■ CHINA
Heavy rains kill three
Heavy rains have killed at least three people, forced 158,000 people from their homes, damaged thousands of buildings and flooded farmland in central China, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Xinhua said the Ministry of Civil Affairs sent an emergency rescue group to the disaster-hit area in southern Hunan Province following the rains that started on Wednesday night and continued through Thursday. About 75,000 people do not have access to clean drinking water, Xinhua quoted the ministry as saying. More than 57,000 hectares of farmland were affected with direct economic losses expected to hit 580 million yuan (US$75 million). Xinhua said more rainfall was forecast for the province.
■ AUSTRALIA
Groups slam `toad golf'
A local council has earned the ire of animal welfare groups for promoting the pleasures of "cane toad golf." The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), slammed the Townsville Council in Queensland for encouraging locals to tee off on a cane toad, which is regarded as a noxious pest in the area. "It's definitely not appropriate," RSPCA spokesman Michael Beattie told the Townsville Bulletin newspaper. "We accept that they are a menace and they need to be eradicated. However, hitting them with golf clubs is inhumane and totally ineffective," he said. "Cane toad golf" was listed among life's pleasures on a promotional beer cooler produced by the council.
■ PHILIPPINES
Bomb explodes in bus
Five people were injured when a bomb, believed to have been planted by Muslim extremists, exploded inside a bus in the south of the country yesterday, a senior police official said. The bomb went off after the bus unloaded passengers at a heavily guarded depot in Matalam town in the central part of the southern island of Mindanao, regional police chief Frederico Dulay said. The explosion injured bystanders, leaving at least one in serious condition, and was believed to have been set off by a cellphone, he said.
■ SINGAPORE
Airport to use face scanners
People traveling to Singapore will soon be required to have their face electronically scanned at immigration checkpoints amid efforts to boost security, the Straits Times reported yesterday. Nearly 1,000 computers at all of the nation's ports, land borders and airports, will be installed with face-recognition technology over the next year, it said, citing government documents tendering for suppliers of the system. The face-matching system will be used together with the fingerprint scanners currently in operation, the report said. The biometric system would process more than 250,000 face scans daily when fully operational.
■ POLAND
Stolen keys delay troops
The 1,200 troops assigned to NATO forces in Afghanistan will not achieve full combat readiness for several weeks due to stolen vehicle keys, the defense ministry said on Thursday. "We had been told a 10 percent theft rate was likely in convoys brought in from Pakistan, but we had not expected the spare car keys to go missing," a ministry spokesman told news channel TVN24. "We shall have to send away for spares, so it may take from several days to several weeks for our contingent to become combat ready." The military vehicles include Poland's Land Rover-like Honkers and US-built Humvees.
■ MALTA
Search under way for boats
The military said yesterday that it was coordinating a search for two boats carrying a total of 50 migrants missing off the Libyan coast in rough seas. The army said people on the boats had used satellite phones to contact residents at an open center for migrants in Malta late on Thursday afternoon, reporting their boats as being 76km off the Libyan coast. The Libyan coastguard said it could not conduct a search because of rough seas, while the master of an Iranian freighter located 42km from the boats said he was afraid to take the migrants on board as they might be armed. Contact with both boats was lost at about midnight on Thursday. On Friday a French frigate recovered 18 bodies 193km north of Libya, but Maltese authorities said there was no evidence that they came from the missing boats.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Calling to listen to death
A unique work of art, unveiled yesterday, invites viewers to phone a glacier in Iceland -- and listen to its death throes, live, through a microphone submerged deep in a lagoon which relays the splashes, creaks and groans as great masses of melting ice sheer off and crash into the water. The dying glacier sounds clearer than artist Katie Paterson, who has been camping out in torrential rain and bitter cold installing the piece. The visible tip of the project in Britain is her neon sign in London's Slade gallery which gives the mobile number 07758 225698, from which anyone can call. "This lagoon is a graveyard of glaciers," Paterson said on Thursday from her tent by the water. "In a way there is something heartbreaking about this, knowing that you are listening to something magnificent being destroyed -- but it is also very beautiful, a celebration of nature."
