■TONGA
Searchers find sunken ferry
Searchers believe they have found the wreck of a Tongan ferry that sank last week, but naval divers would be unable to recover nearly 100 bodies that may be trapped inside, police said yesterday. Police commander Chris Kelley said the wreck appeared to be intact and lying upright on the sea floor at a depth of 110m. “I must emphasize the onsite team have not visually confirmed the identity of the vessel but the sonar information is such, along with other evidence, that we have a high level of confidence it is the Princess Ashika,” Kelley said in a statement. But he said the New Zealand and Australian naval dive team would be unable to recover any bodies after confirmation of the wreck’s identity by a robotic submarine with video equipment due to arrive at the weekend because neither navies “have the capabilities to conduct recovery operations beyond 60 meters.”
■SOUTH KOREA
Cloned dog sniffs out drugs
A cloned sniffer dog has proved itself smarter than the average pup by detecting drugs at Incheon International Airport just weeks after starting service, officials said yesterday. The dog, named Tosun, detected 3g of narcotics in an envelope stored in a tightly zipped bag, the Korea Customs Service said in a statement. It was the first such achievement by a cloned animal on government service. “It is a great achievement,” Kim Dae-keun, a customs official working in the narcotics-related department, told Yonhap news agency. “Compared with ordinary sniffers, which have to undergo a longer period of getting accustomed to working conditions, Tosun made a marked score less than a month after being deployed.” Tosun is one of seven dogs cloned in late 2007 by scientists at Seoul National University from a renowned Canadian-born sniffer dog.
■CHINA
Women face ID problem
A group of Chinese women who traveled to South Korea for cosmetic surgery baffled immigration officers on their return home when their new looks did not match their passport photos. The 23 women, aged 36 to 54, had bigger eyes, higher noses and slimmer chins than shown in their passports, the China Daily reported yesterday. “After they took off their huge hats and big sunglasses following our request, we saw them looking different, with bandages and stitches here and there,” Shanghai Hongqiao Airport officer Chen Tao told the paper. “We had to compare their uncorrected parts with their photos very carefully,” he said. The identification process on Sunday took several minutes per woman, instead of the usual average of 45 seconds. “After they passed the identification, we asked them all to renew their passports immediately,” he told the daily.
■CHINA
Factory shut after poisoning
Authorities have closed a factory in the northwest that is suspected of causing lead poisoning in more than 300 children, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The sick children all live near the Changqing industrial park in Shaanxi Province, and parents have pointed at a lead and zinc smelting plant inside. The Changqing County Government was supposed to help relocate villagers living close by in 2006, but the plan is running behind schedule. “Of all the 581 families that should have been relocated by now, only 156 have moved to new homes,” Changqing Town chief Pu Yiming said. The government has pledged to relocate the remaining families within the next two year, the report added.
■RUSSIA
Official slain in Ingushetia
A senior local official was shot dead in Ingushetia yesterday, in the latest in a string of high-profile killings in the mainly Muslim region. Construction Minister Ruslan Amerkhanov “was shot dead by an unidentified gunman this morning” in his office, a spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office said. President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was seriously wounded in a suicide bomb attack on his motorcade on June 22 and is still recovering.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Oral cancer linked to booze
Britain has seen an “alarming” growth in oral cancer rates for people in their 40s, largely due to rising alcohol consumption, Cancer Research UK warned on Tuesday. New figures from the charity group show the number of 40-somethings developing cancer of the mouth, tongue, lip and throat has gone up by 28 percent for men since the mid-1990s and 24 percent for women. While tobacco is the main risk factor for oral cancer, cancers caused by smoking often take up to 30 years to develop, so experts believe that the second biggest risk factor — alcohol — is the main culprit. “Alcohol consumption has doubled since the 1950s and the trend we are now seeing is likely to be linked to Britain’s continually rising drinking levels,” said Hazel Nunn, health information manager at the charity.
