■THAILAND
U2 backs Aung San Suu Kyi
As U2 begins its world tour, the rock band is turning a spotlight on Myanmar’s jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. On its Web site and on stage, U2 is asking fans to wear an Aung San Suu Kyi mask in support of the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner. “Wear it to work or college. Wear it on the bus or the train. Wear it in the pub or at shops. And don’t forget. Bring it to a U2 show,” the band says on its official Web site. A mask of Aung San Suu Kyi’s smiling face can be downloaded and printed and appears inside the program for the band’s “360 degree” tour, which opened earlier this week in Barcelona.
■JAPAN
Aso’s popularity plunges
Public support for Prime Minister Taro Aso has plunged below 20 percent as his party faces losing its grip on power in upcoming elections, a poll showed yesterday. The rating of 19.7 percent was down from 22.9 percent last month and is the third consecutive decline, the Yomiuri Shimbun said in its latest snapshot of voter sentiment. On Wednesday, Aso named two new Cabinet ministers as he explores ways to improve his sagging popularity ahead of elections that he must call by September. But the poll showed 56 percent of respondents did not support the move, which was backed by just 16 percent of those questioned.
■AUSTRALIA
First elephant born in Sydney
Locals yesterday welcomed the first elephant ever born in the country with the arrival of a 100kg male calf at a Sydney zoo, keepers said. The calf, yet to be named, was born at the harborside Taronga Zoo just after 3am to a 12-year-old Asian elephant named Thong Dee, the zoo’s director Guy Cooper said. Thong Dee, formerly a Bangkok street elephant, was surprised by the birth, and needed to be calmed before she could be introduced to her son, said Cooper, adding that the calf was conceived naturally with the bull Gung under the zoo’s breeding program. She greeted her baby by touching his trunk and he soon tried to suckle, which Cooper said was a good sign.
■NEW ZEALAND
Chinese man arrested
A Chinese businessman said to be friendly with a number of members of parliament has been arrested and charged with immigration and passport offenses, a newspaper reported yesterday. Yong Ming Yan — also known as Bill Liu, Yang Liu and William Yan — was arrested on June 27 as he was about to board a plane to leave the country, the Weekend Herald reported. He subsequently appeared in court on 12 charges alleging he made false declarations on his immigration papers, had false passports and used deception to gain New Zealand citizenship.
■THAILAND
Bangkok buys up elephants
In a bid to rid Bangkok of its elephant population, city authorities have offered to buy the wandering pachyderms from their owners and send them back to the jungle, a media report said yesterday. Under the new project, mahouts have been encouraged to sell their wards to the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, a charity that releases domesticated pachyderms into forest reserves, the Bangkok Post said. The foundation currently has enough funds to buy about 18 elephants, if priced between 500,000 baht (US$14,492) to 1 million baht. Donations are being sought to raise its elephant purchase budget.
■RUSSIA
Chechen police killed
At least seven members of the Chechen police force were killed yesterday when their car came under fire in Ingushetia, news agencies reported. Interfax news agency quoted security sources as saying that seven police had been killed while the RIA-Novosti and ITAR-TASS agencies said that eight had lost their lives. The vehicle came under grenade and gun fire as it was traveling on a road in Ingushetia at about 5:30am and burst into flames, the news agencies said. The Chechen police were in Ingushetia to conduct a joint special operation against militants with their Ingush colleagues, the reports said.
■ISRAEL
Origin of shell probed
The military was investigating whether a teenage Palestinian girl killed in the Gaza Strip was hit by a Palestinian or an Israeli mortar shell, an army spokeswoman said on Friday. “We are running through the checking procedures and checking all the evidence in the case,” the spokeswoman said. The girl was killed by a shell that exploded in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Thursday. Military officials said an initial investigation showed she was probably killed by a misfired mortar launched by Palestinian militants during clashes with soldiers near a border crossing in the area. A Palestinian doctor who examined fragments from the body told Reuters he could not identify their source. Palestinian hospital workers said three other people were wounded when the shell struck near a house in al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
■SPAIN
Zeppelin escape plan fails
Police foiled a plot to use a zeppelin to help a prisoner break out of jail, the Interior Ministry said on Friday. Investigators found a package sent from Italy containing sophisticated escape equipment that was to have been smuggled into the hilltop Salto del Negro prison on the Canary Island of Las Palmas using a 4m electrically controlled dirigible. The breakout had been planned for Tuesday, a day before the detainee, whose name was given as “Giulio B,” was scheduled to appear in court on charges of drug trafficking. Three helpers had set up a camouflaged observation tent on a promontory 600m away from the prison and spent month monitoring jail workers’ movements with high power wide-angle binoculars. They also were protected with electronic movement sensors to warn of people approaching. The helpers were also in possession of maps of the prison and handwritten letters sent by Giulio B.
