■ INDONESIA
Smugglers to be executed
Three Indonesians have been sentenced to death for trying to smuggle thousands of ecstasy tablets into the country, a sentencing judge said yesterday. The three were sentenced on Wednesday after being convicted of attempting to traffic almost 25,500 tablets from Malaysia to Indonesia's nearby Batam island, judge Haruno Patriadi said. "The three were found guilty of violating the anti-drug laws by illegally and in an organized way carrying, possessing and keeping psychotropic drugs," Patriadi said.
■ INDIA
Wall collapse kills 30
At least 30 people died on Wednesday when a wall collapsed onto a liquor store in southern India, officials said. Rescue workers said the victims were queuing to buy liquor from a state-run store in the state of Tamil Nadu when the wall fell on them. "We have so far recovered 25 bodies and are looking for more," local administrator Neeraj Mittal said. Mittal said five more victims had been taken to hospital with serious injuries. The wall collapsed onto the tin roof of the store after being weakened by heavy rain.
■ HONG KONG
Daily branded `indecent'
A Hong Kong newspaper has been branded "indecent" after it reprinted a local university's survey on sexual fantasies, including incest and bestiality, that authorities had declared obscene. The article in broadsheet newspaper Ming Pao Daily was classified as indecent by the Obscene Publications Tribunal following the reprinting of the 14 questions published in a Chinese University magazine. The survey, in CU Student Press, asked questions such as: "Do you fantasize about having sex with your parents or animals?" It was branded as a class II obscene article by the tribunal. The newspaper has vowed to appeal the decision.
■ CHINA
Lightning proves deadly
A fire started by a lightning strike killed seven students and injured 39 others at a primary school in southwestern China, an official said yesterday. The lightning hit a tree next to the school in Chongqing city on Wednesday, igniting a fire that spread quickly to two classrooms, killing seven children aged between 10 and 14 who had been sitting by the windows, said a Kaixian county education bureau official. The Xinye Village Primary School was made of brick with wooden beams and was located in a lightning-prone mountainous area, Chinese Central Television reported on its Web site. Chinese Central Television reported on its Web site that 95 children and teachers were in the building when it was hit.
■ JAPAN
Lesbian standing for office
The main opposition party is fielding an openly lesbian candidate for July's upper house elections, in an unprecedented move for the country's conservative political world. The Democratic Party has endorsed 32-year-old Kanako Otsuji, a former local assemblywoman and outspoken campaigner for gay and other minority rights, as a candidate for the upcoming national poll, an official at her office said yesterday. "This is the first time a national political party has officially fielded an openly gay person," the official said. Otsuji came out midway through her four years as a member of the local assembly in the western city of Osaka, writing a book about her experience and taking part in gay and lesbian rallies.
■ BAHRAIN
Boat owner gets 10 years
The owner of a boat that sank last year leaving 58 people dead was sentenced to 10 years in prison, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Abdullah al-Qubaisi, from the Al-Dana company that owned the vessel, and the wooden boat's Indian captain, who was sentenced to three years for manslaughter, were given "severe" maximum sentences, said Abdel Rahman Ghoneim, adding that he would appeal because the owner was innocent. "My client did have a contract with the passengers [of the boat] but with a company" that organized the boat trip in the Gulf on the day of the disaster, he added.
■ EGYPT
Gang leaders get death
A court on Wednesday sentenced to death two gang leaders who had confessed to the murder and rape of 20 street children, court officials said. Ringleaders Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansour, known as Al-Tourbini, and Farag Samir Mahmoud, known as Hanata, were convicted and sentenced by the criminal court in Tanta, 90km north of Cairo. Al-Turbini, 27, and Hanata, 25, were also found guilty of illegal possession of weapons. In accordance with Egyptian law, the judge referred the verdict to Egypt's grand Mufti for his opinion, which is advisory. It is a legal procedure before a sentence becomes final.
■ RUSSIA
Blast mine cheated closure
Safety inspectors tried twice to close down a Siberian mine where at least 35 people died in an explosion yesterday but were overruled by local courts, the industrial safety watchdog said. Inspectors discovered safety violations in the shaft at the Yubileynaya mine, the watchdog said in a statement. RosTekhNadzor said its inspectors had twice applied to local courts seeking the closure of the Yubileynaya mine, most recently on April 30. On both occasions, the courts ruled the mine could continue operating, it said.
