■ INDONESIA
Faulty seal grounds plane
A passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing yesterday due to a faulty door seal which resulted in a drop in cabin pressure, but no one was injured, an airline official said. A Boeing 737-300 of Garuda Indonesia's Citilink unit was en route from Jakarta to Batam near Singapore when the pilot decided to make an emergency landing in Palembang, South Sumatra, Garuda spokesman Singgih Handoyo said. "It was a leaking rubber seal on the cargo door and since there was a resulting drop in cabin pressure, the pilot decided to land at the nearest airport," Handoyo said. He said none of the 85 people on board was injured.
■ INDIA
Ringtones lure leopards
Those ubiquitous ringtones have reached the forests of the western part of this country, where leopards are answering their call. So far six leopards that strayed too close to villages have been lured into traps by ringtones playing the calls of roosters, goats and cows, H.S. Singh, chief conservation research officer in the state of Gujarat, said on Tuesday. "Now instead of using live bait, sounds of animals have been downloaded as ringtones on mobiles, which are attached to speakers kept behind cages and then played at regular intervals," Singh said. The ringtones are triggered by calling the cell phones, he said. "The leopard drawn by the sound is an unsuspecting victim," Singh said, adding that the trick only worked at night.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Drug-related crimes rise
Prosecutors said yesterday they will increase international cooperation to combat a sharp rise in drug-related crimes. A total of 7,709 people were arrested last year for drugs offences, an 18 percent rise over 2005, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office said in a policy document quoted by Yonhap news agency. Among other narcotics, 21.5kg of "ice", or crystal methamphetamine hydrochloride, worth 16.2 billion won (US$17.5 million) were seized. In the first four months of this year 2,714 drugs-related criminals were arrested, an increase of 33 percent from the same period last year.
■ JAPAN
Pervert caught in uniform
A man in Kagoshima who tried to steal underwear belonging to a policeman's daughter had some explaining to do when the officer caught him red-handed dressed in a schoolgirl's uniform. Junichi Uchikura, 24, had intruded into a yard after spotting a pair of the girl's underwear, police said on Tuesday. But as it turned out, the underwear belonged to the daughter of a police officer. Alerted by his wife, the police officer chased Uchikura down and was startled to find that the thief was dressed in a schoolgirl's uniform, police said.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Heartbreak discount offered
A bank is offering to help heartbroken soldiers dumped by girlfriends while away on mandatory military service by providing special interest rates for stilted troops. Soldiers who can show letters or e-mail proving their break-up to a bank clerk can participate in a new deposit plan with better rates and waived service fees, Nonghyup Bank official Gil Yoon-jung said on Tuesday. The offer began on Monday and will run through September. Troops will get as much as a 0.3 percentage point premium a year for proving they are no longer romantically attached. All young men in the country are required to serve two years in the military.
■ HOLY SEE
Pope Pius XII defended
The Vatican on Tuesday stepped up its defense of Pope Pius XII, with its No. 2 official decrying that the pontiff was the victim of a ``black legend'' that said he remained largely silent in the face of the Holocaust. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said that historical research and thousands of personal stories prove Pius acted behind the scenes to save the lives of Jews and other victims. At a Rome presentation of a book about Pius, Bertone said that Pius was ``cautious'' in his denunciations of Nazi persecutions, but said that any bolder public moves would have only angered the Axis powers, accelerating the extermination of Jews while endangering Europe's Catholics and the Vatican.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Remove pinups: RAF
Royal Air Force (RAF) officials ordered the images of glamour models painted on the nose cones of two fighter jets to be removed because they were deemed offensive, a spokesman for the force said on Tuesday. The two Harrier Jets, which had been stationed in Afghanistan to provide ground attack support to NATO operations in the country, featured the silhouettes of British pinups Lucy Pinder and Michelle Marsh, who had visited troops stationed there last year. "We have women that fly the planes, women that fix the planes and it's just not appropriate," he said on condition of anonymity.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Police on full moon alert
The Sussex police will put more officers on the streets during full moons because they believe the lunar cycle may be linked to violent behavior, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. The police have found that drinkers in the seaside city of Brighton and Hove are particularly aggressive during full moons, despite mixed findings from researchers who have examined the issue previously. "I compared a graph of full moons and a graph of last year's violent crimes and there is a trend," Inspector Andy Parr told the Brighton Argus newspaper. "People tend to be more aggressive generally."
