AFGHANISTAN
Series of attacks kill 10
A suicide car bomb exploded in the middle of a bazaar, killing two people, in a string of attacks across the country that left 10 dead, including three NATO service members and five policemen, officials said yesterday. The blast at a bazaar in Khost Province killed a policeman and an Afghan soldier, provincial police chief Abdul Hakim Eshaqzai said. Four others were injured in the attack in the Dwa Mandala district. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the insurgent group was responsible for the attack, which targeted foreigners. In the north, four policemen were killed in an ambush on Tuesday night as they were driving through Imam Sahib district along the border with Tajikistan, said Muhbobullah Sayedi, a spokesman for Kunduz Province’s governor.
AUSTRALIA
US man taken into custody
A US man convicted in the death of his wife during a honeymoon scuba dive was released from jail yesterday and taken into immigration custody, where he will remain until officials are convinced he won’t face the death penalty if sent home. Canberra is a staunch opponent of the death penalty and is seeking assurances that Gabe Watson won’t face capital charges if he is returned to Alabama, a pro-death penalty state that wants to try him again over his wife’s death. Dubbed the “Honeymoon Killer,” Watson pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his wife of 11 days, 26-year-old Tina Watson, during a 2003 scuba diving trip on the Great Barrier Reef. Queensland officials initially charged him with murder, arguing he killed Tina by turning off her air supply and holding her underwater. Watson pleaded guilty to a lesser charge last year in court and was sentenced to 18 months.
JAPAN
No kimonos for APEC
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) won’t have to worry about maybe having to put on a kimono at the weekend APEC summit in the midst of his row with Japan over disputed islands. The leaders of the APEC forum have been asked to wear “smart casual” for the commemorative photograph of their summit, being held this year in Yokohama, a government official said. Summit hosts usually try to keep the APEC leaders’ costumes under wraps, so to speak, to provide a little frisson at the otherwise anodyne convocations. APEC leaders usually dress up in native attire for what’s come to be known as a “silly shirts” class photo that concludes the summit. Former US president Bill Clinton began the fashion show tradition by outfiting the leaders in black leather bombardier jackets at the 1993 summit in Seattle. Previous meetings have seen the leaders don Chilean ponchos, Chinese silk jackets, batik shirts, Korean hanbok, Vietnamese silk tunics, Mexican sombreros, New Zealand sailing jackets and Australian Driza-Bone raincoats.
JAPAN
Triumph welcomes visitors
A lingerie maker has unveiled a truly intimate welcome for visitors — a “Welcome to Japan” bra, complete with greetings in three different languages. The blue, bustier-style garment by Triumph aims to promote tourism and has a holder on the stomach for images of major tourist spots such as Mount Fuji. A matching skirt flips up to reveal a map of Japan. Buttons on the bustier, when pushed, play messages saying “Welcome to Japan” in English, Korean or Chinese. “A new international airport terminal has just opened in Tokyo and the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan has been increasing recently,” Triumph spokeswoman Yoshiko Masuda said.
RUSSIA
Woman kept Amur tiger
A Siberian tiger, the world’s largest feline, has been discovered in captivity at a woman’s home in the Urals region, authorities said on Wednesday. The inquiry began when prosecutors learned the woman was keeping the animal, also known as an Amur tiger in honor of the famous Siberian river, in a semi-free state on her property in the city of Yekaterinburg. “The woman kept the animal without authorization and without respect for sanitary regulations,” the Yekaterinburg prosecutor said in a statement. Officials were likely to confiscate the animal from the woman and then decide what to do with it next, the statement said. It is not known how the woman got hold of the Siberian tiger — there are only about 450 left in the country’s far east, their natural habitat. Hunting tigers has been banned since 1947 and the Amur has been entered in the country’s Red Book of protected animals.
SWITZERLAND
S&M killer released
The mistress of a top French banker who shot her lover dead during a sadomasochistic sex session was freed from prison on Wednesday, less than 18 months after being jailed for murder, her lawyer said. Cecile Brossard was handed an eight-and-a-half-year sentence in June last year for Edouard Stern’s murder, but qualified for early release as she had already served more than four years on remand before her trial. “She left Riant-Parc [a prison in Geneva] this morning,” lawyer Alec Reymond said. Brossard had been sentenced after pleading guilty to killing Stern at the beginning of her trial. Stern was shot in his penthouse apartment in Geneva during a sex game on Feb. 28, 2005. His corpse was found the following day, dressed in a full-body latex suit with two bullet holes in his head and another two in his torso.
