■ JAPAN
Neighbours catch baby
A five-month-old baby was caught by neighbors after her mother threw her from the third-floor window of a burning building in Osaka yesterday, police said. Rion Morioka was uninjured in the fall but was being treated for smoke inhalation, as was her mother Miyuki, 24, Kyodo news agency said. She and the baby's father, Junichi, 22, both jumped from the window, about 7m above the ground. Junichi suffered broken bones. Neighbors had spread bedding on the ground and shouted to the couple to throw the baby after the fire broke out, the agency said.
■ MALAYSIA
Fight disrupts wedding
A wedding for 22 couples in Sabah state was abandoned after the imam leading the ceremony came to blows with a religious official, the Star newspaper said yesterday. An officer from the Sabah Islamic Affairs Department claimed the imam -- who was from Borneo -- did not have permission from the town's religious affairs unit to conduct the marriages. The argument degenerated into a scuffle between the two men, causing the 22 couples and their family members to flee.
■ JAPAN
Velvet Revolver banned
US hard rockers Velvet Revolver have canceled a tour after being denied visas. The band, featuring three members of rock legends Guns N' Roses and the Stone Temple Pilots' former frontman Scott Weiland, issued an apology to Japanese fans on their Web site. "We don't understand why the authorities won't give us visas when they granted them for us in 2005 for what was a successful tour and a great experience. We love Japan and look forward to our return there," they said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Kidman says she was scared
Nicole Kidman told a judge yesterday that she was "really, really scared" when chased in her car by Jamie Fawcett two years ago. Fawcett sued the Sun-Herald for defamation over an article that said he was Sydney's most disliked freelance photographer and that his behavior toward Kidman was so ``intrusive and threatening'' that he scared her. A jury has already found that the article defamed Fawcett. The court is mulling whether to award damages.
■ KENYA
Lion, hyenas attack man
Kenyan surgeons have amputated the arms and reconstructed the face of a herder who slew a lion, only to be mauled later by a pack of hyenas, an official said yesterday. Moses Lekalau, 35, on Friday speared a lion to death in Samburu, about 260km northeast of the capital Nairobi, only to be savaged by hyenas that emerged from the bush. Lekalau speared the lion that had attacked him while walking home with his livestock, then bludgeoned it to death. Lekalau hails from a nomadic pastoralist community where boys are ritually required to kill lions as a signature of maturing into manhood.
■ ITALY
Berlusconi starts party
Opposition leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi announced the creation of a new political party on Sunday, saying the People of Liberty party would ensure democracy, development and freedom for the future. The hasty announcement came as a surprise: Berlusconi announced it during an impromptu news conference in a Milan piazza where his existing Forza Italia party was collecting signatures calling for early elections. The media mogul said his supporters had gathered so many signatures calling for change -- 7 million by his count -- that he felt the time was right to announce the creation of a new party.
■ SPAIN
Right-wing supporters rally
Hundreds of demonstrators nostalgic for the country's right-wing past held a rally on Sunday to commemorate a hardline leader killed during the civil war. The rally, held next to the royal palace in Madrid's old quarter, was in remembrance of the killing of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1936 by leftist forces. Tensions between opposing political forces have been high since a teenager was stabbed to death by a right-wing activist during a clash between rival groups on Nov. 11. Primo de Rivera founded the Falange, the political movement linked to dictator Francisco Franco's regime, which ended in 1975. Most of those attending were elderly.
■ BELGIUM
Protesters call for unity
An estimated 35,000 people marched in the capital on Sunday to vent their anger about a political deadlock that has prevented a government from taking office and stoked fears the nation of Dutch and French speakers may break apart. The demonstrators, members of both linguistic groups, gathered at a park in Brussels to sing the national anthem and hear speakers call for unity. A petition signed by some 140,000 people urges politicians "to stop wasting money at our expense on quarrels that interest only a small minority." The issue of more self-rule for Dutch and French-speaking regions has deadlocked bids to form a center-right government since June elections.
