INDIA
Nine killed in rampage
At least nine people were killed and 27 injured yesterday when a bus driver in the western city of Pune went on a rampage, leaving a trail of smashed cars and crushed pedestrians, police said. The rogue driver hijacked the bus in a depot and then sped down the crowded streets of Pune during morning rush hour as children headed to school and office employees were on the way to work. “He just went berserk. He went on ramming whatever vehicles were plying the road,” Pune’s commissioner of police, Meeran Borwankar, told local television. “Citizens came forward and literally threw children away from the road. He was in such a dangerous mood. Ultimately he was held [by police], but the damage has been tremendous,” she said.
NEW ZEALAND
Search on for explorer
The foreign ministry yesterday said it was searching for a Norwegian explorer believed to be planning a second unauthorized trip to Antarctica, less than a year after his first resulted in three deaths. The ministry said it was trying to locate Jarle Andhoy’s yacht Nilaya after the Norwegian government raised concerns that the adventurer planned to travel back to Antarctica. Officials said Andhoy arrived in the country earlier this month. Andhoy led a five-man expedition to Antarctica in February last year, in which he and another member attempted to reach the South Pole on quadbikes as the remaining three waited for them aboard their sailboat Beserk. The vessel sank when a fierce storm battered the Ross Sea and the three on board were never found.
UZBEKISTAN
No Valentine’s Day shows
The government is, apparently, unwilling to give love a chance, canceling concerts and other events for Valentine’s Day, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti said, citing local media reports on Tuesday. Instead, residents in the capital, Tashkent, can enjoy readings of poems by Mughal emperor Babur, who died in the 16th century. The unofficial ban on romance-related festivities echoes long-standing antagonism in the country toward the holiday. Last year, the Turkiston newspaper described Valentine’s Day as the work of “forces with evil goals bent on putting an end to national values.”
UNITED STATES
Gift your love with a roach
Shakespeare asked if he should compare his lover “to a summer’s day.” A New York zoo suggests cockroaches instead. Ahead of Valentine’s Day next month the Bronx Zoo wants New Yorkers to pay US$10 for the right to give their sweetheart’s name — or perhaps that of an ex — to one of its Madagascar hissing cockroaches. For US$25, lovebirds can name a cockroach couple. To sweeten the deal, the zoo is also offering boxes of chocolate replica cockroaches.
UNITED STATES
Wife fights off moose
An 85-year-old Alaska woman used a grain shovel to fend off an agitated moose that was stomping her husband. George Murphy said his wife saved his life. The Anchorage Daily News said the 82-year-old pilot was hiking with his golden retrievers near the Willow airport on Friday. He saw the moose and dove in the snow, but the moose started stomping him. His wife, Dorothea, 1.52m tall and weighing 44kg, grabbed a big shovel and hit the moose in the body and head. She ran for help, and Murphy was rushed by medical helicopter to an Anchorage hospital, where he was in good condition on Monday with a gash to his head.
UNITED KINGDOM
Pandas get their own tartan
Two pandas gifted to Edinburgh zoo by China received the ultimate Scottish honor on Tuesday when a special tartan designed for them was unveiled. Yang Guang (陽光) and Tian Tian (甜甜) have already attracted thousands of visitors to the zoo since they arrived on Dec. 4 under a deal agreed after five years of high-level political and diplomatic negotiations. The tartan features black, white and grey to reflect the color of the pandas’ fur and three red lines to represent China. It was unveiled to tie in with the start of the Lunar New Year on Monday and Burns Night yesterday, an important date for Scots.
UNITED KINGDOM
Stalin death bronze sold
A bronze cast from Joseph Stalin’s death mask, one of only 12 made after the Soviet dictator’s death in 1953, was sold in Britain on Tuesday for ￡4,400 (US$6,860), Mullock’s auctioneers said. The mask and accompanying bronze casts of Stalin’s hands — the left one withered — had been estimated to sell at between ￡3,000 and ￡5,000. “It’s an interesting and unusual item. There were lots of telephone bids and Internet interest” said Richard Westwood-Brookes, historical documents expert at Mullock’s, adding that it went to a private telephone bidder in Britain. Originally brought to the West by art dealer James Birch, who purchased it in Moscow in 1990, the bronze death mask shows Stalin’s hair swept back from his forehead and clearly outlines his famous moustache.
UNITED STATES
Shooter pleads not guilty
A man accused of firing shots at the White House pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that he tried to assassinate President Barack Obama. A lawyer for Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez entered the plea on his client’s behalf during a brief appearance in US District Court in Washington. Ortega did not say anything during the proceedings and will remain held without bond. He has another court date next month. Prosecutors say Ortega used an assault rifle with an attached scope to fire a series of shots at the White House from long range on the night of Nov. 11. The Obamas were out of town at the time. Ortega, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was indicted last week on 17 counts including trying to assassinate the president, transporting a firearm across state lines and assaulting officers or employees of the US with a deadly weapon.
AFGHANISTAN
Attack linked to video clip
The 21-year-old Afghan soldier who turned on French troops and killed four of them was angry about a video purporting to show US Marines desecrating the bodies of Taliban insurgents, an army spokesman said yesterday. However, it is still unclear whether the video was the sole motivation for the attack at a base, Defense Ministry General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said. Investigators are also looking into whether the attacker — who had been in the army for less than three months — had any personal disputes or may have been recruited by Taliban insurgents. French investigators are traveling to Kabul to assist the investigation into the attack.
RUSSIA
Assange gets TV show
WikiLeaks editor-at-large Julian Assange will air his new television talk show on an English-language cable network controlled by the Russian government, broadcaster RT said yesterday. The World Tomorrow will comprise interviews Assange conducts with 10 “key political players, thinkers and revolutionaires,” Moscow-based RT said.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
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
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
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