■ POLICE PROBE TOURISTS' DEATHS
Toxicology tests are being carried out on two middle-aged Americans found dead in the Grand Hyatt, police said yesterday, in what reports say may have been a date-rape drugging gone wrong. Police said the tests were being carried out on the bodies of the men, aged 45 and 51, who were found dead in a room by hotel staff on Friday. The Sunday Morning Post cited a police source as saying the investigation was looking at the possibility the two were drugged, possibly using flunitrazepam (Rohypnol).
■ INDONESIA
Village quarantined
A village on the island of Flores has been sealed off after about 20 people fell ill after consuming anthrax-infected beef, a health official said yesterday. Health officials quarantined the village and rushed medical teams to treat ill villagers and vaccinate their livestock after six water buffaloes died of the disease. "Twenty people fell ill after eating an infected water buffalo on Friday. Wolotou village is now quarantined and no meat products from the village are allowed to be transferred out," veterinary official Maria Geong said. Anthrax is an acute infection that usually only afflicts livestock, but it can be transmitted to humans.
■ AUSTRALIA
Pub doubles as church
Jesus Christ may have turned water into wine, but for a group of churchgoers the ideal place to worship on a Sunday is a pub. Devoid of a church in the docklands entertainment area of Melbourne, a group of Christians have created the "Docklands Church" inside the James Squire Brewhouse. "Jesus did turn water into wine, he was kind of radical, he was connected with his culture and yet he had a great message for our world," Docklands Church minister Guy Mason said after his first service on Sunday. Worshippers can have a pint before or after the church service.
■ JAPAN
Group suicide suspected
Four bodies were found in a car filled with carbon monoxide in what was suspected to be a group suicide, police said yesterday. A group of woodcutters found the bodies inside the vehicle parked on a small path on a hillside deep in the forests of Tochigi prefecture northeast of Tokyo, a police spokesman said. Police said the three men, aged 20, 22 and 38, and one woman, 30, were all from Tokyo and nearby areas. "The families of all of them except the 22-year-old man had filed missing person reports with respective local police," the police officer said. "Police believe it was a group suicide."
■ SOUTH KOREA
Group opposes repatriation
A South Korean group pleaded yesterday for international help to stop China from repatriating two North Korean refugees arrested this month. Chinese border guards arrested Lee Sang-hyuk and his fellow refugee at Yanji near the frontier on Wednesday, the Committee for Democratization of North Korea said. Lee, 33, had previously been arrested by North Korean security officers for using a mobile phone to contact a relative in South Korea. But he fled to China with a fellow refugee on Oct. 12, the committee said. He is suspected of revealing information on human rights violations and other matters to the outside world.
■ Chessboard killer gets life
A Moscow court yesterday sentenced a man convicted of 48 murders, which he recorded on a chessboard, to life imprisonment, ending one of Russia's worst serial killing cases. The sentence for Alexander Pichushkin, who claimed to have killed 60 people in an effort to fill all 64 squares of the board, was the severest possible under Russian law and met the prosecutors' request. Pichushkin stood in a reinforced glass cage with his hands cuffed behind his back while the judge read the sentence for 45 minutes. Pichushkin will also have to undergo psychiatric treatment at the prison.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Regiment signs record deal
An army regiment has signed a ?1 million (US$2 million) record deal with Universal Music, a spokesman for the Pipes and Drums of the unit, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, said on Sunday. Recorded between tours of duty in Iraq, the album is a compilation of traditional Scottish tunes and includes cover versions of Paul McCartney's Mull Of Kintyre, and Sailing, made famous by Rod Stewart. "The pipes are an integral part of our regiment, and we take huge pride in our music," Pipe Major Derek Potter said.
