■CHINA
‘Evil’ doctor loses appeal
A court yesterday upheld a death sentence against a former doctor who stabbed eight children to death outside their school in a fit of rage after splitting up with his girlfriend. “The methods used by the defendant Zheng Minsheng (鄭民生) were extremely savage, the circumstances of the crime were particularly evil,” the provincial high court in Fujian Province said in a statement on its Web site. At his trial earlier this month, Zheng, 41, admitted “intentionally killing” the children in the city of Nanping in an attack that shocked China, where violent criminal attacks remain relatively rare. However, he appealed his death sentence, saying the sentence should be lighter since he confessed.
■PHILIPPINES
Communists kill four
Communist insurgents killed four policemen and wounded seven other people when they ambushed a police vehicle just outside Manila yesterday, authorities said. New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas set off a landmine and threw grenades at the vehicle, which was carrying nine police commandos and two civilians, as it passed along an isolated road at dawn, local police chief Jonathan Miano said. The NPA have been extorting money from candidates in May 10 elections, charging them for “permits” that let them campaign in rebel-infested areas without being attacked.
■AUSTRALIA
Quake hits mining town
A magnitude 5.0 earthquake struck the major gold-mining region in the west yesterday, collapsing roofs of several buildings and prompting the evacuation of mines, schools and hospitals. There were no immediate reports of injuries. The quake hit at 8:17am 10km southwest of the town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Geoscience Australia said. Roofs fell in hospitals and other buildings, and balconies fell off some hotels. Geoscience Australia seismologist David Jepsen said the quake was fairly shallow and would have been felt several hundred kilometers away.
■INDONESIA
Extremist sentenced
A court yesterday sentenced a man to eight years’ in jail for sheltering terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top before the Malaysian fanatic was killed by police in September. Indonesian extremist Syaifudin Zuhri, 39, hid and abetted Noordin as he planned twin suicide attacks on luxury hotels in Jakarta last year that killed seven people, the court found.
■AUSTRALIA
Crocodile disrupts class
The biweekly water aerobics class at a holiday park in the north was postponed yesterday when an unwanted guest entered the pool — a 1.5m crocodile. Workers at the Howard Springs Holiday Park on the outskirts of the tropical northern city of Darwin went to the pool to scoop out leaves and prepare it for the class when they were surprised to find the croc, which had apparently crawled under a fence from a nearby swamp. “We went down like normal to check the pool out because Tuesdays and Thursdays the local ladies of Howard Springs do their water aerobics,” park manager Geoff Thompson was quoted as saying on the Australian Broadcasting Corp’s Web site. A government ranger was summoned to remove the visitor, which was identified as a freshwater crocodile — generally considered to be capable of giving a nasty bite, but rarely fatal to humans. The crocodile was likely to be handed to a local wildlife park.
■IRAN
Two rapists hanged
Iran has hanged two convicted rapists in a prison in the central city of Isfahan, the governmental Iran newspaper reported yesterday. The report identified the executed men as Ahmad and Solieman and added that they were sent to the gallows on Monday. The hangings bring to at least 49 the number of people executed in Iran so far this year, according to an AFP count based on news reports. Last year, at least 270 people were hanged.
■KUWAIT
Maid killer gets seven years
An appeals court has reduced a jail term to seven years of a Kuwaiti woman who killed her Asian maid, a newspaper reported yesterday. The criminal court had sentenced the woman, whose name was not given, to 15 years in jail after convicting her of “intentionally” killing her maid by repeatedly beating her with iron and wooden objects, Al-Watan newspaper said. Then the woman pushed the maid into the bathtub and left her motionless for 10 hours until she died, the paper said. Al-Watan quoted the Kuwaiti woman’s lawyer Yacoub al-Sane as saying that the appeals court agreed to change the charge from “intentional killing” to “beating that led to death” and reduced the sentence.
■MALAYSIA
No Blair, activists say
Islamic activists yesterday called for a ban on former British prime minister Tony Blair entering the country, where he is scheduled to address a business gathering this weekend. The Malaysian Islamic NGOs Consultation Council, a coalition representing 26 Islamic groups, said they opposed Blair’s presence in Kuala Lumpur because of his role in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. “We should not invite and hear him. He should not be allowed to come into Malaysia,” said Mohamad Nazri Sahat, the council’s chief administrative officer, adding that a protest letter had been sent to the organizers. Event organizers have insisted that Blair will come to Malaysia despite the opposition.
