■PHILIPPINES
Mayon Volcano alert raised
Local authorities warned yesterday that Mayon Volcano is showing signs of life and could erupt again soon. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it was raising the 2,460m mountain’s alert status to “moderate unrest” from that of “low-level unrest.” Nearby residents were reminded not to venture into a “permanent danger zone” in a 6km radius from the crater. The zone was also extended to 7km on its southeast flank, which faces Legazpi, a city of 160,000 people. “This alert condition signifies a state of unrest which could lead to ash explosions or eventually to hazardous magmatic eruption,” the institute said.
■MALAYSIA
Singapore tycoon finds son
An ecstatic Singaporean millionaire thinks he has discovered his son in Malaysia after putting out an appeal to be reunited with his long-lost family, a report said yesterday. “I found him! I found him!” Yak Eng Wai, 62, told the Star newspaper after speaking by telephone to a man who was able to provide accurate family details to confirm that he was his 37-year-old son, Ah Teck. Spokesman Tung Kong Ming of the Malaysian Chinese Association, which had publicized Yak’s appeal, said the man had to furnish identification papers to support his claims, but that the wealthy tycoon appeared convinced.
■INDONESIA
Family killed in landslide
A landslide killed a family of five in their homes in West Java province yesterday, police said. The family was killed in the early morning after a cliff collapsed on two houses in Cijeruk district near Bogor city, local police chief Aditiawarman said. “Five people were killed. Two children, an 18-year-old woman, a mother and a grandmother,” he said. “The father survived as he was returning from the mosque after morning prayers [when the landslide happened],” he said. “There was no rain or strong wind whatsoever. It happened all of a sudden early in the morning around 5:30am.”
■MALAYSIA
Police arrest ‘drug mules’
Police have seized almost 5kg of methamphetamines and detained three women — a Thai and two Indonesians— believed to be couriers for an international drug ring, the official Bernama news agency reported yesterday. The trio were arrested on Tuesday during a raid at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, where police discovered the drugs said to be worth 1.25 million ringgit (US$338,000), city police chief Muhammad Sabtu Osman said. “The syndicate was using Malaysia as a transit point before the drugs were smuggled to Indonesia and Thailand,” Bernama quoted Mohammad Sabtu as saying.
■WEATHER
US warns of El Nino’s return
US scientists on Thursday said that the El Nino warming trend of the Pacific Ocean waters has returned, bringing with it almost certain changes in weather patterns around the world. The El Nino climatological effect occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement that the current El Nino was likely to develop further during the next several months, with additional strengthening possible and is expected to last through early next year. The weather system often brings damaging winter storms in California and turbulent weather across the southern US. It has also been associated with severe flooding and mudslides in Central and South America and drought in Indonesia.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Orchestra plays at finish post
A horse racing track asked the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to give a recital at its finishing post, hoping to wow spectators and spur the animals to quicken their pace. Kempton Park race course, just south of London, staged the unique event on Wednesday, as the orchestra played the William Tell Overture during a race. Organizers said it was the first ever race staged with a live soundtrack.
■IRAQ
Base damaged Babylon site
Substantial damage was caused to the ancient city of Babylon by a military base set up there after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, a UNESCO report released on Thursday said. It said that Babylon now needs urgent renovation work. “In view of Babylon’s historical and archeological significance, recent allegations of damage to the site during its military use were particularly serious,” said Mohamed Djelid, director of UNESCO’s Office for Iraq. The damage to the city, considered one of the cradles of human civilization, was carried out by “digging, cutting, scraping and levelling,” when the military base was there from April 2003 to December 2004. UNESCO quoted a 2005 British Museum report as saying that the US action was “tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain. The archeological city was plundered during the war in 2003. Contents of the Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi museums and of the Babylon Library and Archive were stolen and destroyed.”
■CYPRUS
Smoking indoors banned
Lawmakers passed a new law on Thursday banning public smoking indoors in a bid to curb some of the highest levels of passive smoking in Europe. The law bans lighting up in nearly all enclosed spaces. Lawbreakers will face fines of up to 2,000 euros (US$2,780). The law’s passage came after months of political wrangling and vociferous opposition from smokers and organized nightclub and restaurant owners seeking an exemption from the ban amid fears it would drive them to ruin.
