■SOUTH KOREA
Game marks start of war
Seoul normally publicity-shy intelligence agency is creating a stir among liberal groups with a “spot the spy” flash video game offering a variety of prizes. The National Intelligence Service is hosting the game on its Web site to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950. The game, which started on June 22 and runs to July 21, challenges users to pick out spies and those who sympathize with communist North Korea. The first stage invites users to identify suspicious characters in a crowded park. One figure is shown holding a placard reading “Love Kim Il-sung,” the North’s founding president who died in 1994.
■CHINA
Police battle prostitution
Police have launched a nationwide “strike-hard” campaign against prostitution that will last until the 60th anniversary of communist rule on Oct. 1, state press reported yesterday. The campaign will target providers of paid sex services at night clubs, bathhouses, barber shops and hotels, and will seek to crack down on those that force women into prostitution, the Global Times reported. The campaign comes after a waitress was convicted this month of using “excessive force” when she stabbed to death a local government official who tried to force her into having sex at a bathhouse in central China’s Hubei Province last month. Although convicted of the killing, the girl was not sentenced to prison time and was released amid a public uproar over the brash and corrupt lifestyles of Chinese officials.
■NEW ZEALAND
Marksmen kill gunman
A wheelchair-bound gunman was shot dead by police marksmen after he injured two people in a shooting spree in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, police said yesterday. Shayne Sime, 42, was shot and killed late on Sunday night, after he fired more than 100 shots indiscriminately from a shotgun and rifle in his quiet suburban street, police said. The man was believed to have been drinking earlier on Sunday and had contacted family to say he was feeling suicidal, they said.
■CHINA
Activists rescue cats
Animal activists in Shanghai rescued 300 cats from a dealer who had bought the allegedly stolen pets for sale to restaurants, state media reported yesterday. The activists found 22 bamboo cages full of cats in a freight yard, from where they were to be shipped to Guangdong Province, the Shanghai Daily reported. Most of the animals were returned to their owners, the report said. Restaurants pay about 50 yuan (US$7.30) a cat, the report said. Police detained the cat dealer, Yang Baoguo (楊寶過), after he battled dozens of animal lovers who tried to break his cages. The dealer was released after a few hours without charge because the country has no animal protection laws.
■VIETNAM
Ordnance death toll rises
Unexploded ordnance left over from the Vietnam War has killed more than 42,000 people in the country since the conflict ended more than three decades ago, and deadly accidents continue daily, a senior military official said yesterday. US forces used 13.6 million tonnes of bombs and ammunition during the war and an estimated 725,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance still contaminates 20 percent of the country’s area, Vice Defense Minister Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Huy Hieu wrote in the state-run People’s Army newspaper.
■GERMANY
Some wish Wall never fell
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, nearly one in five east Germans wish it had never come down and preferred living under a communist regime, a survey released yesterday showed. According to the poll by the Institute for Market Research in Leipzig for Super Illu magazine, 17 percent of people in the ex-communist east agreed with the statement: “It would have been better if the Wall had never fallen.” “In hindsight, the GDR with its socialism was a better state,” these people said, referring to the former communist regime. In addition, over half of easterners (52 percent) said they felt like “second-class German citizens,” compared with 41 percent who felt they were treated equally. Despite this, 72 percent of people said they were “happy to live in the reunified Germany with its social market economy despite all problems there have been rebuilding the east.” The poll surveyed 1,001 people in the former East Germany as well as in East Berlin.
■SWEDEN
Moose meander through city
Early risers in Sweden’s second largest city, Gothenburg, were treated to the rare sight of two young moose meandering in parts of the downtown area on Sunday morning, the Svenska Dagbladet daily reported yesterday. The two animals were seen around 8am ambling along a public footpath near the university campus. They were later spotted in the proximity of a hamburger restaurant not far from the central station. Local residents alerted the police about the moose, believed to be year-old calves. Police officers were dispatched to ensure that the two moose did not suffer any harm until they found refuge in a nearby park area.
