■ 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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS