■INDIA
PM to undergo heart bypass
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to have heart bypass surgery today, his office said in a statement yesterday. The 76-year-old Singh will be “undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery,” the statement said, without giving details on his condition. The prime minister underwent a series of heart tests this week that according to Indian media reports revealed multiple arterial blockages. A hospital source said doctors were “at the moment looking at the removal of two blockages. The rest of the regime will be decided when the surgery is on.”
■SINGAPORE
Fetishist’s sentence upheld
A 14-year prison sentence was upheld against a 37-year-old Singaporean with an urge to sniff and suck the armpits of women he molested, a newspaper reported yesterday. Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong called Mohammed Ismail Arifin a “big risk to society — not only to the adults, but also the young girls” and upheld the prison term imposed in June by a district court on 10 charges, the Straits Times said. But Chan reduced Mohammed Ismail’s caning sentence to 12 strokes from 18 because, Chan said, he did no real violence to his victims. Mohammed Ismail, who was arrested a year ago, was convicted of molesting 23 girls and women ranging in age from nine into their 50s in the lifts and on staircase landings of housing estates and in their homes.
■MALAYSIA
Alleged rapist demands fee
A Malaysian taxi driver was accused of raping a customer several times, then demanding she pay her fare after he took her home, a news report said yesterday. The suspect was accused of picking up a 28-year-old clerk late on Tuesday and driving her to a secluded area in the central state of Selangor before handcuffing her and raping her several times, the New Straits Times daily said. Several hours later, the man drove the woman home, but demanded that she pay the fare on the meter. On the pretense of not having enough cash, the woman went into her home to get the money while the driver waited in his cab. She told her uncle what had happened, and he confronted the suspect, resulting in an exchange of blows and the cab driver speeding off, the report said.
■INDIA
Chats with pilots encouraged
Indian pilots have a new weapon to combat mid-flight fatigue: talking with their cabin crew. India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, has issued some guidelines after recent incidents of pilots dozing off and veering off their flight paths, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported yesterday. The orders instruct cabin crews of all domestic airlines to talk to pilots every half hour to keep them awake, and to keep speaker volume high so that pilots can hear air traffic controllers.
■CHINA
Holidaymakers crushed
A taxi driver and five men traveling home to their families in Hong Kong for the Lunar New Year died yesterday when their vehicle was crushed by a truck. The 41-year-old truck driver, who was reportedly on the wrong side of the road, failed an alcohol breath test after the accident near Hong Kong’s Lok Ma Chau border crossing with China at around 7:30am. The 54-year-old taxi driver and his passengers, five construction workers aged 30 to 47 who had been working in China, were confirmed dead at the scene after their vehicle was dragged for 50m beneath the truck.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Man on trial over peanuts
A factory worker is accused of sprinkling peanuts around a food plant that was supposed to be peanut-free. Paul Bentley is on trial in Nottingham, in central England, for allegedly trying to contaminate goods at the Pork Farms Riverside Bakery in July 2007. The factory makes products for grocers Marks Spencer and Sainsbury’s. Sophie Maughan, a human resources officer at the plant, told jurors on Thursday that the peanut find halted production. Maughan said Bentley became a suspect because he had recently been reprimanded for allegedly pinning up a racy calendar at work and because he was seen near a site where the nuts were discovered.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Mom tried for child smoking
A British woman has pleaded guilty to child cruelty for allowing her three-year-old to smoke in front of her. Prosecutor Jonathan Rees said video taken by a mobile phone showed the small child popping a cigarette into his mouth, lighting it with a lighter and taking a drag. Rees told a court in the Welsh town of Merthyr Tydfil that the boy’s mother, 24-year-old Kelly Marie Pocock, was sitting next to him and talking on the phone at the time. The film was shot by Pocock’s friend, Natasha Dudley, who showed the footage to social workers. Judge John Curran said Thursday it was clear Pocock’s child was a habitual smoker and called the situation appalling. Pocock was given a 40-week suspended sentence.
■GERMANY
Shoplifter caught in lie
A teenager caught shoplifting tried to dupe police by lying about where he lived, but ended up in even more trouble when the address he gave turned out to be the home of an investigating officer. The 18-year-old from Achim, a town in northern Germany, admitted he had lied when the officer explained that the address belonged to him, police in nearby Verden said. “It was complete coincidence,” a police spokesman said. “The thief gave that address because he’d once lived in the house. The policeman was the guy who moved in afterwards.”
