■ CANDA
Harper warns of pullout
PHOTO: REUTERS
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has notified US President George W. Bush that Canada will end its military mission in Afghanistan if another NATO country does not put more soldiers in the dangerous south, officials said. Harper spokeswoman Sandra Buckler said Harper talked to Bush on Wednesday about a report by an independent panel, which recommended last week that Canada continue its mission only if another NATO country musters 1,000 troops for Kandahar. Harper's Conservative government is under pressure to withdraw its 2,500 troops from Kandahar Province, the former Taliban stronghold, after the deaths of 78 Canadian soldiers and a diplomat.
■ UNITED STATES
Teen forced into prostitution
A police detective and a woman forced a 13-year-old runaway to work as a prostitute at parties around the city, telling her that if she tried to escape the officer would make her sell herself on the streets, prosecutors said. Wayne Taylor, 35, and Zelika Brown, 29, were arrested on charges of kidnapping, promoting prostitution, assault and endangering the welfare of a child, the Queens district attorney's office said Wednesday. Taylor, a 14-year New York Police Department member assigned to the housing bureau, was suspended without pay, the department said. Both he and Brown pleaded not guilty on Wednesday.
■ UNITED STATES
Thousands of bats dying off
Bats are dying off by the thousands as they hibernate in caves and mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to find the cause of a mysterious condition dubbed "white nose syndrome." The ailment -- named for the white circle of fungus found around the noses of affected bats -- was first noticed last January in four caves west of Albany. It has now spread to eight hibernation sites in the state and another in Vermont. Alan Hicks, a bat specialist with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, called the quick-spreading disorder the "gravest threat" to bats he had ever seen.
■ UNITED STATES
Nurse admits to trafficking
A nurse admitted he cut body parts from 244 corpses and helped forge paperwork so the parts, some of them diseased, could be used in unsuspecting patients. Authorities say nurse Lee Cruceta was the lead cutter in a group that trafficked in more than 1,000 stolen body parts for the lucrative transplant market. Among the bodies looted was that of "Masterpiece Theater" host Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004. Cooke's daughter and relatives of the other deceased people say they never authorized any donations. Cruceta pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiracy, taking part in a corrupt organization, abuse of a corpse and 244 counts each of theft and forgery.
■ UNITED STATES
Madonna still top of the pops
Pop star Madonna is still the material girl, earning US$72 million in a recent 12-month period to top a Forbes.com list of female singers whom the financial Web site dubbed "Cash Queens of Music." Madonna, who rose to recording superstardom in the 1980s as the "Material Girl" after her hit song of that name, beat out Barbra Streisand, who was No. 2 with annual earnings of US$60 million, and Celine Dion at US$45 million, according to Forbes.com.
■ RUSSIA
Observers issue warning
European election observers warned on Wednesday that they might once again refuse to take part in a Russian election, saying the government was still imposing unacceptable restrictions on their work. The observers, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said the Russians would not allow them into the country until a few days before the presidential election, on March 2, making it impossible for them to assess the campaign. A spokesman for the observers said that the mission had asked officials this week to reconsider and let monitoring begin sooner, and that if the Russians did not agree, the mission would be canceled.
■ BELGIUM
Toilet paper causes stink
Judges, prosecutors and other court officials in Bruges were told on Tuesday to bring their own toilet paper due to a protest by the supplier, a government spokesman said. The suppliers to the courts had stopped making deliveries due to what they said were unpaid arrears of several thousand euros. An emergency supply of twenty rolls was delivered on Tuesday, but the company warned that normal service would not be resumed until the bills were paid. "This might seem to be a minor problem, but in fact it's an important issue. The public justice service, which condemns people for not paying their bills, is guilty of the same thing," said Leo De Bock, spokesman for Belgian justice minister Jo Vandeurzen. "This is a problem inherited from the last government and it is not acceptable," said the spokesman for Vandeurzen.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Pilot breaks down mid-air
The co-pilot of a London-Heathrow bound passenger flight had to be dragged from the cockpit and handcuffed after suffering an apparent mental breakdown in mid-air, it emerged yesterday on Wednesday. Passengers on the Air Canada flight from Toronto to London said the co-pilot was restrained after yelling and "invoking God" while at the controls of the Boeing 767 plane. The flight was forced to make an emergency diversion to Ireland's Shannon airport early on Monday and the unnamed crew member was taken to a nearby psychiatric unit. Sean Finucane, one of 146 passengers on board, said the co-pilot was carried into the cabin with his hands and ankles cuffed after he was restrained by cabin crew and a passenger, reported to be an off-duty Canadian soldier. It is understood that crew first became concerned less than an hour before they were due to arrive at Heathrow, when the pilot began "speaking loudly to himself and acting in a peculiar fashion," according to one source.