■ SPAIN
Police arrest arms dealer
Police have arrested a Syrian arms dealer wanted by the US on terrorism and other charges. Monzer al-Kassar, a longtime resident of Spain, was arrested at Madrid airport after arriving on a flight from Malaga, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. It said al-Kassar faces charges in New York of conspiracy to provide aid and equipment to a terrorist organization, conspiracy to kill US citizens and officials, conspiracy to acquire anti-aircraft missiles and money laundering.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Mild bird flu spreads
A recent outbreak of mild bird flu in north Wales has spread to northwest England, the farm ministry said. A case of H7N2 bird flu has been found at a poultry farm near St. Helens and all the birds will be slaughtered and a 1km exclusion zone imposed, the ministry said. The H7N2 strain was found at a farm in North Wales last month. The two farms are about 113km apart.
■ UNITED STATES
Wheelchair taken for ride
A man in Paw Paw, Michigan, was taken on a wild ride when his wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a semitrailer truck and was accidentally pushed down a highway for 6.4km at about 80kph, authorities said. The 21-year-old man, whose name was not released, was unharmed but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He had been secured to his wheelchair by a seat belt. "The man spilled his soda pop, but he wasn't upset," said Sergeant Kathy Morton of the Michigan State Police.
■ UNITED STATES
Teen crashes through mall
A teenager drove to a crowded suburban mall in Massapequa, New York, but neglected to park -- instead smashing through the entrance and cruising past clothing stores before exiting the car to deliver a speech to onlookers, police said. The 19-year-old man drove through the mall's main glass doors at around 7pm on Thursday, continued past a JCPenney, passed the mall's central court, knocked over a kiosk and then made two left turns before exiting near a McDonald's, Nassau County police said. After breaking through the second set of doors at Westfield Sunrise mall, the driver exited the car and started giving a rambling speech before being restrained by a passer-by until police got there, Officer Thomas Brussell said.
■ UNITED STATES
Buttock jabber charged
A New York man is accused of paying underage girls to let him jab their buttocks, and he now faces charges under a new law that specifically addresses crimes committed for sexual gratification, prosecutors said. Frank Ranieri, 25, of Staten Island, paid at least five girls -- all between the ages of 15 and 17 -- thousands of dollars since 2003 to engage in "piquerism," a sexual fixation on penetrating the body with sharp objects, such as pins, nails and stilettos, the Staten Island district attorney's office said.
■ BRAZIL
Rare Amazon monkey stolen
The theft of a rare Amazon monkey from a zoo could harm biologists' efforts to repopulate the endangered species, zoo officials said on Wednesday. Workers arriving at the zoo on Tuesday morning noticed the male pied tamarin was missing, and found a wrench and a coat left behind in its cage. "This is a significant loss," said Luiz Antonio da Silva Pires, director of the city zoo in Bauru, 350km northwest of Sao Paulo. "The monkey was likely one of the few still alive in captivity and we were hoping to use it to start a new population and keep the species alive."
■ UNITED STATES
Senate holds hell debate
State senators rushing to beat a legislative deadline on Thursday took time out to debate whether a four-letter invective is too coarse for use on the House floor. During debate over a regional planning bill, Senator Tom McClintock, a Republican, used the word repeatedly to register his objections. "Who the hell are you?" McClintock asked time and again, directing his comment to the bill's sponsor, Senator Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento. McClintock later said he meant no insult to Steinberg. Senator Carole Migden, a Democrat, asked McClintock to apologize. "`Who the hell are you' is offensive," she said. The public use of profanity by political leaders has led to a decline in accepted standards for their use, Migden said. Vice President Dick Cheney famously used the F-word during an argument on the floor of the US Senate.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
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