■ JAPAN
Worker smashes up office
A disgruntled worker smashed up his employer's office in a fit of pique after his boss ignored his gift of jellies, the Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday. An Osaka court heard that the 31-year-old man, who worked for an online clothing sales firm, had given the company president a box of jelly desserts in the summer as a mark of gratitude after landing the job, the report said. When the employee realized that his boss had left the box of jellies unopened under his desk, he smashed 22 computers in the office with a truncheon, the paper said. "I wish the company president had cared a little more," the paper quoted the employee's lawyer as saying.
■ INDONESIA
Suspension bridge mulled
The government is mulling a suspension bridge over the 30km strait separating the islands of Java and Sumatra, in what would be a major engineering feat in the earthquake-prone region, media reports said yesterday. The governors of the provinces at either end of the Sunda Strait and a local engineering firm agreed to conduct a feasibility study into the bridge, which would be one of the world's longest, the Jakarta Post and other media said. The rail and road bridge would cost about US$10 billion, and if the project gets a go-ahead, the construction would start in 2012, the reports said, quoting government officials.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Grandmother gets `Pumpkin'
A child allegedly abandoned by her fugitive father as he fled her mother's murder will live in China after a court yesterday granted custody to her grandmother. Qian Xun Xue, 3, who became known as "Pumpkin" after the make of clothing she was wearing when found abandoned and crying for her mother at a train station in Melbourne last month. Chief Family Court Judge Peter Boshier in Auckland yesterday granted custody of the girl, who has been in welfare care, to her grandmother Xiaoping Liu.
■ INDONESIA
Marriage lawsuit thrown out
The nation's top court ruled on Wednesday against a businessman who filed a lawsuit arguing that the marriage law was unconstitutional because it prohibited him from wedding multiple partners. Islamic teachings allow men to take up to four wives, but in the world's most populous Muslim nation polygamous marriages are only recognized by religious authorities and do not grant legal inheritance and parenting rights to all wives. The Constitutional Court said it threw out a claim that the nation's marriage act violated the constitutional protection of religious freedoms and should be amended. "The marriage act ... is not in contravention of Islamic teachings," the court ruling said in a posting on its Web site.
■ PHILIPPINES
Activist shot dead
An anti-mining activist was shot dead during a protest outside a nickel exploration project on Sibuyan island, environmentalists said yesterday. Arman Marin, 42, was leading a small group of protesters outside the site when they were confronted by armed security guards. The mine's foreign partner, Pelican Resources, recently signed a deal to supply some 500,000 tonnes of nickel over five years to Australian-based BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining concern. The Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment said one of the guards opened fire and hit Marin repeatedly. Marin died en route to hospital, the group said. Police said the gunman was still at large.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Postal workers to strike
Postal workers were to begin a 48-hour strike yesterday, barring a last minute deal between the Royal Mail and unions. Postal workers will stage another two-day walk out on Monday if the talks fail, the Communications Workers Union said. Royal Mail employees rejected a 2.5 percent pay increase and the Royal Mail's modernization plans, which the union claimed would cost 40,000 jobs. The union claimed the employer was going ahead with changes to pensions, a later retirement age and later starts to shifts.
■ TURKEY
Priest killer's term upheld
The court of appeals yesterday upheld a jail sentence of nearly 19 years for the teenage killer of an Italian Catholic priest, the state Anatolian news agency said. The shooting of Father Andrea Santoro, 61, while praying in his church in Trabzon in February last year shocked the nation. Last year, a Trabzon court found the teenager guilty of premeditated murder, illegal possession of a firearm and endangering public security. His family appealed against the jail sentence. The Ankara appeals court confirmed the sentence of 18 years and 10 months on the boy, who as a minor has not been named.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Frying chilis bring firemen
Super spicy chili sauce being cooked at a Thai restaurant in London sparked road closures and evacuations after passers-by complained that the smell was burning their throats, police said on Wednesday. London Fire Brigade's chemical response team was called after reports that a strong smell in Soho on Monday afternoon. Authorities sealed off several premises and closed roads. The Times said firefighters smashed down the door of the Thai Cottage restaurant and seized extra-hot bird's eye chilis which had been left dry-frying. "The smoke didn't go up into the sky because of the rain and the heavy air," the Times quoted the Thai Cottage's owner as saying. "It's the hottest thing we make." A police spokesman said no arrests were made: "As far as I'm aware it's not a criminal offense to cook very strong chili."
