NEW ZEALAND
Drinker locked up in pub
A sleepy South Island resident who staged an unplanned one-man lock-in at his local pub had to call police to release him, it was reported yesterday. Staff at the Coach and Horses Inn in the town of Lawrence somehow missed the 42-year-old as they were closing up early on Sunday morning and left him snoozing at the bar, the Otago Daily Times reported. It said the man woke up at 5.30am and called police to let him out, fearful he would trigger alarms if he tried to exit by himself. After scouring the town for someone with a key to the hotel, police turned up 90 minutes later and found the man asleep on a couch in the public bar with a bottle of beer next to him. Police said the first thing the man did was to offer to pay for the beer, which he took after he realized he was in for a long night. He was not charged and was given a ride home by police.
SINGAPORE
Lucasfilm to build facility
Star Wars creator Lucasfilm will soon start construction of its first purpose-built overseas production facility in the city state, the US movie and animation giant said yesterday. The eight-story, 38,000m2 studio complex will be located in a technology hub known as Fusionopolis and contain a data center, a 100-seat theater and retail outlets.
VIETNAM
China releases fishermen
China has released nine Vietnamese fishermen it detained near disputed islands. “I am happy to report to you that China has freed our nine fishermen,” Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh told reporters in Hanoi yesterday. The fishermen were detained in the disputed Paracel archipelago in the South China Sea, and their boat impounded on Sept. 11. Vietnam’s state news agency reported last week that the Foreign Ministry had asked for their unconditional, immediate release.
AFGHANISTAN
Chopper blast kills one
An explosion on board a US helicopter killed one person and wounded seven NATO troops shortly after landing on a small military base in eastern an eastern province yesterday, a military spokesman said. The US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the cause of the explosion was unclear, but that 26 people had been onboard the aircraft. Another ISAF spokesman identified the aircraft as a US Chinook and said that the landing site had been secured by Afghan and NATO soldiers.
PHILIPPINES
Wife-killer bill mulled
Men who kill their wives after they catch them cheating on them will no longer enjoy legal protection from serious punishment under new a bill before Congress, a lawmaker said in manila on Monday. If passed, the bill will repeal a provision in the penal code that says a husband may be handed only minor penalties if he kills his wife and her lover after catching them in the act of sex, Congressman Neri Colmenares said.
NEPAL
Plane crashes near Everest
A small plane trying to land near Mount Everest crashed yesterday, but there were no casualties, an airline official said. The German-built Dornier turboprop airplane belonging to Sita Air was attempting to land at Lukla airport when it crashed, airline official Binod Singh Basnyat said. Basnyat said there was damage to the aircraft, but that all 11 passengers and three crew members were unhurt.
FRANCE
Rwandan rebel arrested
Police on Monday arrested Rwandan rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana, wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was arrested in Paris on a warrant issued last month by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, a Foreign Ministry statement said. Mbarushimana, 47, faces five charges of crimes against humanity and six war crimes charges for murders, rapes, torture and destruction of property in eastern DR Congo in 2009, the ICC said in a statement. He received refugee status in France in 2003.
HUNGARY
Director arrested over spill
Police arrested the managing director of the company at the center of a toxic sludge disaster on Monday, as the body of the last missing person was recovered, bringing the death toll to eight. The MAL Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Co’s managing director Zoltan Bakonyi was taken into custody for questioning in connection with the spill, the National Investigative Office said. The spill sent a torrent of red toxic sludge across an area of 40km2 and polluted the Danube River and many of its tributaries. Prime Minister Viktor Orban told parliament on Monday that MAL should foot the bill, not taxpayers, because it wasn’t a natural disaster, but man-made.
SOUTH AFRICA
Winfrey staffer not guilty
A court on Monday found a former employee of The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls not guilty of sexually assaulting students. Tiny Virginia Makopo faced 14 charges of assault, including the sexual assault of students. Much of the testimony was held behind closed doors at the Magistrates Court in Sebokeng to protect the students who are minors, the SAPA news agency said. Winfrey spent millions of dollars to open the school in early 2007 to provide a high-quality education for poor girls. She said she was “profoundly disappointed” with the outcome, but was appreciative of prosecutors and police. “I will forever be proud of the nine girls who testified with the courage and conviction to be heard,” Winfrey said in a statement.
UNITED KINGDOM
Clair Rayner dies
Agony aunt and patients’ rights campaigner Claire Rayner has died at the age of 79, media reported yesterday. Rayner, who was also an author and broadcaster, had suffered from cancer for several years. She had intestinal surgery in May, but never recovered from it and died in hospital near her home in Harrow on Monday. The former nurse was reported to have told her relatives she wanted her last words to be: “Tell [Prime Minister] David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS [National Health Service] I’ll come back and bloody haunt him.”
UNITED STATES
Streaker seeking US$1m
Billionaire Alki David says a man arrested after streaking at President Barack Obama’s weekend rally in Philadelphia was trying to win a US$1 million Internet challenge. Police say 24-year-old Juan Rodriguez was charged with indecent exposure, public lewdness and disorderly conduct on Sunday. He was released on a US$10,000 bond on Monday night. David offered US$1 million to anyone who could streak in front of Obama with the name of David’s competition Web site on his chest. Rodriguez told reporters that his family needed the money and he believed he had done everything required to win it. He says he didn’t believe he had done anything inappropriate.
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
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
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS