■ NEW ZEALAND
Possum-tossing sparks fury
A school that staged a possum-throwing contest came under fire from animal protection groups yesterday. The contest, in which students swung possum carcasses over their heads and hurled them across the playground, was unacceptable, the New Zealand Royal Society for the Protection of Animals (RSPCA) said. RSPCA manager Danny Auger said he had received three complaints about the competition at Colyton School, in the North Island, and would raise concerns with its teachers. “While it’s technically not illegal, it’s morally wrong to throw a dead animal around,” Auger told the Manawatu Standard newspaper. “It’s about time that people wake up and smell 2010 and realize that these sorts of things shouldn’t be happening. It’s an archaic practice and it should be stopped.” Possums are protected in their native Australia but regarded as a pest in New Zealand, where the population exploded after they were introduced in the 19th century in an attempt to start a fur trade.
■ MALAYSIA
Lizards saved from the pot
Wildlife authorities said yesterday they had seized 422 clouded monitor lizards being smuggled out of the country and destined for cooking pots in Asia. Abdul Razak Majid, wildlife and national parks chief in southern Johor state, said two men were arrested on Monday when their truck was stopped following a tip-off, leading to the discovery of the lizards. “Investigations show that the animals were being smuggled out of the country and would be sold for their meat, which is considered a delicacy in some neighboring countries, and also for making medicine,” he added. Abdul Razak said that once investigations were completed, the lizards would be released into the wild in the state’s national parks.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Whales beach, 25 dead
A pod of 74 pilot whales stranded themselves on a remote northern beach in the second mass beaching in the region in a month, officials said yesterday. Twenty-five whales were already dead when officials arrived at Spirits Bay beach, Department of Conservation area manager Jonathan Maxwell said. In addition to the 49 still alive on the beach, another 50 were spotted just offshore, he said. “We need as many volunteers as possible, as it will be at least until tomorrow [Thursday] before we can look at refloating them, which means caring for them over the next two days,” he said. Volunteers from Far North Whale Rescue, conservation officials and the local Maori community were preparing to stay at the beach overnight to help keep the whales alive, he said.
■ KAZAKHSTAN
Blasts rupture gas pipeline
The Emergency Ministry said two blasts early yesterday ruptured a pipeline carrying natural gas to Russia, sparking a fire and forcing a suspension of deliveries through the route. No casualties have been reported. A ministry statement said the explosion was near Sai-Utes, 200km east of the Caspian Sea coast. It was unclear what effect the blast would have on overall deliveries to Russia.
■ AUSTRALIA
Orphaned baby dies
A premature infant who was orphaned last week when her parents were killed in a car crash has died in a Sydney hospital. The Royal Hospital for Women says three-week-old Lucy Schollbach died early yesterday of complications associated with her premature birth. She was born 12 weeks early on Sept. 1, weighing about 1.3kg. Her parents died in a car crash last week while driving home from one of their twice-daily visits to the hospital. Justin Schollbach and Leah James were buried yesterday, just hours after their daughter died. Lucy was the couple’s first child. James had five other children.
■ AUSTRALIA
Moore heading to court
A legal battle between actress Demi Moore and New Idea over photographs it published of a private post-Oscars party thrown by the star is scheduled for trial next week. Moore is suing publisher Pacific Magazines for printing pictures taken at a 2008 party that show herself, her daughter Rumer Willis, and other stars. Moore lodged a claim in 2008 stating she made an agreement with an event organizer that gave her copyright of the photos. She is seeking unspecified damages. The Melbourne Federal Court said the trial was scheduled to begin on Monday.
■ KYRGYZSTAN
Russia voices concern
The Russia embassy said yesterday it was concerned over rising nationalism, following deadly ethnic clashes between majority ethnic Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks this year. “Attempts to proclaim special rights and privileges for particular ethnic groups do not contribute to the normalization of inter-ethnic relations in Kyrgyzstan ... and affect the international image of the Kyrgyz Republic,” the embassy said in a statement. The comments came a day after prominent political scientist Nur Omarov was attacked near his home in Bishkek. His attackers reportedly told Omarov, an ethnic Kyrgyz, that he was being targeted for his Uzbek appearance. The embassy also mentioned Alexander Knyazev, an ethnic Russian who was attacked in Bishkek. International observers have raised concerns that politicians are stoking ethnic tensions ahead of the Oct. 10 parliamentary elections.
■ SPAIN
Man drinks with head in bag
A man calmly drank beer with his friends in a bar with his murdered girlfriend’s head in a bag, press reports said on Tuesday. After leaving the bar on Sunday, the 34-year-old climbed an electrical tower, received an electrical shock and plunged 30m to the ground, dying that evening in hospital, they said. According to a report in the ABC newspaper, citing witnesses, the man told friends in the bar in Cordoba in the south of the country, that he had decapitated his 30-year-old partner. However, he was so calm they did not believe him, despite bloodstains on his shirt. “A while later, when several customers left the bar and saw a pool of blood on the road, they immediately realized this was not a macabre joke. Horrified, they discovered a bag near the bar, inside of which was the victim’s head,” the ABC daily said.
