■NEW ZEALAND
Swine flu no excuse for DWI
A woman had a novel defense when she appeared in court on a charge of driving while intoxicated (DWI): It was swine flu’s fault. Business manager Deborah Karen Graham sought clemency for the charge in Queenstown on Monday, saying the three glasses of wine she had consumed were more potent because she was recovering from the virus. Judge Kevin Phillips was having none of it: “Swine flu seems to be the ‘in’ submission for everything at the moment. I reject all that.” He fined Graham US$360 and disqualified her from driving for six months. The country has been hard hit by swine flu, with 2,662 confirmed cases reported, including 14 deaths.
■HONG KONG
Murderer sentenced to life
A man who killed a teenage prostitute before cutting up her body and leaving some of the remains at a butcher’s has been sentenced to life, a judicial spokeswoman said yesterday. Transportation worker Ting Kai-tai, 24, was found guilty by a unanimous verdict at the High Court on Monday of murdering the 16-year-old, the spokeswoman said. Jailing Ting, Judge Alan Wright described the crime as “barbaric,” the English-language daily the Standard reported. “The fact we had to sit and listen to what you did was the worst experience ever imaginable,” Wright was quoted as saying. “It would be no exaggeration to say your conduct was barbaric. You killed a 16-year-old and you disposed of her body in a most horrendous way.” Ting told police following his arrest last year that he had killed Wong Ka-mui after having sex with her in his apartment in April last year. He pleaded not guilty, saying he had been under the influence of drugs and had no recollection of killing the girl.
■AUSTRALIA
Women rescued from toilet
A woman was stuck in her toilet for a week before neighbors heard her cries for help, officials said yesterday. The 67-year-old Queensland woman was found on Sunday, seven days after she became trapped, officials said. “Firefighters accessed the woman and freed her. Paramedics treated the woman and transported her to Ipswich Hospital,” they said. She was very dehydrated but conscious, officials said. Rescuers had trouble reaching the woman because she was so tightly wedged by the toilet, with a foot stuck on either side.
■AUSTRALIA
Ski jump fells octogenarian
An 80-year-old man broke his hip while attempting a 2m ski jump at Mount Buller in Victoria state on Sunday, but says life is “too short” to skip the slopes. Ambulance Victoria flight paramedic Steve Grove says the man has been a regular skier at since the 1950s. The man was airlifted off the mountain and taken to a hospital in Melbourne for treatment. Grove says when he asked him why he was still skiing at 80, the man replied simply: “Life is too short.”
■CAMBODIA
Activists slam ‘AIDS colony’
AIDS campaigners and rights groups protested yesterday over the government’s shunting of HIV sufferers into an unsanitary “AIDS colony” outside Phnom Penh. More than 100 international and domestic pressure groups told Prime Minister Hun Sen and Health Minister Mam Bunheng in a letter they were “deeply disturbed” by the government’s treatment of 40 HIV-affected families. Over the past two months the government has evicted the families from Phnom Penh to live in metal sheds without running water or adequate sanitation at Tuol Sambo, 25km from the capital, the letter said.
■SRI LANKA
Cellphones banned in school
The government has banned students from taking mobile phones to school following the suicide of a teenager disciplined for using her telephone, an education ministry spokesman said yesterday. All schools were ordered to impose the ban after a 14-year-old girl — reprimanded over telephone contact with a boy during school last week — hanged herself, the spokesman said. Another student from the same school in the capital Colombo attempted suicide after receiving a similar reprimand. “Bringing mobile phones to school will now be considered unacceptable and teachers will make sure that no students takes a phone to class,” the spokesman said. More than half the country’s 20 million population use mobile phones and several networks offer special packages aimed at students.
■FRANCE
Oxygen prevents cancer
Men who regularly do heart-pounding exercise are less likely to develop cancer, a study said yesterday. The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that the key factor in the reduced risk of cancer was a higher rate of oxygen consumption. A team of researchers from the universities of Kuopio and Oulu in Finland studied the leisure-time physical activity over a 12-month period of 2,560 men between 42 and 61 years old with no history of cancer. Over an average follow-up period of 16 years, 181 of the subjects died from cancer, mostly of the stomach or intestines, lungs, prostate and brain. Using an intensity scale for physical exercise that measured “metabolic units” of oxygen consumption, the scientists found that the men who exercised for at least 30 minutes a day were half as likely to get cancer as those who did not.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Model charged with bigamy
A former model who wed five men without divorcing any of them was handed a suspended jail sentence on Monday by a court after being charged with bigamy. Emily Horne, 30, married four men by the age of 23, changing her name on marriage certificates to avoid detection, a court in Manchester heard. Horne, a former glamour model who had roles in adult movies, only told husband No. 5 that she was already married when they set off on their honeymoon in 2007. Judge Mushtaq Khokhar described Horne as a “manipulative woman” who had “undermined the institution of marriage.” But the judge said he had decided not to jail her because she had made progress in the last six months since being prescribed medication for a personality disorder. Horne, who has bipolar disorder, was handed a 10-month suspended prison sentence after admitting to bigamy at an earlier court hearing.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Bomb prankster sentenced
A teenager who phoned the White House and claimed as part of a “drunken prank” that there was a bomb in the center of New York escaped jail on Monday. Thomas Hutchinson, 19, from Sheffield, northern England, made a “giggling” call to the White House switchboard after drinking with friends at a barbecue in May and claimed there was a bomb in Madison Square Garden. The operator pressed a malicious call trace button and it was found to have been made in Britain. Prosecutor Stephen Acaster said there was great concern when the call was first received but it was soon realized it was a hoax and Madison Square Garden was not evacuated. A court gave him a six-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months. He was ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work.
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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