■ MALAYSIA
Man shoots neighbor
A villager who was aiming to shoot wild monkeys encroaching on his garden shot his neighbor instead, police said yesterday. The neighbor suffered slight injuries. The 72-year-old licensed shotgun holder was so fed up with the pesky monkeys that he fired at them in as they sat in bushes behind his house in southern Johor on Wednesday, district police chief Zahaliman Jamin said. But he ended up hitting his 57-year-old neighbor, who was walking around in the bushes, Zahaliman said. "It was accidental," he said. "The monkeys disturbed the family and stole some food. The old man was so angry, so he took his shotgun."
■ PHILIPPINES
Captain says crew is safe
The Filipino captain of a Japanese tanker seized by pirates off Somalia's coast has reconfirmed that the 23 crew members are safe, and the hijackers have made no ransom demands, a Philippine official said yesterday. Restituto Bulilan phoned Japanese company Dorval Kaiun K.K., the owner of the hijacked chemical tanker, on Thursday, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said. "The captain of the kidnapped ship was able to contact the principal [the owners] in Japan to inform them that the crew is being treated well and that they are all safe," Conejos said. The Golden Nori was hijacked last Sunday off the Somali coast carrying 23 crew -- nine Filipinos, two South Koreans and 12 Myanmar citizens -- and loaded with a chemical shipment headed for Europe.
■ CHINA
Web site apes regulator
China's battle against fake and substandard drugs has taken an unusual twist with the discovery of a Web site masquerading as that of the country's food and drug watchdog. The site was apparently set up to promote a diabetes medication, according to a report on government-run Web site china.com. While looking very similar to the State Food and Drug Administration's real site (www.sda.gov.cn), it has a totally different address -- and was still functioning on Thursday. "This site is definitely not for real," an official at the regulator was quoted as saying. "These lawbreakers have got some balls!" The fake site (www.tnb163.cn/sdfs/index.htm) can be accessed from another purporting to be from a research institute promoting the miracle benefits of a new diabetes drug.
■ GERMANY
German clears view to sea
A German retiree secretly cut down or shortened 122 trees in a publicly owned forest to give his holiday cottage a clear view of the Baltic Sea, police said on Thursday. The 70-year-old Hamburg resident told police he had felled 56 trees with a chainsaw and left only the bottom four yards of 66 others. "He told us he wanted to enjoy an unobstructed view of the Baltic," about 50m from his cottage, said Jan-Hendrik Wulff, a police spokesman. The man, whose actions caused an estimated 15,000 euros (US$22,000) of damage, may be charged with damaging property and breaking conservation laws, officials said.
■ GERMANY
Bratwurst recipe discovered
A hobby historian has discovered the oldest known recipe for German sausage. According to the 1432 guidelines, Thuringian sausage makers had to use only the purest, unspoiled meat or face a fine of 24 pfennigs -- a day's wages, a spokesman for the German Bratwurst Museum said on Wednesday. Medieval town markets in Germany had committees charged with monitoring the quality of produce. Historian Hubert Erzmann, 75, found the ancient recipe earlier this year while doing research in an archive in the town of Weimar, museum spokesman Thomas Maeuer said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Murder suspect charged
A suspect wanted over the murder of a female police officer during an armed robbery was extradited from Somalia to Britain after an international search and charged with murder, police said on Thursday. Mustaf Jama, 27, was flown back to England with British detectives after being arrested. He went missing in November 2005 after the murder of Constable Sharon Beshenivsky, 38, in Bradford. Police said he was charged with murder, robbery and weapons offenses. Four others have already been convicted over Beshenivsky's killing. The mother of three children and two stepchildren was shot dead as she answered an alarm at a travel agent on Nov. 18, her youngest daughter's birthday.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Wife serves fecal curry
A Scottish woman has avoided a prison sentence after she admitted to putting dog excrement in her husband's curry. Jill Martin, 47, burst out laughing when her husband Donald started eating the dish at their home in Newton Mearns, Glasgow. She admitted culpable and reckless conduct in May following the incident in March, but was discharged without punishment. Defense lawyer Charlie McCusker said Martin was taking action to battle an alcohol problem. The couple, who were married for 21 years, have now instructed lawyers to begin divorce proceedings, he added.
■ POLAND
Warsaw erects skyscraper
Poland's Jewish leaders have unveiled plans for a glass skyscraper in a neighborhood that was the heart of the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. The building -- projected to rise 207m -- would tower over the elegant Nozyk synagogue, Warsaw's only remaining synagogue. The skyscraper would include a new house of prayer, a kosher restaurant and vast commercial space, giving Warsaw's growing Jewish community a place to expand its activities. The project is a step in the revival of Jewish life in Poland, which was home to Europe's largest Jewish community prior to World War II.
■ MEXICO
Tonnes of cocaine seized
In the biggest cocaine seizure in Mexico's history, authorities found 23 tonnes of it hidden inside containers that had been shipped from Colombia, the government said on Thursday. The cocaine, which was found in a boat docked at the Pacific port of Manzanillo, had been concealed inside two containers, one carrying soap and the other plastic floor tiles. Authorities were searching more containers from the same boat, which arrived from the Colombian port of Buenaventura. This seizure brings the two-month total seized to 39 tonnes.
■ UNITED STATES
Noel becomes hurricane
Tropical Storm Noel, whose rains have killed at least 108 people in the Caribbean, strengthened into a hurricane in the Atlantic on Thursday as it moved away from the Bahamas toward Bermuda, forecasters said. The center of Noel was about 1,300km west-southwest of Bermuda by 8pm and its maximum sustained winds had reached near 120 kph, the US National Hurricane Center said. Noel is now a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest level on the Saffir/Simpson scale. The storm is expected to douse eastern Cuba with another 2.5cm to 5cm of rain, and North Carolina's Outer Banks could receive 2.5cm.
■ UNITED STATES
Docs spark out-of-body stint
Electrodes implanted into the brain to treat a man with a stubborn case of ringing in the ear instead sparked an out-of-body sensation, doctors in Belgium reported in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday. Stimulating the electrodes made the 63-year-old patient feel like he was outside his body twice, for 15 and 21 seconds, and allowed the doctors to use a PET scanner to track which parts of the brain became active during the experience. The out-of-body sensation of near-death experiences, sometimes reported by people whose hearts have stopped for a time, are regarded by some people as evidence of an afterlife. Most scientists are doubtful, especially when epilepsy, migraine headaches, and brain stimulation can mimic the sensation.
■ UNITED STATES
Hiroshima bomb pilot dies
Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died after six decades of steadfastly defending the mission. He was 92. Tibbets died on Thursday at his Columbus home after a two-month decline caused by a variety of health problems, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. Throughout his life, Tibbets seemed more troubled by other people's objections to the bomb than by having led the crew that killed tens of thousands of Japanese in a single stroke. Tibbets grew tired of criticism for delivering the first nuclear weapon used in wartime, telling family and friends that he wanted no funeral service or headstone because he feared a burial site would only give detractors a place to protest.
■ UNITED STATES
Town for sale on eBay
After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up and restore Albert, a 5-hectare town about 80km north of San Antonio, Texas, Bob Cave has decided to sell at a reserve price of US$2.5 million. Now, with the click of a mouse on eBay, Albert could be yours. The town dates to the late 1800s and is now unincorporated. No one lives there, but the tavern that Cave created from the frame of the old general store is open on weekends. There are also a pavilion, an 85-year-old dance hall and a three-bedroom house. The auction closes on Nov. 23.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
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