■HONG KONG
Police to go green
Hong Kong is set to become the second place in the world after Japan to use electric police patrol cars when the first batch enters service later this year, a media report said yesterday. Mitsubishi will initially supply 10 of its iMiEV cars to the territory’s government with three earmarked for police use, the South China Morning Post newspaper said. The others will be used by government departments and agencies. The car, which has zero emissions by using a lithium-ion battery and an electric motor, has a top speed of 130kph and can travel 160km after an eight-hour charge using a household plug.
■AUSTRALIA
Wheel falls off airliner
A nose wheel fell off a Boeing 737 belonging to budget airline Virgin Blue while it was taxiing for takeoff at Melbourne Airport, news reports said yesterday. Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association secretary Steve Purvinas said that Saturday’s incident showed the need for safety checks before all flights. A ground engineer noticed the lost wheel and alerted the pilot. Virgin Blue said it had checked all 737s.
■AUSTRALIA
Man loses it over late lunch
A court has jailed a man who set fire to his own house in a fit of anger after his wife failed to make him lunch, a report said yesterday. Rajah Theivendradas, 54, was jailed for four years over the incident in which he poured petrol on a staircase and set it alight, AAP news agency reported. His wife and daughters, aged 21 and 16, suffered superficial burns as they escaped through the flames, the report said. The court heard Theivendradas had been drinking heavily the day before the incident in May last year and had also had a heated row with one of his daughters.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Lifeguards rescue 40 people
Lifeguards say a dramatic rescue operation saved dozens of children after a sandbank collapsed and plunged 40 people into freezing waters in Wales on Saturday. Three lifeguards led efforts to rescue 36 children and four adults who fell into the sea when the banking was washed away in Tenby. Coast guard officials said on Sunday that the volunteer lifeguards had undoubtedly saved lives. The group had been on a walk, but became stranded on a sandbank that is often swept away as the tide comes in. An air ambulance and two ambulance crews treated several of the group for minor injuries.
■UNITED STATES
Famous name a hindrance
Sharing a name with someone who lives in your area isn’t usually a big deal — unless your name is Neil Armstrong. Thirty-eight-year-old Neil Allen Armstrong, a financial services professional from Symmes Township in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, says he constantly gets calls and packages from autograph seekers, school children and reporters. He tries to explain he’s not the 78-year-old Neil Armstrong who was the first man to walk on the moon and lives in nearby Indian Hills. But people don’t always believe him. Armstrong, the non-astronaut, says he has never met his namesake but would welcome the opportunity.
■RUSSIA
Drunk driver kills four
Four people were killed when a drunk driver plowed into a store in Perm, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday, citing local traffic police. “On Sunday evening the driver of a Mitsubishi car, in a state of alcoholic intoxication, lost control and collided with a store in Perm,” a traffic police spokesman was quoted as saying. The car hit three women and two six-month-old babies, he said. One of the babies, one of the women and two passengers from the vehicle died, while the other victims as well as the driver were admitted to hospital with injuries, Interfax reported.
■ITALY
Five hurt in vigilante clash
At least five people were injured and two arrested after clashes between left and right-wing citizens’ patrols, reviving a controversy over government plans to use the patrols to back up security forces. The fighting occurred late on Saturday in the town of Massa, in Tuscany, when a group of youths called the “Antifascist Proletariat Patrol” took to the streets against the right-wing “SSS,” which has begun patrols. A scuffle broke out between the rival groups and police officers who intervened, leaving at least five people injured, police said. Following the arrest of two of their leaders, members of the left-wing group blocked Massa station for two hours on Sunday and held a demonstration outside police headquarters.
■UNITED STATES
Bird song watchers watched
For years, an unusual event has been held at a Queens park in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of New York City on Sunday afternoons with scant attention from outsiders. Birds whistle songs at each other, as people watch — and keep count. The first bird to tweet a certain number of songs is considered the winner. The bird singing races at the park have drawn increased scrutiny recently from law enforcement, as federal officials target illegal smuggling of finches from Guyana. Authorities also suspect the men bet on the races, which would be illegal. The people who flock to the races, mostly Guyanese immigrants, argue that it is simply a harmless cultural past time.
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
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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