■ FRANCE
Sarkozy, Bruni sue Ryanair
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his friend Carla Bruni are suing Irish airline Ryanair over an advertisement featuring her daydreaming about a wedding, their lawyer said on Wednesday. Thierry Herzog told reporters that Sarkozy wanted a symbolic 1 euro (US$1.48) in damages, while Bruni, a former supermodel, was seeking 500,000 euros. "A photo of Carla Bruni costs 500,000 euros," Herzog was quoted as telling Le Monde daily, explaining that her fame as a model meant she could command large sums for advertising. A Paris court was due to hear the case yesterday. The advert, which ran in Le Parisien newspaper on Monday, features a photo of the pair in an advertisement for cut-price tickets.
■ RUSSIA
Observers issue warning
European election observers warned on Wednesday that they might once again refuse to take part in a Russian election, saying the government was still imposing unacceptable restrictions on their work. The observers, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said the Russians would not allow them into the country until a few days before the presidential election, on March 2, making it impossible for them to assess the campaign. A spokesman for the observers said that the mission had asked officials this week to reconsider and let monitoring begin sooner, and that if the Russians did not agree, the mission would be canceled.
■ BELGIUM
Toilet paper causes stink
Judges, prosecutors and other court officials in Bruges were told on Tuesday to bring their own toilet paper due to a protest by the supplier, a government spokesman said. The suppliers to the courts had stopped making deliveries due to what they said were unpaid arrears of several thousand euros. An emergency supply of twenty rolls was delivered on Tuesday, but the company warned that normal service would not be resumed until the bills were paid. "This might seem to be a minor problem, but in fact it's an important issue. The public justice service, which condemns people for not paying their bills, is guilty of the same thing," said Leo De Bock, spokesman for Belgian justice minister Jo Vandeurzen. "This is a problem inherited from the last government and it is not acceptable," said the spokesman for Vandeurzen.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Pilot breaks down mid-air
The co-pilot of a London-Heathrow bound passenger flight had to be dragged from the cockpit and handcuffed after suffering an apparent mental breakdown in mid-air, it emerged yesterday on Wednesday. Passengers on the Air Canada flight from Toronto to London said the co-pilot was restrained after yelling and "invoking God" while at the controls of the Boeing 767 plane. The flight was forced to make an emergency diversion to Ireland's Shannon airport early on Monday and the unnamed crew member was taken to a nearby psychiatric unit. Sean Finucane, one of 146 passengers on board, said the co-pilot was carried into the cabin with his hands and ankles cuffed after he was restrained by cabin crew and a passenger, reported to be an off-duty Canadian soldier. It is understood that crew first became concerned less than an hour before they were due to arrive at Heathrow, when the pilot began "speaking loudly to himself and acting in a peculiar fashion," according to one source.
■ FRANCE
Sarkozy, Bruni sue Ryanair
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his friend Carla Bruni are suing Irish airline Ryanair over an advertisement featuring her daydreaming about a wedding, their lawyer said on Wednesday. Thierry Herzog told reporters that Sarkozy wanted a symbolic 1 euro (US$1.48) in damages, while Bruni, a former supermodel, was seeking 500,000 euros. "A photo of Carla Bruni costs 500,000 euros," Herzog was quoted as telling Le Monde daily, explaining that her fame as a model meant she could command large sums for advertising. A Paris court was due to hear the case yesterday. The advert, which ran in Le Parisien newspaper on Monday, features a photo of the pair in an advertisement for cut-price tickets.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
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
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
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
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