■ PAKISTA
Music shops bombed
Bombs ripped through several music and video shops yesterday, wounding at least three people, officials said. The injuries occurred when a blast hit a CD and video shop in the main bazaar of the garrison town of Kohat, which has seen several attacks in recent months blamed on Pakistani Taliban militants. Bombs destroyed two dozen businesses, including around eight music shops, in Miranshah, the main town in the tribal-ruled Taliban stronghold of North Waziristan, officials and residents said.
■INDONESIA
‘Blue Energy’ is just diesel
A plan backed by Indonesia’s president to turn water into cheap and limitless energy has run aground, with tests showing the wonder fuel is diesel, a report said on Tuesday. Government scientists revealed that tests on “Blue Energy,” purportedly made from water, showed it was diesel from state oil company Pertamina, the Jakarta Post reported. The energy “breakthrough” grabbed headlines after its inventor, Joko Suprapto, managed to convince President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono he could separate hydrogen from water and turn it into diesel. The plan was exhibited at the UN climate change conference in Bali in December with the president’s blessing.
■JAPAN
Kids ‘foreign’ no longer
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny nationality to children born out of wedlock to foreign mothers, saying it was discriminatory to consider the parents’ marital status. The ruling, which ended years of court battles, could lead to citizenship for hundreds of “illegitimate” children in Japan, which is home to many foreign entertainers.
■ UNITED STATES
Team claims bird flu break
Hong Kong researchers are claiming a breakthrough in bird flu treatment with a cocktail of drugs they say may be effective in treating the virus in humans. Their findings were published yesterday in the US science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers claim the cocktail increased survival rates by fourfold when tested on mice infected with H5N1. The cocktail includes an antiviral called zanamivir, or Relenza, and two anti-inflammatory agents celecoxib and mesalazine. They say the antiviral agent successfully suppressed the virus while the other two drugs reduced the effects of the so-called “cytokine storm” — the severe immune response triggered by the virus that can kill H5N1 patients. The team said it was the first breakthrough in 10 years and the first time a treatment had worked on mice when treatment was delayed for more than 48 hours.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Gas stations target thieves
Gas station owners are turning to tire-spikes to stop drivers from escaping without paying. When a car attempts to move away from the pump without paying, a sensor will alert the cashier to activate the device. Red lights flashing warning signs and loudspeaker announcements alert drivers that their tires will be destroyed if they attempt to leave. The spikes, embedded at the entrance as well as the exit, spring up and penetrate the rear wheels, deflating them in about 10 seconds. The system leaves a metal tube with a unique identification number embedded in the tire, allowing police to link the vehicle with the theft. The system was invented by Jaginda Singh, whose family-owned gas station was almost driven out of business by fuel thefts, the Times said.
■NETHERLANDS
Mooning eclipsed by window
Utrecht police say a 21-year-old Dutch man is recovering after a “mooning” on Sunday morning that went horribly wrong. The man and two others had run down a street with their pants pulled down in the back “for a joke.” At one point the 21-year-old “pushed his behind against the window of a restaurant” that broke and resulted in “deep wounds to his derriere,” the police said in a statement on Tuesday. The trio were detained after the incident, but cafe owner decided not to press charges after the men agreed to pay for the broken window.
■SPAIN
Police criteria questioned
Medical experts are urging the government to revise the list of reasons for exclusion from the Civil Guard police force, which for men include having a high-pitched voice or just one testicle, a newspaper said on Tuesday. Candidates who suffer from psoriasis, stuttering, diabetes, migraine or sexually transmitted diseases can also be rejected, El Pais said. “It is possible to reject a candidate with a benign tumor, a scar or a deformity that affects his looks,” the newspaper said. It cited the case of a man who was refused entry in 2003 due to a birthmark on his face, which officials said would make him too recognizable.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Oranges are too much fuss
Britons are too busy to eat oranges in their lunch breaks nowadays and are opting instead for “easy to peel” fruit like satsumas, a survey found. For the third year in a row, orange consumption has fallen. It was down 2 percent at some 600 million compared with the previous year, market researchers TNS said. Consumption of satsumas rose 35 percent over the past year to about 460 million.
■ UNITED STATE
Man tackles robber
The young woman probably thought the 71-year-old man, whose friend was in a wheelchair, would make an easy target. She was wrong. Harry Kopenis chased and tackled the 22-year-old woman he says robbed him at a cash machine in Kingston, Pennsylvania. Then, with help from his friend in a wheelchair, he held her until police arrived. Police charged Erin Vanmatre with robbery, harassment and other offenses. Vanmatre, who was on probation for conspiracy to commit theft, was locked up on US$10,000 bail. It wasn’t clear if she had an attorney. Kopenis said he was not sure how he was able to catch Vanmatre, considering he suffered a stroke five years ago and is on various prescription medications. He pointed to the sky and said, “It was a source up there who gave me the energy.”
■BRAZIL
Criminal loses luxury cell
With a plasma TV, a DVD player, US$172,000 in cash, gym equipment, two refrigerators and a couple of guns, Genilson Lino da Silva had everything he needed for a luxurious life — in his prison cell. It came to an end on Monday when his cell was raided in a police operation in Salvador against drug traffickers. Officials said Da Silva was serving time as the biggest drug trafficker in Bahia state. He was reported as saying the money in his cell was from old robberies and gambling in prison. “We will investigate if the leaders of the prison were conniving in this,” said Paulo Gomes, a state prosecutor.
■UNITED STATES
Drugs found in tacos
A corrections officer who had been making frequent takeout food deliveries to the county jail was caught sneaking syringes inside tacos and marijuana under chili, authorities said. Jordan Michael Waller, 25, tried to enter the Miller County jail with three pizzas at 3am on Saturday, said Mike Liles, a county investigator. Twenty minutes later, Waller brought in what appeared to be a large bag containing chili and tacos, Liles said. A jail sergeant became suspicious, searched the food and found marijuana that had been formed into three round patties under some chili and a couple of syringes inside tacos. Waller was searched and found to also be carrying methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, Liles said.
■UNITED STATES
Actor Ferrer passes away
Actor and filmmaker Mel Ferrer, who was once married to Audrey Hepburn, has died in California at age 90, a family spokesman said on Tuesday. “Mel Ferrer passed away yesterday morning at the family ranch in Carpinteria,” in California’s Santa Barbara region 150km north of Los Angeles, family spokesman Mike Mena said. Born in 1917 in New Jersey of a Cuban father and a US mother, Ferrer made his debut on Broadway in 1938, after studying at Princeton University. He also edited a Vermont newspaper, wrote a children’s book and rose to become a producer and director in radio and television before his acting debut on screen in Lost Boundaries in 1949. After serving as an assistant to director John Ford on the film The Fugitive, he directed several movies, including Green Mansions in 1959 with Anthony Perkins and Audrey Hepburn, whom he wed in 1954, his fourth of five wives. He also produced the hit Wait Until Dark in 1967, which starred Hepburn. His marriage with Hepburn ended the next year. They had one child, Sean, born in 1960.
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
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
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