■CHINA
Model murderer confesses
A young Chinese man confessed to killing a Canadian model during a robbery at her apartment, police in Shanghai said on Friday. Diana O’Brien, 22, arrived in the city to work as a model less than two weeks ago and friends said she was unhappy and planned to return home early. Chen Jun (陳軍), 18, was arrested on Friday in Anhui Province. He was in possession of O’Brien’s laptop and other belongings, a police statement said. Chen told police he followed O’Brien into her shared apartment on Sunday night, it said without giving further details. O’Brien’s friends did not believe her death was work related.
■INDONESIA
Militant may be in Indonesia
A suspected Islamic militant believed to be heading a Singapore cell of regional network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) may be hiding in Indonesia, where language and cultural similarities would allow him to blend in more easily, Indonesia’s police chief said yesterday. Mas Selamat bin Kastari escaped from a Singapore detention center in February, where he was being held for allegedly plotting to crash a plane into Singapore’s airport. Indonesian police chief Sutanto told reporters police were still investigating a network of suspected militants detained recently in Palembang on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island. The group of 10 was detained in raids by Indonesia’s anti-terrorism unit and a large cache of bombs was found.
■CHINA
Red Cross hacker sentenced
A Chinese man has been sentenced to two years in jail for hacking into a Red Cross Web site and asking for earthquake relief donations to be sent to his bank account, state media reported yesterday. Yang Litao, 23, was found guilty of fraud and sentenced on Friday by a court in eastern Jiangsu Province, the Xinhua news agency reported. He hacked into the Red Cross’s local site in Kunshan, near Shanghai, six days after the May 12 quake in Sichuan Province, the report said. Yang stole the site administrator’s identity and password and then posted a fake notice asking for donations to be deposited in his account, the report said.
■JAPAN
Two held over whale meat
Greenpeace said on Friday that two of its activists had been indicted by Japanese prosecutors for stealing whale meat in a bid to uncover alleged corruption in Japan’s controversial whaling program. The Aomori Prosecutors’ Office on Friday indicted Junichi Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, who are both still in custody, Greenpeace said. Greenpeace has said it intercepted one box of meat and handed it to prosecutors in Tokyo as evidence of an alleged embezzlement ring. The group was aiming to prove that whalers on the taxpayer-backed hunt had sold whale meat on the black market. The state-backed Institute of Cetacean Research, which commissions the whaling, said that crew members were given meat as a “gift.” Prosecutors opted not to pursue the allegations against the crew members and instead arrested the two members of Greenpeace.
■BANGLADESH
Wild elephant kills four
A wild elephant straying into a village trampled four members of a family to death and injured another in southeastern Bangladesh, witnesses said on Friday. The elephant attacked the villagers on Thursday night in the Bandarban hill district’s Lama area, 350km from the capital Dhaka. It damaged several shops and three houses before returning to the forest, villagers told reporters.
■CYPRUS
Sexual curse discovered
An unexpected sexual curse has been uncovered by archeologists at Cyprus’ old city kingdom of Amathus, on the island’s south coast near Limassol, according to a newspaper on Friday. “A curse is inscribed in Greek on a lead tablet and part of it reads: ‘May your penis hurt when you make love,’” Pierre Aubert, head of Athens Archaeological School in Greece told the English language Cyprus Weekly. He said the tablet showed a man standing holding something in his right hand that looks like an hour glass. The inscription dates back to the 7th century AD when Christianity was well established on the island, leading the French professor to surmise that it referred to the activity of witchcraft or shamans surviving from the pagan era.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Stabbing deaths reach 50
Two more fatal stabbings in London have taken this year’s grim toll past 50 but Scotland Yard said on Friday the city is not suffering an epidemic of knife crime. A 20-year-old died from stab wounds on Thursday afternoon in Leyton, east London, and a man in his 20s was killed in Walthamstow later in the evening. Up to July 7, 49 people had died from stab wounds in London this year. Police were unable to provide comparative figures for last year, though between April last year and March there were 160 homicides, 70 of which were stabbings. The Metropolitan police have said tackling knife crime has overtaken terrorism as their number one priority.
