■ HONG KONG
Policeman shoots himself
A police officer assigned to an elite anti-gangster squad has been found dead after shooting himself with his handgun, news reports said yesterday. Yau Chak-ping (邱澤炳), 39, who worked for the organized crime and triad unit, was found unconscious by his wife on Friday. He was lying on the floor of his study with his gun next to him, had a gunshot wound to his chest and was confirmed dead at a hospital. Police said yesterday that investigations into his death were ongoing, but news reports said Yau had shot himself.
■ NORTH KOREA
Pyongyang decries attacks
Pyongyang has condemned the attacks in India’s financial capital that have claimed more than 150 lives. Kim Yong-nam, the country’s No. 2 leader and ceremonial head of state, has expressed deep condolences for the victims of the attacks in Mumbai and their families, according to a Friday report by the North’s Korean Central News Agency. It said Kim sent a message to India’s president saying Pyongyang opposes “strongly condemns this inhuman terrorist deed.”
■ NEW ZEALAND
No activist, whaler rescues
Wellington will not be able to quickly rescue anyone who gets lost or hurt if clashes erupt between activists and Japanese whalers off the north Antarctic coast, the foreign minister said yesterday. The fleet left Japan earlier this month and is expected to focus its hunt in the Ross Sea, where the country is responsible for search-and-rescue missions under international law. Animal rights group Sea Shepherd has vowed to disrupt the hunt. If someone is hurt in a confrontation between whalers and protesters, they will have to depend on other ships in the area for help, Foreign Minister Murray McCully said.
■ GERMANY
Russian sailors detained
Police say they have they arrested two Russian sailors at the Frankfurt airport after they drank an entire bottle of vodka and harassed passengers on a flight from Houston, Texas. Frankfurt police say the two men smoked cigarettes in the plane’s bathroom and frightened fellow passengers before the flight crew ordered them to stay in their seats. The sailors responded by polishing off the two-liter bottle they bought in Texas and repeatedly attempting to use their mobile phones — forbidden during flight. Police arrested the men on the tarmac on Tuesday. One was promptly released after paying a fine and admitting that he caused a disturbance. The other refused and was ordered before a judge. Police would not say which airline operated the flight.
■ EUROPE
Romanian gang arrested
French and Romanian police said on Friday they had arrested five people in a probe into the killing of a son of Chadian President Idriss Deby. Four people were arrested in the Paris region on Wednesday, a Paris police official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of agency policy. The four were being presented before a judge in Nanterre, east of Paris, on Friday and were expected to be handed preliminary charges in an investigation for “murder in an organized gang,” judicial officials said.
■ KENYA
Elephant victim wins claim
The high court on Friday awarded a British woman 65 million shillings (US$820,000) in damages after she was attacked and seriously wounded by an elephant in a local ranch in 2000. Wendy Martin, 48, was repeatedly gored by the rogue elephant in Il Ngwesi Ranch while she, two friends and a guide were taking part in a bush run. She was initially left for dead. “Its tusks went into her body with the full weight of it on her,” judge Mary Ang’awa said in her judgement. “The elephant struck her with its tusks twice. She fell and the tusks went directly through her torso, twice through her right leg. Her kidney was removed. The tusk went through her back.” Anga’wa said that Martin’s pelvis was crushed as the elephant dragged her.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Flip-flops for drunks
Volunteers will hand out free flip-flops to intoxicated partygoers hobbling home on high heels, police in the resort area of Torbay said on Friday. Partygoers who’ve lost their shoes or can’t make their way home safely in stilettos or platforms will receive the government-funded footwear as part of a program intended to reduce the impact of drunken behavior on the area’s police and emergency services, Inspector Adrian Leisk said. Torbay, a seaside resort on England’s southwest coast, is popular with vacationers and the waterfront can attract as many as 10,000 people on weekend nights over the summer, Leisk said.
■ RUSSIA
Suspected rebels killed
Police in two provinces of the restive Caucasus region are reporting shootouts in which suspected rebels were killed. They say two insurgents died outside the capital of Chechnya and another in the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria. Both gunfights took place on Friday evening. Troops have fought two wars with separatist rebels in Chechnya since the mid-1990s and small clashes still occur, even though major offensives ended early this decade. The Chechen insurgency is seen as inspiring separatists and criminals in adjacent Caucasus republics such as Kabardino-Balkaria.
■ BERMUDA
Naturalist in flap over bills
The nation’s plan to feature a local bird on its new currency has become an ornithological faux pas. They put the wrong bill on the bird on the $50 bill. Bermuda plans to introduce a colorful new line of notes next year. But one of Bermuda’s most prominent naturalists says that the new $50 note features the red-billed tropicbird instead of the local white-tailed tropicbird. Ornithologist David Wingate says he is appalled to see a bird that does not nest in Bermuda and has rarely been spotted on the island. Monetary officials apologized on Thursday for the error. But they say the red bill of the larger bird looks better against the pale yellow background than the orange of the local bird and won’t change the note.
■ UNITED STATES
No more living in truck
A radio station had to make two contestants an offer they couldn’t refuse in order to get them to quit a game to win a new car. Tommy Kempfer and Lisa Thompson had been living in a truck, hoping to outlast the other to win a new US$30,000 vehicle from WMAD-FM in Madison, Wisconsin. After 55 days, the station became concerned that the contest would never end. On Tuesday, the station offered the two a compromise: End the contest and receive US$10,000 toward the purchase of a car, among other prizes, or continue with the runner-up receiving nothing. Within 15 minutes, both agreed to the deal. “Both of us were ready to go home,” Kempfer said, “but we didn’t want to leave with nothing after you put in that much time.”
■ UNITED STATES
Strange standoff ends
A standoff at a bank in New Jersey is over after police learned a “person” seen inside was actually a full-size cardboard figure. Officers went to the PNC Bank in Montgomery Township on Thursday night after an alarm went off. They saw what they thought was at least one person through the windows of the bank, which had its blinds drawn. The area was sealed off and three nearby apartment buildings were evacuated as a precaution. Authorities used bullhorns and made telephone calls in a bid to make contact with whoever might be in the bank. After getting no response, a SWAT team entered the building and discovered the cardboard figure. It was not immediately clear what set off the bank alarm.
■ UNITED STATES
Space Shuttle undocks
Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of seven departed the international space station on Friday, ending a 12-day visit that left the orbiting complex with more modern living quarters for bigger crews. Endeavour pulled away as the two spacecraft soared 350km above the Pacific. The shuttle is due back on Earth today having dropped off an extra bathroom, kitchen and bedrooms, and a new recycling system designed to turn astronauts’ urine and sweat into drinking water. The processor needed some work before it finally started producing recycled urine.
■ UNITED STATES
‘Obama cookie’ proves a hit
Want an example of the change Barack Obama is bringing? Check out cookie sales at Baby Boomers Cafe in Des Moines, Iowa. Ever since word spread about the Obama family’s fondness for Baby Boomers’ chocolate chunk cookies, the small downtown restaurant can’t bake them fast enough. “Two months ago I was giving these cookies away,” said co-owner Rodney Maxfield. “Now, it’s like, ‘I need two dozen cookies. I need four-dozen cookies.’”
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
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