■IRAQ
Chief’s family massacred
Five family members of a local chief of an anti-al-Qaeda militia were gunned down in their homes in Tarmiyah, north of the capital yesterday, with the children also beheaded, police said. “The wife, a daughter of 22 and three boys of between 12 and 16 were shot dead, with the assassins also beheading the last three,” said Colonel Tawfiq al-Janaabi, police chief of Tarmiyah, 45km from Baghdad. He said the local chief of the al-Sahwa militia, identified as Abu Ali, was on duty at a checkpoint at the time of the attack. On April 3, gunmen in army uniforms massacred 25 people from families linked to al-Sahwa in a nighttime raid on a village south of Baghdad. The victims were tied up, tortured and shot in the head or the chest, a hospital source said.
■UNITED STATES
Tanning may be addictive
Individuals who use UV tanning beds may meet the criteria for addiction and are more likely to suffer from anxiety symptoms and substance abuse, a study released on Monday said. The research, carried out by professors from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the University at Albany, State University of New York, examined 421 students, including 229 who had used tanning beds in the last year. On average, those using the tanning beds had done so 23 times in the last year and around 70 percent of those showed signs of tanning addiction, based on two measures used to judge other forms of addiction, including substance abuse.
■UNITED STATES
Gunman kills woamn, self
A gunman opened fire outside a hospital on Monday, killing a woman and injuring two before committing suicide, police said. Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said all the victims were female and current or former employees of Parkwest Medical Center. The attack happened about 4:30pm outside the hospital’s discharge area. Police are still trying to determine a motive. A police spokesman said it did not appear that any of the victims were related to the suspect or that there was any connection between them.
■UNITED STATES
Wedding turns into labor
A Wisconsin woman who went into labor on the way to a hospital got some help from the mother of a bride at a nearby wedding party. Ben Sherwood of New Berlin was driving his wife Kimberly to the hospital on Saturday when she told him they wouldn’t make it. They saw a police officer by the Milwaukee Art Museum and flagged him down. Ben Sherwood told WTMJ-TV the officer had the same frightened look he had, so he turned to a nearby wedding party and starting yelling for a doctor. A woman in a peach dress and high heels ran over. It was Annette Soborowicz, an emergency-room nurse. A few pushes later and Soborowicz was holding little Lincoln Sherwood.
■UNITED STATES
Salt intake to be limited
The government is planning a push to gradually cut the amount of salt Americans consume, saying less sodium would reduce deaths from hypertension and heart disease, the Washington Post reported yesterday. The effort would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in processed foods, the Post said. The plan is to be launched this year, but officials have not set salt limits, the article said. The government plans to work with the food industry and health experts to reduce sodium gradually over a period of years to ratchet down sodium consumption, the newspaper said, citing Food and Drug Administration sources.
■BRAZIL
Fight for smugglers’ lives
The government would ask Indonesia to spare the lives of two Brazilian drug smugglers sentenced to death, Justice Minister Luiz Paulo Barreto said on Monday after talks with his Indonesian counterpart. “We are asking that they not be executed. This would be shocking in our country, given that Brazil doesn’t have the death penalty and no Brazilian has ever been executed outside of Brazil,” he said in a statement. Barreto said he discussed the issue with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during a UN crime prevention conference in Brazil. The two convicted Brazilians are a surfer, Rodrigo Gularte, 37, and a windsurfing instructor, Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, 48.
■UNITED STATES
School admits spying
A suburban Philadelphia school district said it secretly captured 56,000 Webcam photographs and screen shots from laptops issued to high school students. Lower Merion School District lawyer Henry Hockeimer said an internal investigation showed students were likely photographed inside their homes. He said none of the images appeared inappropriate. A tracking program took images every 15 minutes to find missing computers. Hockeimer said the program sometimes was turned on for months. Sophomore Blake Robbins is suing the district, alleging wiretap and privacy violations. He said the district took pictures of him sleeping in bed and half-dressed.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
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