■ RUSSIA
Moscow customs blocks art
Alexander Pushkin flicks a cigarette lighter as Russian President Vladimir Putin warms his hand on a candle held by a beer-bellied Jesus Christ. The trinity seems harmless enough within contemporary art's scatological canon, but this week customs officers in Moscow refused to ship the photomontage, The Candle of our Life, to an exhibition at the Stadtische Gallerie in Dresden, Germany. By coincidence, the city was Putin's home as a KGB member in the 1980s. In a sign of Russian paranoia about satirizing public figures, customs officials turned away six works of art, two featuring the president. Natalia Milovzorova, a spokeswoman for the Marat Guelman gallery, said the decision was "absurd."
■ UKRAINE
Turk arrested for heroin
Authorities have arrested a Turkish man after seizing from him more than 110kg of heroin, the security service said on Wednesday. The man was nabbed as he tried to put four sport bags with the drugs into his car's trunk in Kiev, the security service said in statement; more heroin was found later at his apartment. The service did not say when the arrest happened; no further details were available. US, German and Turkish law enforcement agencies were involved in the operation, which was launched last year and was aimed at cutting off transit routes for heroin to the EU, the service said.
■ UNITED STATES
Cops show stolen panty pics
Police have invited women who might be missing underwear to view photos of approximately 1,300 articles that were stolen from various laundry rooms near the Colorado State University campus. Chih Hsien Wu, 43, was arrested on suspicion of felony theft on Wednesday. Police say Wu is believed to have stolen the underwear, valued at more than US$6,000, between Sept. 23 and May 18. Investigators invited women to view photographs last Friday to see if any of the stolen panties, sports bras, stretch pants and panty hose might be theirs.
■ UNITED STATES
Cops searching for cheese
Missing: A 14.6m-long refrigerated trailer stocked with 10,433kg of cheese. The milky load was stolen sometime between early Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon from a highway rest stop in Snow Shoe, Pennsylvania. The truck driver had unhooked the trailer and left it at the rest stop to take his tractor to a repair shop. The trailer -- and the cheese -- were gone when he returned, police said. The trailer had an Illinois registration and the number 202 on it, state police said. Authorities placed the value of the trailer at US$14,000, but did not know the value or the manufacturer of the missing cheese.
■ UNITED STATES
Fake firefighter found guilty
A New York jury found a former fashion magazine writer guilty on Wednesday of masquerading as a firefighter to get into an ex-colleague's home and sexually assaulting her for 13 hours. The jury in state Supreme Court in Manhattan deliberated less than a day before finding Peter Braunstein, 43, guilty of sexual abuse, kidnapping, burglary and robbery. He faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 18. The attack occurred on Oct. 31, 2005, after Braunstein, wearing a Fire Department of New York uniform, set two small fires in the lobby of a Manhattan apartment building, prosecutors said.
■ UNITED STATES
Cop in taser stunt trouble
A video of a Tenino, Washington, police officer using a stun gun on another man's genitals has surfaced online, getting the officer in trouble -- even though the man asked for it. "He said he just wanted to know what it felt like," said Interim Police Chief Larry Dickerson, who interviewed the unidentified man. The man was not injured, and onlookers can be heard laughing in the background. The man repeatedly asked Officer Randy Reynolds to use the weapon on him, and Reynolds eventually obliged -- twice. "Randy didn't want to do it at first, but the guy kept asking," Dickerson said. Reynolds had been attending a social gathering, but was in uniform and on his way to work at the time, Dickerson said on Tuesday.
■ UNITED STATES
Woman in second car birth
If a pregnant Stephanie Green asks for a ride to the hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, beware: She has a history of giving birth in cars. On Tuesday, for the second time in 17 months, Green had a baby while en route to a hospital. Doctors had planned to induce labor, but baby Zaria had other plans. "I thought I was going to make it this time, but she changed all that very quickly," Green said. Green's other daughter, 17-month-old Semajai, was born in a car after Mom got stuck in traffic. Tuesday's first contraction came around 7am, and Green called friend Shanika Lewis for a ride to the hospital. They were on the highway just blocks from a Raleigh hospital about an hour later when the contractions got more intense.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
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