■INDONESIA
Liquor suspected in deaths
Twenty-five people including four foreigners have died over the past two weeks, possibly after drinking homemade liquor laced with methanol on the islands of Bali and Lombok, officials said on Tuesday. Police spokesman Gde Sugianyar said 20 others fell ill and were hospitalized after consuming arak, a home-brewed rice liquor. Two people have been detained in connection with the poisonings, he said. Blood and urine samples have been sent to the National Police Laboratory in Denpasar to determine the exact cause of their death.
■PHILIPPINES
Bomb kills soldier, civilian
Suspected Muslim rebels detonated a bomb at a creek where troops were washing their laundry yesterday, killing a soldier and a civilian woman and wounding four others. Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce blamed Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas. Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said it was not clear whether guerrillas or residents angry at losing their homes in military operations were involved. The blast hit near a creek in Maguindanao Province as soldiers were washing their clothes not far from a military detachment. The homemade bomb was remotely detonated using a cellphone.
■CHINA
Milk stations shut down
Authorities have shut down nearly 4,000 milk collection stations for failing to meet safety standards since tainted milk products were blamed for sickening hundreds of thousands of babies and killing six children, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The government has inspected all of the country’s 20,393 milk collection stations since last November, the China Dairy Industry Association said. Authorities found that 3,908 lacked testing equipment or were not sanitary, it said. Milk collection stations were found to be the weak link that caused milk contaminated with melamine to be sold on the market. “All the working milk stations have been under close supervision,” the association said.
■PAKISTAN
Students still missing
Around 40 students from an army-run boarding school were still believed to be in Taliban captivity yesterday, one day after the military said all those kidnapped had been rescued, officials said. “More than 40 students and two teachers are still missing,” said Sardar Mohammad Abbas, an official in the town of Bannu where the students had been headed. Tribal elders were mediating with the militants to secure their release, he said. A convoy of about 30 vehicles carrying staff and students from the college at the start of summer holidays was ambushed on Monday.
■CHINA
Woman arrested in murders
A woman has been detained for allegedly killing a couple by putting poison in their table salt, which then sickened 82 people who attended their funeral, state media said yesterday. Wu Fang, 28, is alleged to have added a highly toxic chemical called thallium sulfate to her neighbors’ table salt in April over a real estate feud, Xinhua news agency quoted local police as saying. Wang Shunai died in Laiwu, Shandong Province, on May 7 and her husband passed away a few days later, Xinhua said. Around 90 people attended Wang’s funeral and had lunch at the victims’ house, where they also consumed the poisoned salt. Eighty-two fell sick, of which 22 were hospitalized, Xinhua said.
■POLAND
Smuggled tortoises found
Customs at the Ukrainian border on Tuesday found 121 Central Asian tortoises, a threatened species, bound so tightly in black tape that their heads could barely squeeze out from their shells. Customs spokeswoman Malgorzata Eisenberger said officers arrested a 34-year-old Ukrainian man allegedly attempting to cross the border with the animals. The 121 tortoises were destined for markets in Poland where they sell for 200 Polish zlotys (US$62) to people who generally want them as pets — a much higher price that they would get in impoverished Ukraine, she said. Eisenberger said a customs sniffer dog discovered the tortoises bound with black tape and stacked in a converted gasoline tank of the suspect’s car.
■ISRAEL
Woman survives train
A woman laid herself between the tracks just before a train roared through a crossing in an apparent suicide attempt. But seconds after the train passed, she got up and walked away almost unhurt. The incredible scene was captured on the closed circuit security TV system at the Kfar Vitkin level crossing in the north. The video shows the woman calmly approaching the tracks and lying down between them. The train passes over her at high speed, and then she gets up, picks up her shoes and walks to her car. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Tuesday that two days after the bizarre event, police had yet to find the woman. Rosenfeld speculated that she was attempting suicide or mentally unbalanced.
