■ AUSTRALIA
Lesbians get life sentences
Two lesbian lovers, one whom drank blood as part of a vampire culture, were sentenced to life in prison yesterday for what a judge said was the "evil" killing of a girl they bludgeoned to death with a concrete block. Jessica Stasinowsky, 21, and Valerie Parashumti, 19, pleaded guilty to murdering 16-year-old Stacey Mitchell in Perth in 2006 because she was annoying. Judge Peter Blaxell said the murder was "sexually perverse" and "evil," after the court was told the two women became sexually aroused as they battered the girl and then kissed while standing over her body as she lay dying.
■ AUSTRALIA
Socialite jailed for four years
A Swedish-born socialite was jailed yesterday for nearly four years for plotting to murder two witnesses in her boyfriend's drug trial. Charlotte Lindstrom, 23, who was a regular in the social pages of Sydney's papers, had pleaded guilty and agreed to give evidence against others involved in the case. She was accused of offering A$200,000 dollars (US$185,000) to an undercover policeman to kill two men who were scheduled to give evidence against her boyfriend Steven Spaliviero.
■ CHINA
Taxi gang detained
Police have broken up a Shanghai-based taxi gang accused of ripping off foreigners, state media reported yesterday. Eight members have been detained for allegedly blackmailing 13 passengers and stealing 50,000 yuan (US$7,000) in cash or goods, the China Daily said. The drivers are suspected of charging extremely high prices and then robbing or intimidating passengers that refused to pay. Complaints were first made in 2006, including one where a passenger paid US$1,000 for a ride that should have cost around 50 yuan, the report said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Welsh can write to EU
The people of Wales will be able to pen letters to the EU in their ancient tongue from later this year when Welsh is added to the EU's linguistic lexicon. The British government has agreed to make Welsh a "co-official language" in EU institutions, a spokesman for the Welsh Assembly said, prompting critics to say the translation money could be better spent. Wales sees Spain as a model. Three regional languages, Catalan, Galician and Basque, have "co-official" status. This means citizens can write to and receive a reply from the EU's council of member states, the European Parliament and the European Commission in their own language.
■ FRANCE
Dying not allowed here
The mayor of Sarpourenx has issued a decree banning residents from dying in his territory unless they own a spot in the overcrowded cemetery and warned of "severe punishment" for offenders. Mayor Gerard Lalanne said he had taken the radical measure to protest against a legal ruling preventing him from enlarging the burial ground in the village of 260 people. "The first dead person to come along, I'll send him to the state's representative," he said. Lalane said he had been inspired by the mayor of the village of Cugnaux, which had also outlawed death as a protest last year and thus won the right to enlarge the village's cemetery.
■ FRANCE
Girl fined for letter to mom
A letter sent by a 13-year-old girl in Macon to her late mother, addressed to "Paradise Street, Heaven," was returned to the sender with a postage fine slapped on, the Journal de Saone-et-Loire newspaper said on Thursday. On the second anniversary of her mother's death, Anais wanted to send her a "message of love, like a bottle in the ocean," the report said. But two days after she sent it, marked with her mother's name but no stamp, it was returned as a mistaken address -- along with a 1.35 euro (US$2) fine for unpaid postage. The post office said there really was a town in the area called Ciel, or Heaven, but the street was unknown.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Bottled water banned
The government said on Thursday it would ban bottled water at meetings and other official business, just weeks after a minister said shunning tap water was morally questionable. Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell wrote "to the head of every government department suggesting they should replace bought-in bottled water with tap water for all meetings in future," a statement said. A number of departments, including the environment and business ministries, have already stopped using bottled water at meetings, but the new extended policy is expected to come into effect later this year, the statement said.
■ GERMANY
Monk caught with porn
A Benedictine monk has been caught with about 230 pornographic films in his room in a monastery in Bavaria, the Abendzeitung newspaper reported on Thursday. The discovery was made after the monk was caught trying to steal four gay pornography DVDs from a sex shop in Wuerzburg, the paper said. After an assistant caught him stealing the films, the 49-year-old fled, throwing his loot in a rubbish bin before being caught by police. The monk lives at the 900-year-old Maria Laach Abbey in Rhineland-Palatinate.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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