AFGHANISTAN
Top policewoman killed
The top policewoman in Helmand Province died early yesterday after being shot by unknown attackers, months after her predecessor was also slain. Sub-Inspector Negar, who like many Afghans goes by one name, was buying grass for her lambs outside her home on Sunday when two gunmen drove up on a motorbike and fired at her, said Omar Zawak, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand Province. She suffered a bullet wound to the neck, and the attackers got away. Doctors tried to save her, but police spokesman Fareed Ahmad Obaidi said she died at 1am yesterday. Negar had taken over the duties of Islam Bibi, a well-known police officer who was shot dead in July by unknown gunmen.
CHINA
Appeal for virgins’ blood
A hospital’s request for blood from healthy female virgins for use in medical research has been condemned as insulting to women, state-run media reported yesterday. The Peking University Cancer Hospital said it needed the blood of 100 female virgins aged 18 to 24 for studies on the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is usually transmitted through sexual contact, the China Daily reported. Some Internet users condemned the request as promoting virginity worship and demeaning to women. The hospital defended the call for donors, saying virgins’ blood was less likely to be infected with HPV.
THAILAND
Former Malaysian rebel dies
Malaysia’s renowned former communist fighter Chin Peng, who led a guerrilla campaign against British colonial rule, died in exile in Bangkok yesterday, his military liaison said. The 89-year-old, who left Malaysia about five decades ago, had been hospitalized in Bangkok for several years. Born Ong Boon Hua in Malaysia’s north, Chin Peng was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire and won two medals for helping the British fight the Japanese in Malaya during World War II. He later led the communist party, backed by China, in a guerrilla campaign against the British colonial and Malaysian governments before and after independence in 1957. In 2009, Malaysia’s highest court rejected a bid for him to return.
NEW ZEALAND
Climbers fall to death
One Australian and one English climber have fallen to their deaths in the country, police confirmed yesterday. Police Inspector Dave Gaskin said the two incidents on consecutive days in the Aoraki-Mt Cook National Park were not related and were not due to bad weather. He said they come as a reminder that climbers need to use extreme caution. Duncan Rait, 36, died after slipping and falling about 60m from a ridge high on the Tasman Glacier on Friday. Englishman Robert Buckley, 31, fell about 700m on Saturday, while climbing to a small hut on Mount Sefton with three companions.
INDIA
Safe found in mountains
Workers clearing rubble in a flood-devastated town in the Himalayas have discovered 19 million rupees (US$303,000) in a safe that had been swept away by floodwaters, police said yesterday. The safe was found on Saturday near the ruins of a bank in the town of Kedarnath, which was flattened by flash floods in June, police Inspector General Ram Singh Meena said in Dehradun, capital of Uttarakhand State. He said the money belonged to the State Bank of India (SBI) and has been deposited in an SBI branch.
RWANDA
Parliamentary polls held
People were voting yesterday in parliamentary polls seen as a shoo-in for President Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front, the party that has held sway over the central African state since ending the genocide 20 years ago. About 6 million people are eligible to cast their ballots. Voting appeared calm yesterday.
GERMANY
Conservatives win in Bavaria
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative allies triumphed in Bavaria’s state election on Sunday, a week before the whole country votes, although a painful setback for her coalition partners added to uncertainty over the outcome of the national election. The Merkel-allied Christian Social Union won 47.7 percent of the vote. However, Merkel’s national governing partner, the Free Democrats, won only 3.3 percent of the vote on Sunday, losing more than its support and its seats in the legislature in Munich.
IRAQ
Bombs, shootings kill 36
A wave of car bombs and shootings across the country killed at least 36 people on Sunday, police sources said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, which appeared coordinated. The deadliest attacks were in the city of Hilla, where two parked car bombs exploded simultaneously near a busy market and a third blew up near vehicle repair workshops, killing nine people.
SWITZERLAND
Murder suspect caught
A Swiss-French rapist suspected of killing his female therapist during a day release trip was on Sunday snared in Poland, after a four-day international manhunt in a case that rocked the country. Fabrice Anthamatten was arrested in the Polish-German border area, behind the wheel of the car in which he was believed to have fled the country on Thursday, the office said. Polish police spokesman Mariusz Sokolowski said the arrest was made by German officers in a cross-border pursuit near the northwestern Polish town of Police. Anthamatten is the prime suspect in the murder of prison therapist Adeline Morel. Her body was found near Geneva on Friday, a day after she and Anthamatten went missing during a trip to a horse-riding center that was part of therapy.
UNITED STATES
Police kill black crash victim
Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, shot dead an unarmed man who was running toward police officers and may have been just trying to get help after crashing his car, authorities said. A police officer has been charged with voluntary manslaughter for Saturday’s shooting, and an attorney for the victim’s family said on Sunday he believed race played a role in the death of Jonathan Ferrell, 24, who was black. Farrell, seeking help after the accident, knocked on a door in a predominantly white neighborhood, Chestnut said. A woman called the 911 emergency operator after Ferrell began knocking insistently on her front door.
UNITED STATES
New Miss America named
Nina Davuluri became the first contestant of Indian heritage and the second consecutive contestant from New York to win the Miss America pageant on Sunday night. Davuluri, 24, won the title as the nationally televised pageant returned home to Atlantic City. She succeeds another Miss New York, Mallory Hagan, whose tenure was cut short when the pageant moved back to Atlantic City after a six-year stint in Las Vegas.
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
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