■AUSTRIA
Sikh guru’s funeral held
Some 100 Indians attended a funeral service on Tuesday for a Sikh guru who was killed in an attack in a Vienna temple, amid a heavy police presence to prevent any new violence. The mourners, who came from across Europe, lined up at Vienna’s central cemetery to pay their last respects to Sant Rama Nand, 57, whose shooting on May 24 sparked riots in India’s Punjab state. There were no incidents at the funeral, where the guru rested in an open casket. His body will be flown to India where he is set to receive a state funeral, but Austrian police said no date has been set for his transfer.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Shoe thrower cleared
A German student who threw his shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) during a lecture at Cambridge University earlier this year has been cleared of any crime. District Judge Ken Sheraton told Martin Jahnke on Tuesday that there was not enough evidence to convict him of a public order offense, but warned Jahnke to watch his behavior in future. Jahnke, 27, disrupted Wen’s speech on Feb. 2 when he blew a whistle, accused the Chinese leader of being a dictator and hurled his left sneaker at the premier. The shoe missed its target. But the incident ruffled feathers in China.
■RUSSIA
Savvy burglars arrested
Police have arrested two men who staged audacious robberies in a chic Moscow suburb near the presidential palace after studying satellite images of the area on Google, a newspaper said on Tuesday. The men had minutely pored over street pictures hosted on Google Maps and on May 21 raided several homes in the Barvikha district, including those of lawmakers and businessmen. They used night vision goggles and broke into mansions, opening safes and spiriting away cash, jewelry and designer watches.
■CHILE
Police find cocaine luggage
Police say two suitcases carried by a woman who was about to fly from Chile to Spain were made of cocaine. Detective Leandro Morales at the Santiago airport said the drug “was not hidden in the luggage. This time the suitcases were the drug.” Morales said that the suitcases were made of cocaine with resin and glass fiber. The 26-year-old Argentine woman was arrested.
■MEXICO
Drug deaths down this year
President Felipe Calderon, who is fighting a fierce campaign against drug traffickers, said on Tuesday that the country’s drug war deaths were down this year compared with last year. The Mexican president said killings had dropped in some of the most volatile states from last year, when some 5,300 people died nationwide in suspected drug murders in a sharp increase from the previous year. Murders fell 80 percent in Baja California, 30 percent in Chihuahua and Sinaloa, Calderon said. Media reports said more than 2,400 people have died in drug-related violence this year, while the attorney general’s office said deaths were down 20 percent compared with the same period last year, without giving a figure.
■UNITED STATES
Roeder charged in killing
A Kansas man was charged on Tuesday with gunning down one of the few doctors to provide late-term abortions in the US. Scott Roeder, 51, was ordered held without bond ahead of a preliminary hearing set for June 16 when he will enter a formal plea in response to charges of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. Roeder was arrested about three hours after George Tiller was shot to death in the foyer of his Wichita, Kansas, church at around 10am on Sunday. District Attorney Nola Foulston told reporters the crime did not qualify under Kansas law as a death penalty case.
■UNITED STATES
Obama praises France
US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday people in the US love all things French and acknowledged his own penchant for Gallic food and wines. In his first interview with a French television channel, Obama heaped praise on the country in an apparent attempt to stamp out any lingering tensions sparked by France’s opposition to the US’ 2003 invasion of Iraq. “France is one of the most important countries in the world,” the president told I-Tele and Canal Plus, days ahead of a trip to France, where he is wildly popular. He said French collaboration was crucial to solving the world’s problems, from climate change to the global recession. Obama also spoke enthusiastically about French President Nicolas Sarkozy, with whom he said he had a “wonderful relationship.”
■UNITED STATES
US welcomes Iranians
In a new overture to Iran, the administration of US President Barack Obama has authorized US embassies around the world to invite Iranian officials to Independence Day parties they host on or around July 4. A State Department cable sent to all US embassies and consulates late last week said that US diplomats could ask their Iranian counterparts to attend the festivities, which feature speeches about US values, fireworks and, of course, hot dogs and hamburgers. Generally those invited include officials from the host government, diplomats from friendly countries and US expatriates. In the past, the US has excluded a short list of pariah nations such as Myanmar and North Korea from such invitation lists.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
FIREWALLS: ‘Democracy doesn’t mean that the loud minority is automatically right,’ the German defense minister said following the US vice president’s remarks US Vice President JD Vance met the leader of a German far-right party during a visit to Munich, Germany, on Friday, nine days before a German election. During his visit he lectured European leaders about the state of democracy and said there is no place for “firewalls.” Vance met with Alice Weidel, the coleader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, his office said. Mainstream German parties say they would not work with the party. That stance is often referred to as a “firewall.” Polls put AfD in second place going into the