ITALY
Berlusconi facing new heat
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was on Wednesday facing further pressure after he was barracked in public and his party outvoted in parliament, as a new video emerged, appearing to show mini-skirted women being ushered into one of his properties. Already reeling from revelations that he had entertained Karimael Mahroug, a 17-year-old Moroccan belly dancer before intervening to free her when she was arrested on suspicion of theft, Berlusconi was accused of hosting a Cuban model and a Romanian reality TV star at his mansion near Milan. The Oggi gossip magazine posted video footage, shot in July, of the celebrity agent Lele Mora allegedly helping the women into a car with tinted windows at his Milan office before driving them into the grounds of Berlusconi’s property. Mora is already being investigated on suspicion of aiding and abetting prostitution.
AUSTRIA
Turkish envoy blasts Vienna
The Turkish ambassador accused Vienna of treating his countrymen like a virus, blasting his host nation in a scathing interview published on Wednesday that prompted high-level protests. In an extensive interview with the Die Presse daily, Kadri Ecved Tezcan said Austria was pushing people of Turkish origin to the fringes of society instead of learning to live with them and benefiting from their skills. “If you don’t want any foreigners here, then just chase them away,” Tezcan said. “You must learn to live together with other people. What’s Austria’s problem?” Tezcan also criticized Minister for the Interior Maria Fekter, who oversees the country’s integration policy and is known for her tough stance on illegal immigrants.
UNITED STATES
Contrail linked to airliner
The Pentagon and NASA experts concluded on Wednesday that an airliner likely caused a billowing contrail off Southern California that resembled a missile plume illuminated by the setting sun. The phenomenon recorded on Monday evening by a TV news helicopter created a media sensation and a vapor trail of commentary across the Internet about the possibility of a secret missile firing, but the military said it knew of no rockets launched in the area. Defense Department spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said officials were satisfied it was an airplane contrail distorted by camera angle, winds and other environmental factors. Military experts studied the video and talked to all government agencies that might have been involved in a missile launch and none reported having launched one, Lapan said.
PERU
Mummified dogs found
Archeologists have discovered six mummified dogs, all dating from the 15th century and apparently presented as religious offerings at a major pre-Columbian site just south of Lima. The dogs “have hair and complete teeth,” said Jesus Holguin, an archeologist at the museum in Pachacamac, located 25km south of Lima. Holguin told reporters on Wednesday that experts were still trying to determine their breed. The mummified remains of four children were also found at the site, archeologists said. The mummified dogs were found two weeks ago wrapped in cloth and buried in one of Pachacamac’s adobe brick pyramids. The experts believe the dogs are neither hairless Peruvian dogs — an ancient native breed — nor sheepdogs found at gravesites of the Chiribaya culture, which flourished in the south between the years 900 and 1350.
CANADA
Montreal mob boss killed
Nicolo Rizzuto, considered the head of the most important mafia group in Montreal, has been shot dead at his home in a move being blamed on rival crime clans, police and media said. Police in Montreal confirmed the death on Wednesday of a man of Sicilian origin after Radio-Canada and TVA television said the 86-year-old immigrant from Sicily was assassinated. The killing is a major blow to the Sicilian mafia group that has been active for 30 years, but whose power appeared to be fading. Rizzuto arrived in the country in 1954 and rose to prominence in the organized crime area after the death in 1978 of mob boss Paolo Violi, a Calabrian rival.
INDONESIA
Writer aims to break record
At a thumb-numbing 5,472 pages, a book devoted to the life of US President Barack Obama is probably not going to be on the president’s list of beach reads, but its local author is hoping for interest from the White House. Hailed by local record keepers as the world’s thickest book, The Collection, Obama and Pluralism, was unveiled by author, director and artist Damien Dematra to coincide with a visit by the US president, which ended on Wednesday. At 34cm thick, the hardbound tome chronicles snippets of Obama’s life in Jakarta. The US president spent about four years in the country as a child with his anthropologist mother, from 1967, and during his visit spoke fondly of those days. Jaya Suprana, curator of the country’s records museum in a nation obsessed with record breaking, said the size of the book beats the previous international title holder — Agatha Christie’s The Complete Miss Marple, a relatively slender 4,032 pages.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and