■HONG KONG
Psychiatrist visits rising
The number of people seeking psychiatric help has risen since the onset of the economic crisis, a leading doctor said yesterday. Patient numbers have risen by between 20 percent and 30 percent since last October, mental health specialist Lee Wing-king told state-run radio station RTHK. Separately, a survey by the Democratic Alliance political party found that 80 percent of people in the territory had suffered from insomnia or mood disorders because of the downturn. The territory slipped into a technical recession at the end of last year.
■AUSTRALIA
Pope-mobile case dropped
Police have given up trying to prosecute civil libertarian Ian Bryce for driving around in Sydney in a fake pope-mobile during the real pope’s visit in July for World Youth Day. Charges were dropped yesterday after the police case collapsed for a fourth time. A Sydney judge dismissed the case. “It was against the pope’s claims to have supernatural authority and all the harm he’s doing in the world in banning condoms and trying to avoid family planning,” Bryce said. “And now he’s said that gays are an equal threat to mankind as climate change, and I can’t for the life of me see what harm they’re doing anyone.” Police alleged the modified car was a distraction for other motorists. Bryce had fitted an illuminated canopy to the roof with a mannequin dressed as the pope inside.
■MALAYSIA
Welfare limit to be dropped
An official says the government will scrap a rule that denies state welfare to poor people if they own a TV set or cable connection at home. Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said assets such as a TV and refrigerator were no longer an indication of wealth. Her comments were reported yesterday by the New Straits Times daily. Shahrizat’s announcement follows a Times report that several disabled people did not receive aid after welfare workers found out they owned TVs.
■INDONESIA
Priest and wife murdered
An elderly Christian priest and his wife were hacked to death with machetes, police said yesterday. Frans Koagow, 64, and his wife, Femy Kumendong, 73, were found dead in the priest’s home in Manado city, North Sulawesi, on Saturday, provincial police spokesman Benny Bella said. “The priest was cut from behind in the neck while his wife was cut in the head while she lay down sick with a stroke,” Bella said. “The priest had been squatting down to tie his shoes when he was attacked ... there was no time for him to fight back.” Bella said police were looking for suspects but were unsure how many people were involved in the attack.
■SOUTH KOREA
Police stop suicide attempt
Police said yesterday they had foiled an Internet-based group suicide attempt, as media reports warned that the practice was spreading. Five people who had agreed online to kill themselves were stopped by police at a Seoul hotel on Sunday, Seodaemun district police said in a statement. The group were allowed to return home, but police said one may face a charge of abetting suicide since he opened a Web site on the subject. Aiding or encouraging suicide is punishable by up to 10 years in jail. Police said they were cracking down on “suicide” Web sites. The country had 18.7 suicides per 100,000 people in 2007.
■SWITZERLAND
Swiss ban naked hiking
Voters in the heart of the Swiss Alps on Sunday passed legislation banning naked hiking after dozens of mostly German nudists started rambling through their picturesque region. By a show of hands citizens of the tiny canton of Appenzell Inner Rhodes voted overwhelmingly at their traditional open-air annual assembly to impose a 200 Swiss franc (US$176) fine on violators. Only a scattering of people on Sunday opposed the ban on the back-to-nature activity that took off last autumn when naked hikers started showing up in eastern Switzerland. The cantonal government recommended the ban after citizens objected to encountering walkers wearing nothing but hiking boots and socks. “The reactions of the population have shown that such appearances over a large area are perceived as thoroughly disturbing and irritating,” the government said in a statement.
■NIGERIA
British oil worker released
A British oil worker kidnapped two weeks ago in southeastern Nigeria has been released, police spokeswoman Rita Abbey said. The oil worker, who wasn’t identified, was released at about 6pm on Sunday, Abbey said from Port Harcourt. “We are not aware if any ransom was paid,” Abbey said. A one-and-a-half-year-old girl was also released on Friday after being kidnapped from her parents’ home five days earlier, Abbey said. The baby, identified only as Angel, was rescued by authorities in Bori, about 25km east of Port Harcourt. Angel was found in the house of a woman who had been taken into custody, Abbey said.
