■ JAPAN
Parrot talks his way home
When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught — recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help. Police rescued the African gray parrot two weeks ago from a roof in Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a veterinary hospital. He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet. “I’m Mr. Yosuke Nakamura,” the bird told the vet. He also provided his full home address. The police checked the address and found the Nakamura family, who told them they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.
■ MALAYSIA
Thieves in briefs rob house
Five robbers clad only in underwear and face masks broke into a Borneo home and left with money and goods after beating up the owner’s Indonesian maid, the Star daily said yesterday. The five men entered the home in Miri early on Monday and tied up a family of four, the paper said. The robbers then demanded to see the family’s maid and beat her with the handle of a machete. The men then escaped with more than 10,000 ringgit (US$2,940) in cash and belongings.
■ PHILIPPINES
Police told to smile or else
Police officers were told to smile in public or face suspension yesterday in an attempt to spruce up their image. The new guidelines were announced after one of the country’s bloodiest weeks in crime. “We are encouraging policemen to be community-friendly,” police Director Leopoldo Bataoil said. “There is no place for rough and brusque officers in this organization.” He said the order was in response to public complaints over officers’ behavior at road checkpoints. “Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you so much. Sir/Ma’am ... these are words of courtesy which the public wants to hear from us,” Bataoil said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Giant roo signals to space
A giant white kangaroo bounced into the science books on Tuesday as part of a global experiment to measure the amount of light the earth reflects back to the sun. The cardboard cut-out marsupial, which measures 32m by 18m, was laid out in a paddock on the grounds of Monash University in Melbourne. “We call it our kangaroo from space because two satellites flew over [and] what they were doing was measuring the amount of light reflected from our kangaroo,” said Patricia Vickers-Rich, a professor at the school. “And the point of that was to make people aware that reflected light, or lack of reflected light, has a very big effect on climate.” Scientists are concerned that the melting of the polar ice caps is quickly robbing the earth of some of the white spaces which have traditionally reflected the sun’s rays, she said.
■ NEW ZEALAND
On a wing and a prayer
Two pilots had their prayers answered on Sunday when their microlight airplane ran out of fuel and they were able to make an emergency landing in a field — right next to a sign reading, “Jesus is Lord.” “My friend and I are both Christians so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to ask for God’s help,” Grant Stubbs told reporters yesterday. After landing, the pair noticed they were beside a 6m tall sign that read, “Jesus is Lord — The Bible.” “When we saw that, we started laughing,” Stubbs said. “It was a bit of relief.”
■ AUSTRIA
Winemaker found guilty
A court yesterday found a 56-year-old owner of a vineyard guilty of attempted murder by chocolate. The eight-person jury in the town Krems said it had seen enough evidence that Helmut O. had attempted to poison the mayor of his local village, Hannes Hirtzberger, with a chocolate praline laced with strychnine over a property dispute in February. Hirtzberger, who according to experts ingested a more than fatal dose of poison, is still in hospital in a vegetative state. The mayor had found a popular local cherry brandy praline and a greeting card pinned to his car in February. After eating the chocolate he collapsed with cramps. DNA traces of the accused were found on the greeting card. Police said the mayor had rejected his plans to convert a vineyard property into a spa hotel.
■ GERMANY
Philharmonie catches fire
Berlin firefighters have put out a fire in the city’s iconic Philharmonie, the concert hall that is home to the Berlin Philharmonic, a fire services spokesman said yesterday. Fire officers were continuing to mount a watch in the roof of the asymmetrical golden building to ensure that the fire, which burnt for more than 12 hours after being detected at 2pm on Tuesday, did not break out again, he said. A Philharmonie spokesman said concerts there would be cancelled for the foreseeable future while the structure of the concrete building was examined for lasting damage.
■ ESTONIA
Meri’s cousin on trial
A cousin of a former president of Estonia went on trial on Tuesday on charges of genocide in connection with the deaths of dozens of people deported to Soviet prison camps in 1949. Arnold Meri, 88, a highly decorated Soviet soldier and cousin of former Estonian president Lennart Meri, was charged in August last year of involvement in the deportation of 251 Estonians from a small island off the Baltic state’s west coast. He denies charges of genocide, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life in jail. “The trial started this morning, but I cannot say how long it will take,” said prosecutor office spokeswoman Kulli Kivioja.
