■ BANGLADESH
News channel shut down
The emergency government on Thursday shut down the country's only 24-hour private news channel, CSB, officials said, just weeks after it was warned against airing "provocative" news during last month's student unrest. "The channel has been accused of forgery by a government probe body.," said Abbas Faruq, spokesman of the government's telecom regulator. CSB's owner, a businessman and former lawmaker, was detained in an anti-graft crackdown.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Police stop sex parties
Police said on Thursday they have cracked down on a Web site that arranged sex parties for senior figures in society. Seoul police said business executives and other used the site called "SEX party." They arrested the site's 42-year-old operator for arranging the group sex parties for commercial gain and booked 53 men and 11 women for possible prosecution. "Most of the suspects were identified as high-class figures ... some of whom were couples and lovers seeking to change partners," police officer Jang Cheol-hui said. Men paid up to 1.5 million won (US$1,600) to take part, while women were usually paid 1 million won.
■ NORTH KOREA
No sex for soldiers: group
Leader Kim Jong-il has ordered soldiers to stay away from drinking, sex and money, calling them "poison" that spoils socialist faith, a group of defectors that fled to South Korea said on Thursday. Kim issued the order in March, saying alcohol, sex and money make soldiers more vulnerable to the "psychological warfare of enemies," the Committee for Democratization of North Korea said. The committee cited an 18-page internal military document. The instructions said money "makes people unable to recognize even their country, people, party and revolution." It also said: "History shows that soldiers who cared for women were easily entrapped by enemy plots and ultimately ended up becoming traitors."
■ JAPAN
Land leeches spreading
Long confined to the mountains, land leeches are invading residential areas in 29 of Japan's 47 prefectures, according to the Institute for Environmental Culture, a private research facility in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo. The little suckers ride into towns on deer and boar. The leeches measure about 1.5cm before a meal. "Yamabiru will climb into people's socks and stay for about an hour, growing five to 10 times in size. Unlike with water leeches, people don't immediately realize they've been bitten. Only later when they see their bloodsoaked feet, do they realize what has happened," said Shigekazu Tani, the institute's director. "The real problem is that the bleeding won't stop and the affected area swells up and really itches," he said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Burglar leaves name
A bungling burglar left police a giveaway clue to his identity, scrawling graffiti which revealed his name on a wall after ransacking a campsite in northwest England, police said on Thursday. "Peter Addison was here!" wrote the 18-year-old in black marker pen. He also added his gang's name. "This crime is up there with the dumbest of all in the criminal league table," said Inspector Gareth Woods after Addison and Mark Ridgeway, also 18, pleaded guilty to burglary at Macclesfield Magistrates' Court. Addison was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay compensation, while Ridgeway was sentenced to 60 hours of unpaid work and a 12-month community order.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Quarantine zone to be lifted
The surveillance zone imposed around the lab at the center of the country's recent foot-and-mouth outbreak could be lifted by today, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in a statement posted on its Web site. The lab complex was at the center of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which led to the slaughter of some 600 animals. The facility houses vaccine-maker Merial Animal Health and the government's Institute of Animal Health. On Wednesday the BBC reported that investigators had determined that the disease spread from a faulty pipe at the lab.
■ RUSSIA
Starbucks opens in Moscow
Starbucks opened its first cafe in the country on Thursday in a shopping mall just outside Moscow, a company spokeswoman said, following a prolonged trademark dispute. The menu features traditional offerings like blueberry muffins, as well as dishes designed for the local market such as honeycakes and mushroom sandwiches. Starbucks last year won a dispute with a Moscow lawyer who claimed rights to the Starbucks trademark and wanted to sell the rights back to the firm.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Condom scammers face jail
The government said on Thursday that those allegedly involved in a recent scam that led to the recall of 20 million suspected faulty condoms would be brought to justice. "Those implicated in the scam will face the full force of the law," government spokesman Themba Maseko said. Three South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) employees appeared in court last month in connection with the scam. They are out on bail and due to appear in court again on Oct. 10, SAPA said. The health ministry said that all 20 million of the condoms supplied by Zalatex as part of a government-funded distribution program were being recalled "to ensure maximum safety of the public."
■ DR CONGO
Cargo plane hits hard lava
A cargo plane crashed into a hulk of hardened lava at an airport in the Democratic Republic of the Congo yesterday, bursting into flames and killing all five Russian crew aboard, the regional governor said. The Antonov-12 landed too far down the runway in Goma to allow it time to stop before hitting the hardened lava, North Kivu Governor Julien Mpaluku said by telephone. Lava from a volcanic eruption in 2001 flowed through half of Goma and the airport, reducing the area where aircraft could land. Mpaluku said the plane had taken off from Kinshasa carrying oil and beauty products.
■ URUGUAY
Thieves wait on customers
Three thieves robbing a sporting goods store in Montevideo spent half an hour waiting on customers before making their getaway with merchandise and the money from the till, police said on Wednesday. The armed gang held up the store in an upper-middle-class neighborhood on Tuesday. They locked up one store employee in a back room and forced another clerk to hand over money and sporting goods. Then some customers came in, and the robbers sold them goods for about 30 minutes before jumping into a truck where a driver was waiting for them.
■ UNITED STATES
Teacher admits teen sex
A former middle school teacher in Laurens, South Carolina, admitted on Thursday she had sexual encounters with five teenage boys. Allenna Ward met the boys, ages 14 and 15, at the school as well as at a motel, a park and behind a restaurant, according to arrest warrants. Ward pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and three lewd acts on a minor. Police began investigating Ward earlier this year after school officials found a note she had written to one of the boys. Some of the victims were students at the school where Ward taught. The teacher was fired on Feb. 28.
■ UNITED STATES
Senior carded for wine
A 65-year-old woman who went into a supermarket to buy wine was turned away because she did not have an identification card with her to prove her age. Barbara Skapa said she normally carries her driver's license. But with her leg in a cast, Skapa was being driven by a friend when she went into the Hannaford Bros market in Farmington, Maine, last week to buy several items, including some bottles of wine. The cashier told her it was policy to check for identification, said Skapa, who believes "no one would mistake me for 30 or even 40." Skapa asked if her friend could buy the wine for her, but that was not allowed either because it is considered "third-party" purchasing.
■ IRAN
Academic back in US
An Iranian-American academic returned to the US after being detained for eight months -- nearly half that time in Tehran's notorious Evin prison -- on charges that she had endangered national security. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program for the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said she was happy to be home with her family, the center said in a statement on Thursday. Esfandiari, 67, was accused by Iran's Intelligence Ministry of seeking a "soft revolution" by setting up networks of Iranians. Both she and the center denied the allegation.
■ CANADA
Same-sex census released
Canada will release its first census count of same-sex married couples next week, but some activists in the gay and lesbian community are not happy with the way the census treated the question. Some object that gay couples were relegated to the census questionnaire's "other" box, and some asked whether same-sex marriage should be counted at all. In the end many couples simply chose not to complete the census in protest. When Canada became the third country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2005, its census officials hurried to include that group in the next count.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
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