■ RUSSIA
Crew rescued from sea
Nearly all of the crew and passengers of the cargo ship that sank on Sunday during a storm in the Sea of Japan were rescued overnight, with only one still missing, news agency Interfax reported. Of the 30 crew and six passengers that were cast adrift on the high seas after escaping the sinking ship, 35 were rescued, Interfax said. The ship, registered in the Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, had been transporting timber to China. The vessel sunk 180km south of the port of Nakhodka.
■ UNITED STATES
Cattle run through town
Cattle roundups are mostly a thing of the past, and this is western Pennsylvania, but on Thursday a Stoystown resident called to report a herd of cattle stampeding through her yard. Mayor Bill Boyd was first on the scene, honking his horn at the nine bulls, cows and calves that were plodding along, barely 90m from Main Street in this borough of just over 400 people. A handful of residents joined in and together they managed to get the wandering herd corralled on a nearby field. Boyd said he did not know who owned the cattle.
■ UNITED STATES
Order agrees to pay US$50m
A Roman Catholic religious order has agreed to pay US$50 million to more than 100 Alaska Natives who allege sexual abuse by Jesuit priests, a lawyer for the accusers said on Sunday. The settlement with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus is the largest one yet against a Catholic religious order, said Anchorage lawyer Ken Roosa. "These are people who were altar boys and altar servers and altar girls," Roosa said. "These are people who tried to tell their story and in many instances were beaten or told to shut up and told, `How can you say such things about a man of God?'" The sexual abuse allegations involved 13 or 14 clerics and children aged five years old to teenagers.
■ UNITED STATES
Kucinich joins protest
Thousands of people demonstrated outside a big US Army base on Sunday to demand the closure of a defense department training school they say promotes torture and murder in Latin America. Long-shot Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich joined the annual protest outside the Fort Benning Army base in Georgia to shut down the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Protesters say it teaches security personnel from Latin American countries to use repressive tactics and that graduates have overthrown legitimate governments, citing a coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 as an example.
■ UNITED STATES
Reverend refuses vow
A Lutheran church in Chicago has ordained a lesbian who refuses to take a vow of celibacy, becoming the first in the denomination to test a new resolution that gives bishops leeway in disciplining such violations. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America requires vows of celibacy for gay but not for heterosexual clergy -- a policy the Reverend Jen Rude, 27, calls discriminatory. Rude, whose father and grandfather are both Lutheran ministers, expressed gratitude to the congregation. "It's meaningful to me in the sense that my call is being affirmed not only by God, but the people of God," she said.
■ COLOMBIA
FARC landmines kill seven
Seven soldiers were killed by landmines and four guerrillas died in a subsequent gun battle over control of a longtime rebel stronghold near the center of the country, the army said on Sunday. A soldier tripped a landmine that set off a chain of explosions in Tolima province late on Saturday. Those who survived the blasts fired on members of Colombia's biggest rebel force, the FARC, which was born in Tolima in 1964. Four of the FARC rebels were killed in that exchange. President Alvaro Uribe has pushed the guerrillas on to the defensive with his US-backed security policies but thousands are still killed every year in this war involving a mosaic of militias funded by the multibillion-dollar cocaine trade.
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
PINEAPPLE DEBATE: While the owners of the pizzeria dislike pineapple on pizza, a survey last year showed that over 50% of Britons either love or like the topping A trendy pizzeria in the English city of Norwich has declared war on pineapples, charging an eye-watering ￡100 (US$124) for a Hawaiian in a bid to put customers off the disputed topping. Lupa Pizza recently added pizza topped with ham and pineapple to its account on a food delivery app, writing in the description: “Yeah, for ￡100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on, you monster!” “[We] vehemently dislike pineapple on pizza,” Lupa co-owner Francis Wolf said. “We feel like it doesn’t suit pizza at all,” he said. The other co-owner, head chef Quin Jianoran, said they kept tinned pineapple
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