■ SWEDEN
Nuclear plant threatened
Police said yesterday they were interrogating a man who had entered a nuclear plant on the nation’s southeast coast carrying highly explosive material. Sven-Erik Karlsson, spokesman for Kalmar County Police, said police received a call from the Oskarshamn plant at 7:58am. “They told us a welder who was going to perform a job there had been stopped in a random security check. He had been carrying small amounts of the highly explosive material TATP,” Karlsson said. TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, is an organic peroxide which is more powerful than dynamite but is not on the Swedish Rescue Services Agency’s list of banned substances.
■ BELGIUM
Russia-EU pact reached
EU states finally agreed yesterday on a mandate for launching talks with Russia on a wide-ranging partnership pact, EU President Slovenia said. Agreement was reached at a meeting of EU ambassadors and will be rubber-stamped by foreign ministers next Monday, a presidency statement said. The deal, reached after 18 months of internal wrangling, means that the 27-member bloc should be in a position to launch talks on energy, political and other ties with Moscow ahead of an EU-Russia summit in Siberia next month.
■ UNITED STATES
Kennedy has brain tumor
Legendary Democratic patriarch Senator Edward Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor, doctors said on Tuesday, sending a wave of sadness and shock through the US political establishment. The 76-year-old liberal lion’s cancer diagnosis, days after he was airlifted to a Boston hospital following a seizure, cast a pall over Congress, where the Massachusetts senator has been a dominant figure for nearly half a century. “Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe,” physicians Lee Schwamm and Larry Ronan said in a statement.
■ UNITED STATES
Hotel blast an accident
Construction was suspended on a San Diego, California, hotel after a gas explosion injured 14 workers, but the Hilton tower still may open on schedule, the builder said on Tuesday. A damage assessment report by city engineers found no apparent damage to the main structural concrete frame and the steel-braced frame at the area of the blast. The damage was primarily limited to the northwest corner of the building on the fourth floor and the mechanical room on the fifth floor, the report said. The explosion on Monday occurred in a fifth-floor boiler room where pipes feed natural gas into a water heating system.
■ UNITED STATES
Woman forgotten in jail
A Mexican woman mistakenly incarcerated for four days without food or water will not be prosecuted on the charge that originally landed her in the system, a prosecutor said. Adriana Torres-Flores, 38, spent a March weekend in a holding cell in the Washington County Courthouse after a hearing on a charge of unauthorized copying or sale of recordings. She was found on March 10 when court resumed for the work week. Deputy Prosecutor Mark Booher said Torres-Flores did not go to trial yesterday as previously scheduled because the prosecution was able to verify her alibi and the charge will be dropped. Booher said the decision not to prosecute Torres-Flores was not related to a lawsuit she may file over a sheriff deputy’s mistake in forgetting to have her transferred to the county jail.
■ UNITED STATES
Paper money discriminatory
The appeals court says paper money discriminates against blind people. The court has upheld a ruling that could force the country to redesign its money so blind people can distinguish between values. Such changes could include making bills different sizes, including raised markings or printing oversized numbers for people who see poorly. The appeals court ruled 2-1 on Tuesday that the government did not explain why such changes would be an unreasonable burden, especially since many other countries have done so.
■ URUGUAY
Fossil debate rages on
Paleontologists are exchanging finely chiseled blows over the mightiest rodent to bestride the Earth. The rat-like beast, dubbed Josephoartigasia monesi, leapt into the headlines in January, when Uruguayan experts said it weighed just over 1 tonne. Their estimates were based on a massive skull, found on a beach in Uruguay’s River Plate region, that was dated to some 4 million years ago. The fossil measures 53cm and boasts gigantic incisors several centimeters long. But if Virginie Millien of McGill University, Montreal, is right, J. monesi’s estimated mega-size is horribly wrong.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
Texas’ education board on Friday voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools, joining other Republican-led US states that pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, is optional for schools to adopt, but they would receive additional funding if they do so. The materials could appear in classrooms as early as next school year. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has voiced support for the lesson plans, which were provided by the state’s education agency that oversees the more than
The Philippine Department of Justice yesterday labeled Vice President Sara Duterte the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the nation’s president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena. Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed. “The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Philippine Undersecretary of Justice Jesse Andres said at yesterday’s press briefing. “The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind
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