■RUSSIA
Diplomat quits after sting
A British diplomat in Russia has resigned after allegedly being filmed having sex with two prostitutes, in a classic sting operation apparently masterminded by the country’s security services. James Hudson quit as deputy consul general in Yekaterinburg after the video — entitled Adventures of Mr Hudson in Russia — mysteriously surfaced on a local Web site. The film appears to show Hudson entering a brothel. He lies down on a sofa, opens a bottle of champagne and cavorts with two blonde women in their underwear. The video then shows him having sex with both women. As well as prostitutes, the Web site accused the diplomat of gambling and taking “light drugs.” The high quality of the video suggests it was not the work of amateurs.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Teacher attacks pupil
A 49-year-old science teacher at a central English school has been arrested on suspicion of the attempted murder of a 14-year-old pupil in a classroom set-to, police confirmed on Thursday. The whole class was said to have been “traumatized” by the incident in which, police said, “a weapon” was used. Reports spoke of the boy having been struck with a weight. He was said to be in serious condition in a hospital following the incident in Mansfield. Police confirmed that science teacher Peter Harvey was being questioned by detectives.
■UNITED STATES
Cemetery workers probed
Workers at a historic Illinois cemetery may have dug up more than 100 bodies and dumped them in mass graves at the back of the 60 hectare property in a scheme to resell plots to unsuspecting customers, authorities said. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said on Wednesday that his office was questioning five employees from Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip. But no charges were announced and investigators were working to determine how many plots might have been resold. The sheriff’s investigation began six weeks ago when the cemetery’s owner reported that an employee who began feeling guilty revealed what allegedly had been going on, possibly for as long as four years, Dart said. Burr Oak is the final resting place of singers Dinah Washington, Willie Dixon and Otis Spann, as well as former world heavyweight boxing champion Ezzard Charles, Harlem Globetrotter Inman Jackson and several Negro League baseball players.
■UNITED STATES
Alleged fawn beater charged
A 75-year-old woman who found a fawn in her flower garden has been accused of beating it to death with a shovel. Dorothy Richardson is charged in a warrant with animal cruelty at her Euclid home near the Cleveland Metroparks Euclid Creek Reservation, a wooded park where deer, foxes and other wildlife roam. Animal control officer Ann Mills requested the warrant. She says “everybody’s very upset” about the fawn’s June 15 death. Richardson told Cleveland’s WKYC-TV she was afraid of the fawn and used a shovel to try to make it move. She said it died she put it in a box and took it to the curb on trash day.
■UNITED STATES
Liberty replica beheaded
A 90kg Statue of Liberty stolen from a New York City coffee shop last month has apparently turned up in a video that shows it blindfolded, beheaded and smashed to pieces. The video includes slogans like “We don’t want your freedom” and “Death to America” flashing in 1980s video game font on the screen, according to the Daily News. The video, staged to resemble a videotaped beheading by terrorists, was posted to YouTube anonymously on July 4. Coffee shop owner Debi Ryan called the theft “un-American.”
■COLOMBIA
Family sees Jackson’s ghost
A family in the town of Malambo told reporters on Thursday that they saw Michael Jackson’s ghost while they were watching the music video of Thriller. The alleged ghost first appeared as a chemical odor and then in a shadow of the singer. “I told one of my children to turn off that video, and my son did not want to do it. I told him again to turn it off, because I could feel Michael Jackson’s presence here with a smell of formaldehyde,” Rocio Salazar told the RCN news. The children reportedly used a cellphone to record video of a shadow that the family believes was Jackson’s apparition. “One of my children told me he saw a shadow behind me, which you can see in the recording,” the woman said.
■UNITED STATES
Toddler hides too well
A Greenville, Pennsylvania, toddler did such a remarkable job of hiding during a game of hide-and-seek that the family had to call police and firefighters to help find her. Two-year-old Natalie Jasmer was playing the game with her siblings on Tuesday. When the family couldn’t find her, her parents called the police. But it was the family dog that finally sniffed her out. She had fallen asleep in a drawer underneath the family’s washing machine.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
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