JAPAN
Comedian returns home
After sailing and running around the planet for the past two years, comedian Kanpei Hazama, 61, set foot on native soil again yesterday, proclaiming that “the Earth really is round.” Thousands of well-wishers greeted the television personality as he sailed from China to dock at the southwestern Fukuoka harbor in cold rain, completing the last maritime stage of his “Earth Marathon.” “Thank you!” Hazama told his fans, wiping tears away with his sleeve, before hugging his wife and grandchildren and saying: “I’ve made it!” The final leg will see Hazama run another 620km to finish his epic journey at a concert at Osaka castle on Jan. 21. The comedian set off in December 2008, first sailing across the Pacific then running across North America, sailing across the Atlantic, and putting on his running shoes again to traverse the Eurasian continent. A year ago in Turkey he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, forcing him to temporarily suspend the journey, but after receiving medical treatment in the US he was back on the road in June.
CHINA
Uighur sentenced to death
A news report says a 19-year-old Uighur woman has been handed a suspended death sentence for taking part in deadly ethnic riots in western China in 2009. It says she is the second woman to receive the death penalty for the unrest. US-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia says Pezilet Ekber was working as a saleswoman at a shop in Urumqi when the July 5, 2009, riots broke out. The report cites a letter from a classmate of the woman as saying Ekber was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. Such punishments are usually commuted to life in prison.
PAKISTAN
No push for vote: opposition
The main opposition group will not push for a no--confidence vote against Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani because to demand such a vote would exacerbate instability, the party said yesterday. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) believes a vote would “damage the whole country,” party chairman Raja Zafar-ul-Haq said. The PML-N’s decision means Gilani’s fragile government could survive after a key partner withdrew on Sunday.
AFGHANISTAN
Bomb kills police officer
A bomb exploded in central Kabul early yesterday, killing one police officer and wounding three other people, a government official said, on the one-year anniversary of the country’s Constitution. The blast, a rarity in Kabul, served as a grim reminder of the insurgents’ ability to strike at will across the country.
ARGENTINA
Tunneling thieves rob bank
Thieves dug a 30m-long ventilated and lit tunnel from a neighboring building into a bank and emptied the contents of up to 140 safety deposit boxes, officials said on Monday. Authorities said three thieves entered a Banco Provincia branch in the Buenos Aires District of Belgrano on New Year’s Eve when it was closed and spent the weekend opening and emptying between 130 and 140 of the branch’s 1,408 boxes. The robbery was not discovered until the bank opened on Monday. Bank executives were unable to say how much the thieves stole because clients are not obliged to tell authorities what was in their safety deposit boxes.
UNITED STATES
Murderer receives windfall
A man imprisoned for killing his mother-in-law can look forward to a life of ease thanks to a tidy inheritance — from his victim, a report said on Monday. Brandon Palladino, a 24-year-old heroin addict, is doing 25 years minus time served after killing his in-law during an attempted jewelry theft, the New York Post reported. However, in a twist of fate, he stands to enjoy at least US$250,000 in assets that the victim left to Palladino’s wife, who has also since died, leaving everything to her imprisoned husband.
GUATEMALA
Transport workers targeted
Bus drivers paid US$1.5 million in extortion money to organized crime rings last year, according to a police report out on Monday. Over the course of last year police arrested more than 500 criminals and charged them with trying to extort money from business owners and workers. Some of those charged were members of the notorious Mara 18 street gang, according to Donald Gonzalez, a spokesman with the national civil police.Public transport workers appear to be at particular risk. Human rights groups said that between January and November, 119 drivers and 51 transport aides were shot dead.
BRAZIL
Release sought for fugitive
Lawyers for an Italian fugitive sentenced in his home country to life in 1993 for a series of murders in the 1970s when he was a member of a radical left-wing group, asked the high court on Monday to order him freed after former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva refused to extradite him, sources close to the case said. Cesare Battisti’s lawyer, Renata Saraiva, said that with the high court on a vacation recess, the justice on call can decide on his own to authorize the release, or consult with the other justices. His lawyers argued that he has been detained in Brazil since 2007, and since Lula decided he should not be extradited to Italy, should now be released.
BRAZIL
Rouseff chats with UN head
President Dilma Rousseff and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke by telephone on Monday about the UN Security Council — a body on which Brazil has long tried to secure a permanent seat. “The UN secretary general called the president to congratulate her on her inauguration, and they spoke for 15 minutes about current events, especially the Security Council,” Rousseff’s advisor on international affairs, Marco Aurelio Garcia, told reporters. Garcia pointed out that Brazil is a temporary member of the council and would hold its rotating presidency next month. Rousseff and Ban also discussed Brazil’s participation in the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, with the president saying her country would continue to contribute to the earthquake-devastated Caribbean nation.
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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