INDIA
Death follows Facebook spat
A 17-year-old has committed suicide after a row with her parents who told her she had to stop using Facebook, police said yesterday. College student Aishwarya Dahiwal was found hanging in her bedroom on Wednesday after an argument with her parents in Maharashtra State’s Parbhani city, an investigating officer said, declining to be named. “On Wednesday night, she had an argument with her parents who told her not to just use Facebook and her mobile all day for chatting,” the officer said. “They told her to focus on her studies. After the argument, she locked herself in her room and was found hanging later, with a suicide note nearby,” he said.
AUSTRALIA
Dead mom cash shocker
An elderly woman lay dead for months in her home as her adult daughter, who apparently used air freshener to mask the smell, fraudulently accessed her bank accounts, police said yesterday. The body of the 83-year-old was found in the bedroom of her Sydney home a week ago, but a post-mortem suggested she had been dead for months. Her 48-year-old daughter, receptionist Melissa Peacock, who was believed to be her primary carer, was not at the premises. On Thursday she was discovered at a luxury hotel in Sydney and arrested, police said. “She was arrested and charged with failing to report a death and dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception,” they said in a statement. “Police will allege the woman had been fraudulently obtaining money from her deceased mother’s bank accounts on a number of occasions.” A court yesterday heard that Peacock told police her mother died on July 28 and that after finding the body she walked from the bedroom, shut the door and had not re-entered since, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. However, the court was told forensic evidence indicated attempts were made to keep the room clean after the woman’s death, including changing the sheets and using air freshener, the report said.
CHINA
Irate patient kills doctor
A man unhappy with the results of an operation on his nose stabbed a doctor to death and wounded two others yesterday, state media reported, in at least the third such attack in a week in which China promised to improve hospital security. The 33-year-old man, surnamed Lian, carried out the attack at a hospital in Wenling City in Zhejiang Province, Xinhua news agency reported. Lian had gone to the ear, nose and throat department looking for the doctor who treated him, but he was not there. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the head of the department instead, Xinhua said. Lian also stabbed two other doctors before he was restrained. Earlier in the week, a man killed himself by jumping from a hospital building after stabbing a doctor six times in Liaoning Province after a disagreement over complications from surgery on his arm. Two doctors were also beaten up by angry family members of a patient who died in hospital in Guangdong Province.
NORWAY
Man shot while on toilet
A Norwegian hunter took aim at a moose, but missed and accidentally hit a man sitting on the toilet in a nearby cabin on Thursday, police said. The bullet whizzed past the animal, pierced the wooden wall behind it and struck the man, in his seventies, in the stomach, police told public broadcaster NRK. The victim was flown to hospital, but his injury was not life threatening, said Anders Stroemsaether, the policeman who led the investigation. The hunter was taken in for questioning in Hvaler district, about 120km southeast of Oslo, police said. The moose escaped unscathed.
AUSTRIA
Shell prompts evacuation
Austrian state broadcaster ORF reported a tank shell was on offer as a dummy on a trading Web site. It says police had to clear a Vienna apartment house of its residents and put up road blocks after establishing that it was in fact a fully functional explosive. Thursday’s report said police were called to examine the shell by its new owner shortly after she had exchanged two bottles of wine and a picture frame for it. ORF said the shell’s previous owner had used it as a doorstop. The report says both women face unspecified criminal charges.
SOUTH AFRICA
Lion protest ban quashed
A South African court ruled on Thursday it was unconstitutional to ban an advertising campaign by an activist group urging South African President Jacob Zuma to stop the trade in lion bones. The adverts at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport, the country’s main port of entry, featured a lioness looking down the barrel of a gun with the text “President Zuma can save her life.” Airport authorities pulled down the posters in August last year, just nine days into campaign group Avaaz’s month-long contract. The Johannesburg High Court ordered that the adverts be reinstated after Avaaz accused Airports Company South Africa of violating its right to freedom of expression.
UNITED STATES
Toxic tush ‘surgeon’ jailed
A transgender US woman who claimed to be a surgeon and reportedly injected adhesives and cement into a woman’s bottom was sentenced on Thursday to a year in jail. Oneal Ron Morris, 32, accepted a plea deal for one count of illegal practice of healthcare in what became known as the “toxic tush” case, in Miami Gardens, Florida. Another suit is pending against Morris, involving the death of a woman who was one of her patients. Prosecutors said on Thursday they could not determine exactly what substances Morris injected in women.
UKRAINE
Boxer to run for president
Heavyweight boxer and opposition politician Vitaly Klitschko said on Thursday he would run for president in 2015. Klitschko, 42, the reigning World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion, made his declaration to parliament after its deputies — predominantly from the ruling Party of Regions and its allies — amended a law on tax legislation in a way that could be used to prevent him from running for the presidency. He is the first declared contender against incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych, who is widely expected to seek a second term despite a slump in popularity because of Ukraine’s faltering economy. The 2m tall Klitschko said: “Everything that has taken place in parliament today with texts of laws, directly backed by ruling party deputies, does not intimidate me and will not stop me."
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
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