Wed, Aug 08, 2012 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  PHILIPPINES

  Army finds mutilated bodies

  Soldiers found four bodies, including the mutilated corpses of two soldiers, after a breakaway Muslim rebel group launched co-ordinated raids in the south, the army said yesterday. The discoveries raised the death toll to seven a day after the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters simultaneously attacked 11 towns on Mindanao Island, the soldiers’ commander Lieutenant Colonel Kit Teofilo said. “The face of one soldier was mangled [and he] was shot in the head. The other had torture marks all over his body, including hack wounds. It was a horrible crime committed by heartless individuals,” Teofilo said. The corpses of two more male victims were recovered at a roadside, also suspected to have been killed by the raiders, the battalion commander said in a statement.

  VIETNAM

  Tourists die mysteriously

  Authorities are investigating the mysterious deaths of two tourists from the US and Canada who stayed in the same guesthouse, official media reported on Monday. American Karin Joy Bowerman, 27, and Canadian Cathy Huynh, 26, died last week at a hospital in southern Nha Trang Province, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said. Bowerman died on July 30 after suffering “a mysterious illness” and respiratory failure, while Huynh died two days later after developing similar symptoms and suffering a cardiac arrest, the report said. The pair, who had shared a room in a guesthouse in Nha Trang — a popular seaside resort — might have “drunk too much wine” which led to their deaths, a police investigator told the paper. The family of Huynh, a Canadian of Vietnamese descent, has disputed this account, the report said, adding that police are waiting for the results of the autopsy tests to establish the cause of death.

  MALAYSIA

  Suspected exorcism kills girl

  A three-year-old girl was killed in a suspected exorcism ritual by family members who believed she was possessed by evil spirits, police said yesterday. Police raided a house in northern Penang State late on Sunday after receiving a distress call from a family member and found a group of eight people lying on top of the girl in a bedroom, district police chief Azman Abdul Lah said. The girl was face-down under the human pile, which comprised her parents, grandmother, uncle, aunt, two cousins and their Indonesian maid, he said. The room was dark and chanting could be heard from under a blanket covering the group, Azman said. The girl died of suffocation, and all eight involved have been detained, he added.

  SOUTH KOREA

  K-pop singer goes viral

  An eccentric K-pop singer has become a global online hit after a video of his latest song was viewed more than 15 million times on YouTube. Park Jae-sang, 34, better known by his stage name “Psy,” is riding high in the charts with Gangnam Style, the title track of his sixth album. The video featuring Psy performing the so-called “horse dance” — similar to riding a horse — has gone viral and pop stars overseas have tweeted about the wacky performance. Fans all over the world have created parody versions of the song and posted them on YouTube. The song has been No. 1 on the country’s major music charts for more than three weeks and is also high on the iTunes store in the US, Canada, Finland, New Zealand and Denmark. Psy could not be reached for comment on Monday, but he told Yonhap News Agency on Sunday: “My motto is: ‘Be funny, but not stupid.’”

  MEXICO

  Kiss-in held to protest arrest

  Couples of all ages locked lips outside a church in the conservative central city of Leon to protest the arrest of a man for kissing his female companion. The “kiss-in” — held at noon on Sunday to coincide with mass — received applause from some parishioners at the Catholic church. Manuel Berumen, a 38-year-old university lecturer, was detained for 12 hours for engaging in the public display of affection while strolling on Thursday in a nearby square with his partner and their four-year-old son. “I took Mayra and kissed her, nothing out of the ordinary. And then we heard a person screaming: ‘There are children here — children!’ as if we were naked or engaging in pornography on the street,” Berumen said on Monday after filing a complaint to the country’s human rights advocacy agency. He and his partner were charged with offenses against morality.

  UNITED KINGDOM

  Microwaves are not dryer

  Firefighters say they saved an apartment from destruction after its domestically challenged resident tried to dry his wet socks and underwear in a microwave oven. The Dorset Fire and Rescue Service said kitchen blaze on Monday destroyed the microwave along with the two pairs of underwear and socks inside it, and caused smoke damage to the apartment in Weymouth. “The fire safety message here is to never put clothing of any kind in the microwave or an oven to attempt to dry them,” the firefighters said.

  UNITED STATES

  Two airplanes intercepted

  F-15 fighter jets have intercepted two small airplanes in the New York metropolitan area after they entered airspace temporarily restricted because of President Barack Obama’s campaign visit to Connecticut. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) says the first incident was at 7pm on Monday over Long Island. The plane was followed until it landed, where local law enforcement was waiting. NORAD says the second incident was at 7:30pm near New Haven, Connecticut. That plane was allowed to continue to its destination.

  UNITED STATES

  Woman tries to steal baby

  A woman disguised in scrubs was caught trying to steal a newborn girl from a Southern California hospital in a duffel bag after sensors attached to the baby alerted employees, Garden Grove police said. The 48-year-old woman was arrested on Monday at Garden Grove Medical Center after a hospital staffer stopped her from leaving with the baby, Lieutenant Jeff Nightengale said. The suspect is accused of posing as a nurse who came into the room of the baby’s mother and told her to take a shower before a doctor came to examine her, Nightengale said. Once the baby’s mother was out of the room, the woman allegedly put the newborn in a duffel bag and tried to carry her out of the ward.

  UNITED STATES

  NBC defends itself

  NBC defended itself on Monday against Sharon Osbourne’s claim the network discriminated against her son in casting a new reality show. She told the New York Post that she’s quitting America’s Got Talent because NBC fired her son, Jack Osbourne, by e-mail two days before he was to co-star on the reality show Stars Earn Stripes. Jack Osbourne, 26, was diagnosed recently with multiple sclerosis. In a statement on Monday, NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt said the network “does not discriminate on any basis.”
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