■UGANDA
Calf raises hopes for future
The first baby rhino to be born in Uganda for decades has raised hopes for the future of an animal that was wiped out during the bloody regime of former dictator Idi Amin, officials said yesterday. A 10-year-old female Rhino called “Nandi” — one of four donated to Uganda by the Disney Animal Kingdom — gave birth last week, the New Vision newspaper quoted officials as saying. “The calf is three days old, but the mother is too protective,” Angie Genade, the executive director of Rhino Fund Uganda, said. “So, it is difficult to get close to them to establish its gender.” Rhinos were eliminated from the country soon after Amin assumed power in 1971 when military officers and poachers rampaged through national parks killing the animals with impunity.
■ITALY
Europe’s oldest person dies
The oldest person in Europe, Lucia Lauria, died on Sunday at the age of 113 in the village where she was born, news agency ANSA reported. Lauria passed away in Pietrapertosa, in the southern Basilicata region of Italy, aged 113, three months and 24 days. She returned several days ago to the village where she was born on March 4, 1896, and died early on Sunday. Lauria is survived by two children, both aged over 80, one who used to spend part of the year with her and a second who emigrated to the US. She was considered the oldest living person in continental Europe. Frenchwoman Eugenie Blanchard is actually several weeks older than Lauria, but lives in Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France in the Caribbean. The crown of oldest living person in Europe now passes to an Englishwoman, 113-year-old Florrie Baldwin, who was born on March 31, 1896, according to a ranking compiled by the Gerontology Research Group.
■URUGUAY
Vazquez, Mujica win vote
A former guerrilla fighter and a rightist former president will go head-to-head in the presidential election in October following primaries on Sunday, unofficial exit polls showed. Polls showed that Jose Mujica, a folksy senator and ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, won between 52 percent and 54 percent of his party’s vote, putting him in pole position to succeed Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez, a moderate leftist who is barred from seeking a second term under the Constitution. He will challenge center-right former president Luis Lacalle. The polls said Lacalle won the opposition conservative party primary with between 54 percent and 57 percent support.
■UNITED STATES
Mounted unit disbanded
The clip-clop of police horses will no longer be heard on Boston streets. The nation’s first Mounted Unit, which dates back to 1873, will be disbanded today because of budget cuts, its 12 horses given new homes — at least until the city can come up with funds to restore the unit. Five horses will be leased to the New York City Police Department, four are going to the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office and three are being returned to their former owners. The 10 officers assigned to the unit will be redeployed to other districts in the city. Police Commissioner Ed Davis told the Boston City Council he had to choose between animals and people in the budget, and chose to keep people.
■UNITED STATES
Girl flees kidnapper
A six-year-old Massachusetts girl riding her bicycle was kidnapped by a neighbor who tried to rape her, but she managed to escape from his apartment despite being in leg shackles, a state prosecutor said. The girl’s mother reported her missing at about 1:30pm, about a half-hour after she had left her home to ride her bike, authorities said. Officers found the girl outside an apartment complex in Hanover during a door-to-door search, and she led them to the apartment where she was taken, Cruz said. Police then entered the apartment and arrested Justin Shine, 26, after a struggle, Cruz said. He was charged with kidnapping, attempted rape, assault and resisting arrest.
■UNITED STATES
Man recants killer story
The man who has long claimed that a southern New Jersey rabbi hired him to kill his wife in 1994 has now recanted his story. Private investigator Len Jenoff previously testified that Fred Neulander hired him to kill his wife inside the couple’s home in the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill so the rabbi could carry on an affair. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Sunday that Jenoff had recanted in an affidavit filed by Neulander’s court-appointed attorney, who is seeking a new trial for the rabbi. Neulander, who is serving a life term, has maintained Jenoff and a second man killed his wife during a robbery. Jenoff is serving a 23-year sentence after pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter and agreeing to cooperate with authorities.
■UNITED STATES
Bear steals chocolates
Sheriff deputies say a bear with an apparent sweet tooth broke into a San Bernardino County home in California and gobbled up a box of chocolates from a couple’s refrigerator. Sergeant Tom Alsky says the couple arrived home on Saturday afternoon, found the bear chowing down in their kitchen and phoned for help. The bear fled before the deputies arrived. Alsky said the bear also tried to open a bottle of champagne but was not successful.
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
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
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