■ITALY
Dogs licensed as lifeguards
Three hundred dogs are now licensed to save drowning bathers at beaches and lakes, and have already helped save seven lives. Accompanied by instructors, the labradors, newfoundlands and golden retrievers plunge through waves or even leap out of boats and helicopters to help pull bathers to safety. “The dogs are notching up more rescues and becoming increasingly popular,” said Donatella Pasquale, vice-president of the school run by the civil protection agency, where dogs have trained since the 1980s. Pasquale said dogs learned to tow their instructors out to sea, leaving them the strength to give medical attention to drowning swimmers. “The dogs are incredibly strong,” she said. “Our record is one dog towing 40 people at the same time.”
■GERMANY
Police rescue drunk bride
A bride spent her wedding night passed out next to a crate of vodka in the back seat of a car and had to be rescued by police when the BMW began to overheat in the sun. Police in Cologne said on Monday the inebriated 30-year-old remained unconscious even after they smashed the car window to get her out. “Only after being shaken several times did she eventually regain consciousness,” police said in a statement. Still clad in her wedding dress, the dazed woman had to scramble through the broken window because she had no idea where the car keys or her husband were, police said.
■KUWAIT
Alleged al-Qaeda cell held
The government said on Tuesday it has foiled an attack by suspected al-Qaeda members on the main US military base in the emirate, the first such incident in four years. The group also planned to attack the Shuaiba oil refinery and the state security building, al-Anbaa newspaper reported yesterday, citing unidentified sources familiar with the investigation. An Interior Ministry statement said all six members of the al-Qaeda-linked cell had confessed after being arrested.
■UNITED STATES
Yawn could lead to prison
Clifton Williams, 33, is facing six months in jail in Illinois for making what court documents called a yawn-like sound in Will County Judge Daniel Rozak’s court last month in Illinois. The yawn happened as Williams’ cousin, Jason Mayfield, was being sentenced for a drug charge on July 23. Rozak found Williams in contempt of court and sentenced him to six months in jail. Rozak could free Williams after a status hearing today if Williams apologizes and the judge accepts. By then, Williams will have served 21 days. Charles Pelkie, spokesman for the Will County state attorney’s office, said the prosecutor in the courtroom at the time told him that the yawn “was a very loud, boisterous, deliberate attempt ... to disrupt the proceedings and show disrespect to the court ... It was not a guy who involuntarily yawned.”
■UNITED STATES
Jackson kids get guardian
A Los Angeles judge has appointed a special guardian to represent the financial interests of Michael Jackson’s three orphaned children, heirs to his massive music empire, a court statement said on Tuesday. The Los Angeles Superior Court said that attorney Margaret Lodise, a partner with the law firm Sacks, Glazier, Franklin & Lodise, LLP, had been selected to represent the interests of Jackson’s daughter Paris, 11, and sons Prince Michael, 12, and Prince Michael II, 7, known as “Blanket.” Lodise’s advocacy is to be independent of the management of the singer’s estate and separate from decisions made by the paternal grandmother, Katherine Jackson, who is the legal guardian.
■COSTA RICA
President catches swine flu
President Oscar Arias is suffering from the H1N1 flu virus, making him the first head of state known to have contracted it. Nobel Peace Prize winner Arias, 68, has a mild case of the virus, which he tested positive for on Tuesday after feeling unwell at the weekend, the government said. Arias is at home and plans to do some work from there. “Apart from the fever and a soar throat, I feel well,” he said in a statement.
■UNITED STATES
Slain pair had second safe
Robbers who killed a Florida couple last month made off with a safe that contained little of value, but missed a second safe that held US$164,000 in cash, a lawyer for the victims’ family said on Tuesday. Byrd and Melanie Billings were shot to death on July 9. Surveillance cameras captured men dressed as ninjas entering the couple’s sprawling house, stealing a safe and leaving in less than four minutes. Family attorney Robert Beasley said in a statement that a second safe was not stolen and contained the money. A grand jury has indicted seven men in the case on two counts each of first-degree murder and one count each of home-invasion robbery.
■UNITED STATES
Boy saves girl from NY fire
Police say a six-year-old boy rescued a two-year-old girl from a fire at a Long Island house where three adults were later found dead. The two women and one man found in the burned Central Islip house had been shot, but it’s unclear if they died from gunshot wounds or the fire, which police said was arson. Homicide Detective Lieutenant Jack Fitzpatrick says firefighters were called to the blaze on Tuesday morning. The two-story house was engulfed in flames. The boy and girl were found outside the home.
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
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
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
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