■ FRANCE
Tap sparkling water offered
Eco-conscious Parisians can now get their sparkling water free and in unlimited supply at a new drinking fountain installed by city authorities, which aims to wean consumers off bottled water and onto tap. Unveiled on Tuesday in the Jardin de Reuilly park in the east of the city by publicly owned water company Eau de Paris, the fountain injects carbon dioxide into regular tap water to make it bubbly, and chills it before delivering it to consumers. Separate faucets also provide a still version of the beverage, both refrigerated and unrefrigerated, and again pumped directly from the city’s own public water supply The French are the world’s eighth-biggest consumers of bottled water, downing an average of 128 liters each of the still or sparkling beverage last year, according to statistics from the Earth Policy Institute. That generated more than 262,000 tonnes of plastic waste, while just making the bottles consumed close to 4.5 million barrels of crude oil equivalent.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Police defend lettuce-head
Hampshire police have defended releasing an e-fit (Electronic Facial Identification Technique) of a suspected burglar after critics said it looked like a bald man with a lettuce on his head. On Monday, detectives issued the image of the suspect wanted in connection with a burglary at an elderly woman’s house where £60 (US$94) was stolen. However, the picture appeared to give the man, described as having wavy blonde/graying hair, a bright green hairstyle that local residents told media made him appear to have lettuce on his head. Hampshire police blamed “technical problems” for the image.
■ISRAEL
Herod’s palace excavated
Israeli archeologists have excavated a lavish, private theater box in a 400-seat facility at King Herod’s winter palace in the Judean desert, the team’s head said on Tuesday. Ehud Netzer of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said the room provides further evidence of Herod’s famed taste for extravagance. Herod commissioned Roman artists to decorate the theater walls with elaborate paintings and plaster moldings in around 15BC, Netzer said. Its upper portions feature paintings of windows overlooking a river and a seascape with a large sailboat. This is the first time this painting style has been found in Israel, Netzer said. Herod was the Jewish proxy ruler of the Holy Land under Roman occupation from 37 to 4BC. The team first excavated the site — sitting atop a man-made hill 680m high — in 2007. Netzer described the site as a kind of “country club,” with a pool, baths and gardens fed by pools and aqueducts.
■ IRELAND
Teenagers sent to pubs
The government plans to allow police to send “test” youth to pubs from next month to check if landlords abide by laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol to those under 18, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said on Tuesday. Faced with one of Europe’s worst binge drinking cultures, which usually starts in teenage years, police will be authorised from Oct. 1 to get permission from parents to train and send young people aged 15 to17 to licensed premises. If any alcohol is sold to the minors, the pub will be prosecuted and face fines or closure for a period. “The test purchaser must answer all questions about their age truthfully,” Ahern said in a statement.
■ MEXICO
Crocodiles escape facility
About 280 crocodiles escaped a breeding facility in the Mexican state of Veracruz, officials said on Tuesday, after weekend flooding following torrential rains from Hurricane Karl. Veracruz Governor Fidel Herrera told reporters that the crocodiles were kept in an outdoor facility next to the port of Veracruz, which bred the endangered reptiles in captivity. The enclosure became submerged after the hurricane carried torrential rains, allowing the animals to escape. Residents of Veracruz were urged to be vigilant and to report any crocodile sightings to local authorities.
■ UNITED STATES
World’s oldest man sees 114
A Montana resident believed to be the world’s oldest man celebrated his 114th birthday on Tuesday at a retirement home in Great Falls. Walter Breuning was born on Sept. 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minnesota, and moved to Montana in 1918, where he worked as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway for 50 years. His wife, Agnes, a railroad telegraph operator from Butte, died in 1957. The couple had no children. Breuning inherited the distinction of being the world’s oldest man in July lasy year when Briton Henry Allingham died at age 113. Allingham had joked that the secret to long life was “Cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women — and a good sense of humor,” according to Guinness World Records.
■UNITED STATES
Yoga advised for bad drivers
Drivers annoyed by parking tickets in Cambridge, Massachusetts, are getting some calming advice from city officials — try yoga. The city’s parking tickets include instructions on the reverse on how to bend into some simple yoga positions. The city, which is home to elite universities Harvard and MIT, printed 40,000 of the tickets as part of a public art project by artist-in-residence Daniel Peltz. Cambridge parking enforcement officers hand out about 340,000 tickets per year. Susan Clippinger, the city’s transportation chief, told the Boston Herald the purpose of the tickets is to “debunk the idea that all parking tickets are a hostile action.”
■ GERMANY
Man’s schnitzel is too big
A restaurant operator has run into trouble with local tax authorities because he makes larger-than-average schnitzels — or veal cutlets — for his customers in a working-class section of Saxony. Gerhard Kaltscheuer said his giant schnitzels are popular in the town of Hammerbruecke and he sells about 70 dishes per day. He said tax officials told him they believe he sells 200 portions daily based on the amount of raw material he purchases. “If I served the customers smaller portions at the normal price like that, I wouldn’t have any customers because that wouldn’t fill them up,” Kaltscheuer said.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
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