■JAPAN
Elderly urged not to drive
Elderly people in Tokyo who surrender their driver's licences will soon enjoy perks when they go to department stores or order pizza, police said on Wednesday. Tokyo police will next month launch the novel campaign in hopes of reducing the number of elderly motorists who should not be driving. "Please think about returning your licence when you start feeling worried or your family is concerned about your driving," says a leaflet to be handed out. The number of casualties in traffic accidents has declined in recent years thanks to a nationwide campaign against drink driving. But the number of crashes involving drivers aged 70 or older has jumped by 30 percent in Tokyo over the past six years, police said. A total of 39 places plan to offer benefits to elderly people who agree not to drive.
■ AUSTRALIA
Dodgy drinks canned
Two of the country's biggest brewers will end production of "energy" drinks with caffeine and high-alcohol content because of growing concerns over binge drinking. The Australian National Council on Drugs reported last month that 20 percent of 16-year-olds drink at harmful levels in any given week, while one in 200 children aged 12 also drink at harmful levels. The legal age for drinking alcohol is 18. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last week announced a A$53 million (US$48 million) campaign to end an epidemic of binge drinking. The National Drug Research Institute estimates that one teenager dies and more than 60 are hospitalized each week from alcohol-related causes. Brewers Foster's and Lion Nathan both said yesterday they would voluntarily stop manufacturing and marketing alcoholic beverages containing "energy" additives such as caffeine and taurine.
■ THAILAND
Transsexuals in the clear
The military will stop branding transsexual conscripts as mentally disturbed, and will list them in a new "third category" as neither male nor female, a senior officer said on Wednesday. Men are required to report for the draft once they turn 21. Under the current system, transsexuals are rejected as suffering from "a mental disorder." Gay rights groups complained that the label penalizes transsexuals for the rest of their lives, because men are required to prove if they have completed their national service when they apply for jobs or bank loans. When transsexuals submit their military rejection forms declaring they have a mental disorder, they are automatically disqualified from many jobs and mortgages.
■ RUSSIA
Nine killed in Chechnya
Nine people died in armed clashes between security forces and rebels in the war-torn south Russian region of Chechnya, which has been relatively calm in recent years, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday. Five security officers, three separatists and a passerby were killed during the gunbattle in the Urus-Martanovskiy District on Wednesday night, Interfax reported. "A group of 10 to 15 militants were discovered in a wood on the outskirts of the village of Alkhazurovo ... An armed clash took place with law enforcement officers," a security source was quoted as saying by Interfax. The local resident was shot dead by escaping separatists when they fired on his car, agencies reported.
■ RUSSIA
SU-25 pilot dies in crash
An SU-25 strike aircraft crashed on Thursday in the Primoria region, killing its pilot, local news agencies reported. The local radio of the emergency situations ministry confirmed the plane crash report, saying the accident happened above a military range near Lake Khanka during a training flight. First reports said the plane exploded in the air. The air force temporarily grounded all SU-25 flights following the crash, Ria Novosti reported.
■ COMOROS
AU troops arrive
A first detachment of 300 troops mandated by the African Union to support Comoran forces seeking to oust Anjouan's renegade leader arrived on Thursday on the island of Moheli, an Agence France-Presse journalist reported. Comoran Defense Minister Mohamed Bacar Dossar said earlier that the troops were Tanzanian and Sudanese. Hundreds of Comoran troops stationed in Moheli had been awaiting reinforcements ahead of a planned military operation against Anjouan's renegade ruler Mohamed Bacar. Tanzania and Sudan are two of four African countries that have pledged to support the operation on Anjouan. Senegalese troops were also expected in Moroni on Thursday.
■ RUSSIA
House votes to return art
The lower house voted on Wednesday to return six 14th century stained glass panels from a church in Germany that were seized after World War II. Lawmakers in the State Duma voted 345-57 in favor of a bill that would see the return of the panels to the Marienkirche in Frankfurt, Germany. In 2002, Russia returned 111 stained-glass panels from the same church. They had been held in the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg. Authorities later discovered that Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts held six more panels from the 20m-high altar, which were among the items Germany most wanted returned as the church marked its 750th anniversary in 2003.
■ SAUDI ARABIA
Women-only hotel opens
The nation's first hotel exclusively for females opened on Wednesday, offering plush lodgings with a full-range of health and beauty facilities for ladies to pamper themselves away from the accusing eyes of a male-dominated society. "Inside this physical structure, we are all women. We even have bell-women. We are women-owned, women-managed and women-run, from our IT engineer to our electrical engineer," executive director Lorraine Coutinho said. "This is meeting a very big demand. There are women's hotels all over the world, from Berlin to the United States to everywhere.
■ CANADA
Dead fly `ruins' sex life
A man who found a dead fly in his bottled water is claiming before the high court that the incident ruined his sex life, hair salon business and even made it hard for him to shower. Waddah Mustapha of Windsor, Ontario, said in court documents that he and his wife saw a dead fly, and later half of another dead fly, in an unopened bottle of drinking water delivered to their home in November 2001. The couple was cleaning the bottle's neck before opening it and so did not drink any of its contents. Still, Mustapha claims he suffered from "major depression, anxiety, specific phobias and obsessional thoughts flowing from seeing the dead flies in the bottle water."
■ MEXICO
Music band attacked
Gunmen opened fire on a band playing at a dance in the southern state of Guerrero, killing the singer and wounding three band members, in the latest in a series of killings of musicians, authorities said on Wednesday. The assailants opened fire as the band played on Tuesday night in the town of Quechultenango and then fled. Nicolas Villanueva, 38, lead vocalist for the tropical musical group Brisas del Mar, died from more than 20 bullet wounds, the Guerrero state Public Safety Department said. Fellow band members Gaudencio Contreras, 21, Jose Santos Galeana, 17, and Alberto Nava Venegas, 13, were wounded.
■ UNITED STATES
Wife's voice found
An 80-year-old man can hear his late wife's voice again, any time he wants. The Verizon telecommunications company has recovered a lost message recorded by Charles Whiting's wife, Catherine, before her death in 2005. When Verizon upgraded his telephone service, his wife's voice saying "Catherine Whiting" disappeared from his voicemail. Charles Whiting says he listened to it every day for comfort. Company spokesman John Bonomo said on Tuesday that a contractor found the recording in an archive and restored it. Charles Whiting says he is very happy.
■ UNITED STATES
Junkyard killer held
A gunman who opened fire at an auto wrecking yard killed his father, who owned the business, and three others before dropping the weapon and trying to flee over a fence, police said. Panicked customers fled the busy yard on Tuesday as the gunman shot his victims at close range, police said. The shootings were "very deliberate" and the suspect likely reloaded at least once, police Chief Danny Macagni said on Wednesday. Lee Isaac Bedwell Leeds, 31, of Santa Maria, California, was booked for investigation of murder and was held without bail. It was not known if Leeds had retained an attorney.
■ UNITED STATES
Attack sparks evacuations
The State Department is offering free flights out of Yemen to non-essential diplomats and family members after three mortars hit a school near the US embassy in Sanaa. "The Department of State authorized the voluntary departure for embassy employees and eligible family members after several explosions targeted the embassy compound on March 18," the State Department said on Wednesday in an advisory warning against travel to Yemen. "The security threat level remains high due to terrorist activities in Yemen," it said. Thirteen girls and five Yemeni soldiers were wounded in Tuesday's attack near the US mission in the Yemeni capital.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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