■YEMEN
Marines capture 11 pirates
Yemeni forces have freed an oil tanker seized off Yemen’s coast and arrested 11 pirates on board, the defense ministry said yesterday. The empty Yemeni oil tanker, Qana, was captured on Sunday, sparking a battle with Yemeni marine troops in which two pirates were killed and one wounded. Two Yemeni coast guards were wounded in the clash. “Yemeni forces have freed an oil tanker that was hijacked by pirates on Sunday and 11 pirates were arrested,” a statement on the defense ministry’s Web site said, without giving details of how and when the ship was freed.
■RUSSIA
Cop goes on shooting spree
An off-duty police chief opened fire in a supermarket in southern Moscow yesterday morning, killing at least two people and wounding seven. “During the night Denis Yevsyukov had a fight with his wife and had a nervous breakdown,” a city police spokeswoman said, adding that he then went on a shooting spree in the shop, randomly spraying bullets at passers by. The spokeswoman said two people were killed and seven wounded, while Russian media reported Yevsyukov killed three and wounded six. It was not immediately clear what kind of weapon he used, the spokeswoman said. Russian news agencies reported Yevsyukov was celebrating his 32nd birthday in a cafe with his wife and father-in-law before he became enraged and started shooting.
■FRANCE
Cult leader in daring escape
A cult leader jailed for sex attacks on children escaped in a helicopter from a prison on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion yesterday, the regional administration said. Juliano Verbard, who was serving a 15-year term for rapes and sex assaults on children, and two of his jailed followers were hauled on board a hijacked tourist chopper by accomplices, local paper Le Quotidien reported.
■CHILE
Prison fire kills at least 10
At least 10 people were killed on Sunday when a fire broke out at a prison outside Santiago, said the director of the security force that oversees prisons. Three people were also seriously injured in the blaze, which was ignited during a fight between rival gangs of inmates, said Alejandro Jimenez, head of the Gendarmes. Local radio reported that all the dead were inmates. Jimenez said one group of prisoners threw fuel into the communal cell where rival inmates were holed up. The fuel likely came from small, portable stoves the inmates are allowed to have, he said.
■IRAN
Jailed journalist ‘very weak’
An American journalist jailed for allegedly spying for the US is vowing to remain on a hunger strike until she is freed even though she is “very weak,” her father said yesterday. Roxana Saberi, who was been on a hunger strike for a week, was sentenced to eight years in prison after a one-day trial behind closed doors. Her parents said they brought her flowers on Sunday — her birthday — and were able to visit her again yesterday. “Roxana is very weak and pale. She has been on a hunger strike for a week now,” her father, Reza Saberi, said. He said he tried to persuade his daughter to end her hunger strike but she refused.
■COLOMBIA
Kidnapping report issued
Eighty-seven people have been abducted since the beginning of the year, although only 10 remain hostages, Bogota’s official anti-kidnap agency said. The 10 are included in the 125 still being held, mostly by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, the Fondelibertad agency said in a report. Fifty of those taken hostage this year have been released through the intervention of security forces, four had been killed by their captors, 14 were released in exchange for ransoms and nine had escaped, Fondelibertad director Hernan Henao said. He said 63 of the kidnappings were carried out as part of “regular” crimes, 16 people were abducted by FARC, five by “criminal gangs” and three by the National Liberation Army.
■UNITED STATES
Ex-student shoots two
A former Hampton University student armed with three guns followed a pizza delivery man into the student’s former dorm on Sunday, shot the delivery man and a dorm monitor, then turned the gun on himself, officials at the Virginia university said. All three survived. Both victims and the alleged shooter were expected to recover. Officials could offer no motive for the shooting. The 18-year-old former student apparently parked his car off campus to avoid a vehicle checkpoint, then followed the delivery man on foot and inside a freshman dormitory. Once inside, he shot the pizza man and entered the monitor’s office and fired three shots at him, then shot himself, Hampton University Police Chief Leroy Crosby said.
■UNITED STATES
Nuclear plant shut down
The operator of the country’s oldest nuclear power plant has manually shut down its reactor after equipment failed on one of its two transformers. Officials at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey say Saturday night’s shutdown occurred without incident. But they won’t say how long it’s expected to last or when repairs will be completed at the facility in Lacey Township. Plant spokesman David Benson says the shutdown caused no risk to the public.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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