■ UNITED STATES
Sarkozy vs. `60 Minutes'
French President Nicolas Sarkozy showed flashes of temper and abruptly terminated a television interview aimed at introducing him to US audiences. In the interview with CBS' 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday, the French president sparred with the US correspondent, called his press secretary an imbecile, said he was too busy to make time for a "stupid" interview and ended the whole conversation abruptly when asked about the state of his marriage to Cecilia. The Sarkozys' divorce was announced about two weeks later.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Food riots a risk: UN official
Some countries may have to implement retail price controls on food in the near future because of rising prices for consumers, the UN's food chief said in an interview published yesterday. Speaking to the Financial Times, Jacques Diouf also said that he would not be surprised if the rising food prices sparked riots in parts of the world, adding that food price inflation had become an "even more serious problem" in recent weeks as the rises have started to hit consumers. "Many [countries] will have to take hard decisions because of the impact of food prices," Diouf told the business daily.
■ BELGIUM
Prisoner flees after crash
The crash-landing of a helicopter inside Ittre prison allowed notorious serial escapee Nordine Ben Allal to flee the grounds on Sunday. The crash caused confusion and threw up billows of smoke in the grounds of the prison some 40km south of Brussels, Nivelles region prosecutor Jean-Claude Elslander said. One inmate was injured when the helicopter landed. The raid began when four armed and hooded men burst into a nearby business where a prototype helicopter was being worked on. The assailants seized the mechanics and forced the pilot to fly the craft into the prison grounds. Ben Allal's accomplice aboard threw the convict a firearm and the pair escaped, briefly taking two prison guards hostage as they fled. They escaped in a waiting car which was later found abandoned nearby.
■ CHAMP EATS 103 BURGERS
Joey Chestnut swallowed 103 Krystal hamburgers in eight minutes in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Sunday to set a new record and win the Krystal Square Off IV World Hamburger Eating Championship. The 23-year-old from San Jose, California, surpassed the previous world record of 97 Krystals held by Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, set at last year's Krystal Square Off. "We never thought we'd see someone anywhere near, let alone past the century mark when we started the Krystal Square Off in 2004," said Brad Wahl, vice president of marketing for The Krystal Company. "But like when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier more than 50 years ago, Joey Chestnut has set a new benchmark today for all moving forward."
■ UNITED STATES
US `annexes' Canadian sight
The US appears to have annexed a major Canadian landmark as part of a tourism campaign. A video released by the departments of state and homeland security highlights majestic landscapes. About four minutes into the seven-minute production, viewers are treated to the impressive sight and sound of water roaring over Niagara Falls before the screen shifts to the Lincoln Memorial. Disney's filmmakers, however, chose the Horseshoe Falls, the only one of Niagara's three waterfalls to lie almost entirely on the Canadian side of the border separating western New York state from southern Ontario province.
■ UNITED STATES
Rhett returns to Georgia
Rhett Butler, the fictional Southern charmer who walked out of Scarlett O'Hara's life in Gone With the Wind, returns to Georgia next weekend -- on a book tour. The book, to be unveiled Saturday, is a kind of retelling of Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece from Rhett's perspective and traces Butler from his roots in South Carolina to Georgia, where he met the dramatic Scarlett. An Atlanta committee charged with protecting Mitchell's novel authorized the book, Rhett Butler's People. The novel begins long before Scarlett ever uttered her first "fiddle-dee-dee" and goes on for nearly 100 more pages beyond where Mitchell ended things with "Tomorrow is another day." The book was written by little-known Civil War novelist Donald McCaig.
■ UNITED STATES
Arnie says pot not a drug
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says marijuana is not a drug, a British magazine reported yesterday. But his spokesman said the governor was joking. Schwarzenegger told the British edition of GQ magazine that he had not taken drugs, even though the former bodybuilder and movie star acknowledged using marijuana in the 1970s and was shown smoking a joint in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. "That is not a drug. It's a leaf," he told GQ. "My drug was pumping iron, trust me."
■ UNITED STATES
Iowa to remain in front
Iowa Democrats have voted to move their presidential primary caucuses to Jan. 3, the same date Republicans picked earlier this month, keeping the state's traditional position as the first primary contest in the race. The state's precinct caucuses had been scheduled for Jan. 14, but the parties decided to move them up under pressure from other states rushing to the beginning of the primary calendar to try to increase their influence on 2008 election. The move means the major remaining question about the calendar is the New Hampshire primary, originally scheduled for Jan. 22.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS