■ CAMBODIA
Singer has a blast
A drunk man accidentally detonated an old grenade that he was using as a pretend microphone, killing himself and three other men and wounding three women, police said yesterday. The rocket-propelled grenade exploded on Sunday near a small gathering in Pursat Province in western Cambodia, local police chief Pich Sopheap said. “The explosion occurred after a drunken man used an unexploded B-40 grenade as a microphone while he was singing and later hit it against a wooden stick,” Pich Sopheap said. The blast killed the 30-year-old man and three male farmers instantly, and critically injured three women who were chatting nearby, he said.
■ NEW ZEALAND
‘Aryan’ plate not racist
Officials have allowed a motorist to keep her license plate “ARYAN 1” because it was intended as a gesture of affection toward her former partner, not a statement of white supremacy, it was reported yesterday. The Transport Agency investigated the plate after a member of the public complained that the term “Aryan,” used by the Nazis to describe the so-called “master race,” was offensive, the Dominion Post newspaper reported. The plate’s owner, Lisa Marie Thompson of Wellington, said the plate simply comprised the initial and surname of her former boyfriend, Andrew Ryan, and had no racial overtones. The agency said banning the plate would impinge on her right to free speech. Thompson said she had no idea about the connotations of the word “Aryan” when she bought the plate four years ago and still did not see why displaying it on her car could be considered offensive. “It would be no different to having ‘Maori Pride,’” she said. The newspaper said examples of license plates the agency had banned included “DRGDLR” and “TAMPON.”
■GREECE
Minks coat landscape
Police say break-ins at two fur farms have set more than 50,000 minks on the loose. A statement from local police says the break-ins occurred on Friday and Saturday near the city of Kastoria, which is the center of Greece’s fur industry. Regional TV channels showed farm employees chasing the animals with fishing nets on Monday. The National Fur Breeders’ Association says most of the released animals are likely to die in the late-August heat. It says the cost to the farm owners could pass 1 million euros (US$1.27 million). No group has claimed responsibility for the incident but an animal rights group, calling itself the “Hawks of Reprisal,” said it was responsible for a similar break-in last year.
■ UNITED STATES
Cannonballs blown up
Authorities say they destroyed a pair of Civil War-era cannon balls on display at a Georgia college after officials realized they were live. Kennesaw State University spokeswoman Tammy DeMel says a bomb squad removed the relics on Monday from the third floor of the social sciences building after authorities became concerned they posed a danger. The building was evacuated as a precaution and students were let back in later. Cobb County Sergeant Dana Pierce says the bombs had been detonated and that it would be hard to know if they could have gone off on their own. According to a school press release, the cannon balls have been in a display case in a room of the social sciences building for three years at the college just north of Atlanta.
■SUDAN
Russian air crew freed: army
Three Russian helicopter crew members have been freed a day after they were abducted in Darfur, a Sudanese army spokesman said yesterday. “The three Russian pilots were freed last night [Monday],” following negotiations with the abductors, army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said. However, state media said the trio were freed after clashes between security forces and the abductors. “The specialized services in the South Darfur state succeeded in liberating the three Russian pilots who were abducted two days ago in Nyala after clashes with the abductors,” the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC) reported. SMC suggested there were casualties in the clashes saying “the toll [from the fighting] has not yet been announced.” The Russians, who worked for a private aviation company were abducted on Sunday by gunmen in Nyala, capital of South Darfur. The Kremlin special envoy on Sudan, Mikhail Margelov, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as identifying the three as the captain of a helicopter and two crew members. “The helicopter was carrying food and other civilian supplies for the United Nations mission to Darfur,” he said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Walking could cut cancers
Cancer researchers say around 10,000 cases of breast and bowel cancer could be avoided every year in Britain if people walked more. Physical activity is believed to reduce cancer risk in ways such as impacting hormone levels. A World Cancer Research Fund statement yesterday said that its scientists estimated about 4,600 bowel cancer cases and 5,000 breast cancer cases could be prevented in the United Kingdom if people were more active, such as by walking. In Europe, being obese or overweight accounts for about 8 percent of cancers.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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