■GERMANY
‘Generous’ barman jailed
A barman was jailed on Friday for serving at least 44 shots of tequila to a 16-year-old boy during a faked drinking contest that killed the teenager, Berlin’s state court said on Friday. The 28-year-old barman gave himself glasses of water, but served the teenager with alcohol during the drinking bout the pair had in February 2007. After about an hour the youngster fell into a coma and died five weeks later. The bartender, who admitted his guilt, was sentenced to three years and five months in jail for causing grievous bodily harm with fatal consequences. Two other bar staff who were involved in tricking the dead teenager were convicted at an earlier trial of causing grievous bodily harm. They were sentenced to receive social training for 10 months, while a third bartender at that trial was acquitted. The case triggered a national debate over teenage alcohol abuse and the danger of “flat-rate” binge-drinking parties where customers pay a one-off entry fee and are served unlimited strong spirits all night.
■MEXICO
Police find mummy
Police found a mummified corpse and four other dead bodies on a farm in the drug-plagued western state of Michoacan on Friday. Four of the bodies were found in an unmarked grave, and the fifth was discovered inside a farmhouse in the small town of Coatepec de Morelos, federal prosecutors said in a statement. The completely mummified corpse, which was found sitting in a chair, had apparently been dead for some time and was desiccated by the dry air. Investigators also found a weapons cache, camouflage military uniforms and scattered human bones. Forensic experts were investigating the identities, times and causes of death, officials said.
■PUERTO RICO
Woman burnt in healing
A self-described spiritual healer accidentally dropped a candle into a tub where a client was bathing in alcohol on Friday, leaving her with burns over half her body, police said. The victim, 28-year-old Stephanie Rodriguez Pizarro, sought the spiritual treatment because of marital and financial troubles, said Maria del Pilar Bon, the police spokeswoman in San Juan. The woman was hospitalized in serious condition on Friday afternoon. The healer, Jose Cadiz Tapia, 46, was also taken to the hospital for burns on his arms and torso after he tried to help the woman.
■DOMINICAN
Plane forced to return
Air France says a flight has been forced to return to a Dominican airport because of technical problems with its air conditioning. Paris-bound Air France Flight 493 had been airborne for about 20 minutes late Thursday when the pilot noticed a technical problem and returned to the Caribbean capital. Air France spokeswoman Maria Esther Velasquez said the Boeing 777 had a problem with its air conditioning system. The passengers aboard were taken to nearby hotels to await later flights to Paris.
■UNITED STATES
Pachyderms beat humans
In the fight of pachyderms versus people — the pachyderms now have the upper trunk. Three circus elephants scored a decisive victory over three human competitive eaters at a cross-species eating contest on Friday, chomping down 505 hot dog buns in six minutes. The humans forced down only 143 buns in the bout at Brooklyn’s Coney Island. The humans were Eric “Badlands” Booker, the world champion in corned beef hash eating; Juliet Lee, the world cranberry sauce champion; and Tim “Gravy” Brown, whose claim to fame is having eaten 3.84kg of blueberry pie in an eight-minute, handsfree competition. Contest organizers called the results a “setback for humanity.”
■UNITED STATES
Statue of Liberty reopens
The Statue of Liberty was to reopen yesterday after being closed for more than seven years after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The reopening of Lady Liberty, who has greeted millions of immigrants to the US as they entered New York Harbor, was to coincide with the celebration of US Independence Day. Access to Liberty Island and the inside of the Statue of Liberty was totally closed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks owing to security concerns. US national park officials have gradually allowed more access, first to the island and later to the lower storeys of the statue. But the climb up through Liberty’s robe and into the crown had been totally closed to visitors until its reopening yesterday.
‘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
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
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
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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