■SWEDEN
Police observe ‘Ninja Man’
A Danish man dressed like a Japanese ninja warrior made news in Scandinavia on Thursday by barging into a small newspaper and ranting about Sweden’s popular Crown Princess Victoria. “Ninja Man,” as the Swedish media are calling him, turned up at the local newspaper Olandsbladet dressed in a black leather tunic decorated by chains, and with a Bedouin scarf wrapped around his head, police said. Police spokesman Christer Klasson said the man, whose name was not released, is now being watched by the Swedish security police after barging into the newspaper.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Man questioned in theft
British police said on Friday they were quizzing a man over the theft of a rare collection of works by William Shakespeare stolen from a university in northern England 10 years ago. The first folio edition of the Shakespeare works, published in 1623 and said by police to be worth £15 million (US$29 million), was among items taken during a break-in at Durham University library in December 1998. Thieves had forced open glass-top display cases during an exhibition of English literature dating back to the Middle Ages. There was no news of the books and documents taken until police were alerted two weeks ago by the British embassy in the US.
■ISRAEL
Wedding hall takes plastic
Guests at an Israeli wedding hall can now insert a credit card into a machine at its entrance, tap in a sum and leave a gift for the bride and groom. “It’s new in Israel and the world,” Aya Alon Kaufman of the Gan Oranim hall in Tel Aviv said on Israel’s Channel 10 television. “It’s very convenient ... guests can give a gift even if they forget their checkbooks.” She said couples pay 500 shekels (US$155) to rent the device, which resembles an automated teller machine, and the recorded funds are transferred into their bank account the next day.
■PERU
Metal-eating man rescued
Doctors in a coastal northwestern town rescued the innards of a 38-year-old man by removing 17 metal objects — among them nails, a watch clasp and a knife — that he ate. Luis Zarate was taken to the regional hospital of Trujillo earlier this week by his family after complaining of sharp stomach pains. Doctors took X-rays of his chest that showed his insides littered with screws. The black-and-white scans showed Zarate’s skeleton interlaced with things like bolts, barbed-wire and pens.
■UNITED STATES
Devout man sues church
A man says he was so consumed by the spirit of God that he fell and hit his head while worshipping. Now he wants a Tennessee church to pay US$2.5 million for medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering. Matt Lincoln says he is suing after the church’s insurance company denied his claim for medical bills. The 57-year-old has had two surgeries since last year’s injury but still feels pain in his back and legs. He says he was asking God to have “a real experience” while praying. Lincoln says he has fallen from the force of the spirit before but has always been caught by someone.
■UNITED STATES
Sting nets poisonous snakes
The pastor of a Kentucky church that handles snakes in religious rites was among 10 people arrested by wildlife officers in a crackdown on the venomous snake trade. More than 100 snakes, many of them deadly, were confiscated in the undercover operation after Thursday’s arrests, said Colonel Bob Milligan, director of law enforcement for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. Most were taken from the Middlesboro home of Gregory James Coots, including 42 copperheads, 11 timber rattlesnakes, three cottonmouth water moccasins, a western diamondback rattlesnake, two cobras and a puff adder. Handling snakes is practiced in a handful of fundamentalist churches across the Appalachia region, based on the interpretation of Bible verses saying true believers can take up serpents without being harmed.
■UNITED STATES
New laws ban drug mugs
Starting next year, doctors may start to see a problem they’ve yet to experience — a pen shortage. New guidelines released on Thursday by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) prohibit drug makers from giving out pens, as well as other “non-educational” items such as mugs, to healthcare providers and their staff. As part of its revised marketing code, the pharmaceutical trade organization determined that such items may foster misperceptions that these interactions with healthcare professionals “are not based on informing them about medical and scientific issues.”
■CUBA
Castro warns of tough times
Residents braced themselves for new hardships yesterday after President Raul Castro told them to expect difficult times because of economic instability in the world, dashing many Cubans’ hopes of greater political and economic openings. Speaking on spiraling fuel costs, Castro said: “We can’t avoid some impact on certain [basic] products and services,” explaining that the same amount of food the country imported in 2007 will cost an additional US$1.1 billion this year. He called on Cubans to increase farming activities. “In other words: We must go back to the land! We have to make it work!” Castro said.
Agencies
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
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