■SOUTH AFRICA
Zondi killed, ANC says
The African National Congress (ANC) said that Mbongeleni Zondi, a prominent party member, was “brutally assassinated” on Thursday morning in Umlazi, south of the port city of Durban. The South African Press Association quoted police as saying Zondi’s car was sprayed with automatic weapons fire. The killing is being investigated. The ANC said Zondi was close to party leader Jacob Zuma, who is campaigning for president. Elections are expected in April. The 39-year-old Zondi was a great-grandson of Bambatha, a Zulu chief renowned for leading a brief guerrilla campaign against British colonialists in 1906.
■AUSTRIA
Wet lawmakers urge repairs
After finding their seats drenched by a leak in the parliament’s roof, legislators on Thursday criticized delaying the renovation of the plenary hall because of the current economic crisis. “This is an embarrassment for the republic,” said parliamentarian Erich Tadler of the far-right Alliance for the Future of Austria. Faced with uncomfortably wet chairs and a high level of humidity in the hall, legislators called on the president of parliament to review last week’s decision to halt repairs. Parliamentary President Barbara Prammer had argued that “further economic developments should be monitored” before starting the 25 million euro (US$32 million) renovation.
■UNITED STATES
‘Goth kittens’ cause stir
A woman who marketed “gothic kittens” with ear, neck and tail piercings over the Internet has been charged with animal cruelty and conspiracy. Dog groomer Holly Crawford, 34, was charged on Tuesday by humane officers. Her home outside Wilkes-Barre was raided on Dec. 17 after the authorities received a tip from the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that she was marketing the animals online for hundreds of dollars. Crawford has said she will plead not guilty. Crawford said on Thursday that she didn’t see any difference between piercing a cat and piercing a human.
■UNITED STATES
Failed jumper sentenced
A former TV show host who tried to parachute off the Empire State Building was sentenced on Thursday to probation and community service for the stunt. State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber gave Jeb Corliss three years’ probation and 100 hours of community service. He also said Corliss, of Malibu, California, could fulfill the probation and community service requirements in his home state. Corliss was arrested when he tried to parachute from the 86th-floor observation deck of the 102-story Manhattan landmark in April 2006. Security guards thwarted his stunt when they grabbed him through the bars of a fence he had scaled. Jurors convicted him on a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment. He faced up to a year in jail.
■UNITED STATES
Bank error leads to trial
A Pennsylvania man said he considered it divine providence when a bank error put more than US$175,000 in his and his wife’s account. Randy Pratt, 50, and Melissa Pratt, 36, face trial in Columbia County Court on felony theft and conspiracy charges, the Press Enterprise newspaper reported. The trouble started when a US$1,772.50 deposit to the Pratts’ FNB Bank account showed up as US$177,250 last summer. Police say that they withdrew the money, quit their jobs and moved to Florida. Randy Pratt said he did attempt to ask the bank what happened, but was ignored. He said he considered the money “a gift from God” and that the couple gave away thousands of dollars.
■UNITED STATES
Doll names ‘coincidence’
The company that makes the popular Beanie Babies is hoping for two more big winners with dolls named “Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia.” But, no, the names do not refer to US President Barack Obama’s daughters, a Ty Inc spokeswoman said. Honest! Ty released the 30cm dolls as part of the company’s “TyGirlz Collection.” The Oak Brook-based company chose the names because “they are beautiful names,” not because of any resemblance to Malia and Sasha Obama, spokeswoman Tania Lundeen said. “There’s nothing on the dolls that refers to the Obama girls,” Lundeen said.
■MEXICO
City plans mass kiss
The Mexico City Government is urging people to converge on the huge Zocalo city center and simultaneously kiss on Valentine’s Day. City Tourism Secretary Alejandro Rojas said the goal is to break the world record for the most people kissing at one time. The announcement on Thursday came two days after Guanajuato Mayor Eduardo Romero declared his colonial city in central Mexico the “kissing capital” of the world. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the biggest mass kiss to date came on Sept. 1, 2007, when 6,980 couples smooched in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
DEFIANT: Ukraine and the EU voiced concern that ICC member Mongolia might not execute an international warrant for Putin’s arrest over war crimes in Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin was yesterday visiting Mongolia with no sign that the host country would bow to calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The trip is Putin’s first to a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since it issued the warrant about 18 months ago. Ahead of his visit, Ukraine called on Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the EU expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant. A spokesperson for Putin last week said that the Kremlin
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