■ UNITED STATES
Fish good for pregnancy
Women who want to become pregnant, are pregnant or are breast-feeding should eat at least 340g of fatty fish such as tuna every week, experts said yesterday. Some fish are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, components known to help brain development. Walnuts, flaxseed oil and leafy green vegetables also contain the compounds. Women need the nutrients to prevent postpartum depression and babies need them for brain development, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies coalition said. But these fish can also carry high levels of mercury, so the US Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency advise pregnant women to eat no more than 340g a week.
■ NETHERLANDS
Anne Frank's tree safe
The diseased chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank while she hid from the Nazis during World War II has been granted a reprieve. The 150-year-old tree was due to be chopped down after experts determined it could not be rescued from the fungus and moths that caused more than half its trunk to rot. The tree is on the property adjacent to the building that is now the Anne Frank Museum. The museum said grafts have already been taken and a sapling from the original chestnut will eventually replace it.
■ COLOMBIA
Casket sales tip off police
Police were tipped off on Monday to the early morning murders of eight cocaine laboratory workers when relatives of the victims showed up at an undertaker in a southern town asking for coffins. "We did not find out about this until they came to a funeral home and asked for eight caskets," Putumayo Province police commander Harold Lara said. The province is a key cocaine production area where leftist rebels and drug gangs fight over lucrative smuggling routes. The murders appeared to be a robbery in which one trafficking group stole coca base from another, Lara said.
■ CANADA
Identity theft to be outlawed
The government plans to criminalize identity theft to give police the ability to stop such activity before any fraud has actually been carried out, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said on Tuesday. He said he would introduce legislation targeting the actual gathering and trafficking in credit card, banking and other personal data for the purposes of using it deceptively. Identity fraud is already a crime, but gathering and trafficking in identity information generally is not. "Our government will be giving police the tools to better protect Canadians by stopping identity theft activity before the damage is done," Nicholson said in a statement.
■ UNITED STATES
Officer chases lawnmower
Michael Ginevan of Bunker Hill, West Virginia, was driving a riding lawnmower near his home when a Berkeley County sheriff's deputy attempted to pull him over. Ginevan, 39, allegedly sped away and Deputy J.H. Jenkins stopped his cruiser and gave chase on foot, according to magistrate court records. Jenkins caught up to the lawnmower after a short chase but Ginevan allegedly wouldn't stop so the deputy pulled him off the machine. Ginevan refused to take a field sobriety test and was arrested. Jenkins then found a case of beer strapped to the lawnmower's front. Ginevan was charged with fleeing while driving under the influence and obstruction.
■ UNITED STATES
Landslide destroys home
A landslide swept away a chunk of an upscale hilltop neighborhood, destroying a home, damaging five others and opening up a 50m chasm in a four-lane road. Officials ordered 111 homes in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, evacuated. No one was hurt in the collapse, which occurred Wednesday morning after city officials warned residents of four homes not to sleep in them because the land might give way. The collapse shortly before 9am toppled power lines and left a 6m-deep ravine. Orange traffic cones and sections of big concrete pipes sat in the fissure slashing across the crumpled residential street.
■ UNITED STATES
`Housewives' apologizes
The producers of Desperate Housewives apologized to the Philippine government on Wednesday for questioning the training of Philippine doctors in the season premiere of the TV series. "The producers of Desperate Housewives and ABC Studios offer our sincere apologies for any offense caused by the brief reference in the season premiere," they said in a statement. "There was no intent to disparage the integrity of any aspect of the medical community in the Philippines," they said. The offending comment was made when Teri Hatcher's character Susan Mayer asked to see a physician's diplomas "because I want to make sure that they're not from some med school in the Philippines."
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
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