■ GREECE
Lights out at Athens
Lights at the Acropolis and other landmarks in Greece's capital were switched off for 10 minutes on Tuesday to mark the UN's World Environment Day. Lights also went out at 10pm at government buildings, parliament, the city hall and Lykabettus Hill. Campaign coordinator Kritonas Arsenis said tens of thousands of Greek households also joined the conservation effort. "The national grid operator reported a 2.6 percent drop in electricity consumption, estimating that 350,000 households participated in the campaign," Arsenis said.
■ SPAIN
Police ordered to nab ships
A court has ordered police to capture and search two vessels belonging to a Florida firm that recently announced it had found a shipwreck laden with an estimated US$500 million in colonial-era treasure, news reports said on Tuesday. The Cadiz court instructed police to capture the vessels should they leave Gibraltar and enter Spanish waters, the reports said. The Odyssey Explorer and Ocean Alert belong to Odyssey Marine Exploration and are believed to have been involved in the exploration that led to the discovery of the treasure disputed by Spain.
■ UNITED STATES
Archer charged in Big Apple
New York City resident Noel Luria said he was celebrating his 40th birthday. Police and prosecutors said he had shown indifference to human life. Instead of a party, Luria celebrated by shooting arrows from his fourth-floor East Side apartment on Sunday at a target block mounted on his windowsill. Police said one arrow landed on the kitchen floor of an apartment across the street. Two others hit scaffolding on another building. Luria was arrested, charged and released on bail. He told the Daily News in Tuesday editions that it was not his intention to hurt anyone.
■ UNITED STATES
Pops brawl ends out of court
Two men who came to blows at a Boston Pops symphony concert last month will not face charges. Matthew Ellinger, 27, and Michael Hallam, 44, agreed to withdraw their assault and battery complaints during a closed-door hearing on Tuesday in Boston Municipal Court, First Assistant Clerk Magistrate Rosemary Carr said. The fight at Symphony Hall on May 9 started when Ellinger tapped Hallam on the shoulder with a program and told him to be quiet, police said. The men bickered before Hallam punched Ellinger, leading to the brief scuffle in the balcony. Conductor Keith Lockhart was forced to pause the performance before police escorted the men out of the concert.
■ UNITED STATES
Drink blamed for priapism
New York City resident Christopher Woods has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, saying the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not go away. Woods, 29, said he bought the beverage, which is made by Novartis, on June 5, 2004, and drank it. He woke up the next morning "with an erection that would not subside" and sought treatment of the condition, called severe priapism, court papers say. Woods underwent surgery for implantation of a Winter shunt, which moves blood from one area to another. The lawsuit filed on Monday says Woods later had problems that required a hospital visit and penile artery embolization, a way of closing blood vessels.
■ UNITED STATES
Officials trying to help seal
Pennsylvania wildlife officials are trying to coax a seal back into the ocean after it found its way into an area of woods and marshes near the Delaware River. The 136kg animal was found in suburban Philadelphia, about 80km upriver from where the Delaware becomes salty. On Tuesday, volunteers and wildlife officials were planning a rescue. Officials said the animal appeared to be distressed and were urging the public to stay away.
■ UNITED STATES
Judge lowers suit request
A Washington judge who was seeking US$67 million from a dry cleaners that lost his pants has loosened the belt on his lawsuit. Now, he is asking for only US$54 million, according to a May 30 court filing in DC Superior Court. Roy Pearson first sued Custom Cleaners over a pair of pants that went missing two years ago. The suit alleges that Chung Jin-nam, Chung Soo and Chung Ki committed fraud and misled consumers with signs that claimed "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service." The Chungs' attorney says no reasonable person would interpret the signs to be an unconditional promise of satisfaction. Pearson said in an e-mail that the focus of the case was the ``false, misleading and fraudulent advertisements displayed by the Chungs.''
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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