  
  

  ■ United Kingdom
  

  Singer high as a kite
  

  Singer George Michael, who has pleaded guilty to driving while unfit, had several drugs in his system when he was arrested, a court heard on Wednesday. Tests showed 43-year-old singer had taken a therapeutic quantity of an antidepressant as well as gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, often called the "date-rape drug" because it leaves people groggy and powerless, Prosecutor Andrew Torrington told Brent Magistrates Court in London. Michael, who was not in court on Wednesday, pleaded guilty on May 8 to driving while unfit due to drugs. He said his condition was caused by "tiredness and prescribed drugs."
  

  
  

  ■ United States
  

  Counselor makes merry
  

  An errant computer keystroke led the state of Minnesota to accidentally issue a US$2.5 million check to a school counselor — who spent thousands on cars, jewelry and electronics, prosecutors said. Sabrina Walker, 37, was charged on Tuesday with theft by swindle and concealing the proceeds of a crime. She remained in jail on Wednesday in lieu of US$200,000 bail. The state's accounting system was handling money for the Department of Human Services that was intended for a medical center when the check was issued to Walker by mistake in March. Walker was in the state's system because she was once paid US$84 as a court witness. Investigators found that Walker's vendor number in the state system was only one number off the hospital's nine-digit number.
  

  
  

  ■ United States
  

  Man gets run over twice
  

  A Brooklyn woman was charged with murder on Tuesday after she ran over her companion with her Nissan Pathfinder while he was riding a bicycle, then put the vehicle in reverse and struck him again, the police said. The woman, Jeanine Harrington, 25, and the victim, Jeffrey Moore, 47, had a long, tumultuous relationship, neighbors and family members said. "Their relationship was horrible," said Jade Oliver, Moore's older sister. Harrington struck Moore near the intersection of Chauncey Street and Rockaway Avenue at about 6am, according to an eyewitness, Gillian Needhan, 52. Moore was riding a bicycle he had borrowed so he could visit his family, a neighbor said.
  

  
  

  ■ United States
  

  Boeing sued over renditions
  

  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday sued a subsidiary of Boeing, claiming it provided secret CIA transportation services for three terrorism suspects who were tortured under the US government's "extraordinary rendition" program. The cases involve the alleged mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen, in July 2002 and January 2004; Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen, in May 2002; and Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian citizen, in December 2001, ACLU officials said.
  
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