■ INDIA
Man wakes up in morgue
A pilgrim knocked unconscious in a stampede at the Naina Devi shrine that killed 150 people woke up in a morgue as doctors prepared to perform a postmortem examination on him, the Times of India reported yesterday. Mange Ram, 19, lost consciousness in the stampede in Himachal Pradesh triggered by rumors of a landslide that caused panic among thousands of people climbing a steep mountain path, the report said. “When I woke up, I was in the middle of a row of bodies waiting for postmortem,” Ram said. “My throat was parched and I asked for water. Towering over me the doctors and nursing staff at Anandpur Sahib Civil Hospital looked dazed. They must have been surprised to see a dead man come alive like that,” he said.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Reptile to be dad at 111
An indigenous New Zealand reptile regarded as one of the last living descendants of dinosaurs will become a father for the first time in decades at the age of 111, officials said yesterday. Henry the Tuatara and his mate Mildred, aged between 70 and 80, produced 12 eggs in the middle of last month after mating earlier this year at the Southland Museum on South Island, Tuatara curator Lindsay Hazley said. Henry has lived at the Southland Museum since 1970 and had shown no interest in sex until he recently had a cancerous growth removed from his genitals. He is now enjoying the company of three females and might breed again next March, Hazley said.
■ KYRGYZSTAN
Nine doctors jailed
A court has jailed nine doctors for infecting children with HIV in several hospitals across the south of the country, Aki news agency cited a judicial source as saying on Tuesday. The doctors were given prison terms ranging from three to five years and ordered to pay US$10,000 in damages and interest to the children and their families. Prosecutors said 41 children and four mothers were contaminated at two hospitals in a scandal that was first made public in July last year. The health ministry said last year that the infections occurred “during injections and blood transfusions.”
■ SINGAPORE
Authorities hunt for croc
A crocodile, spotted earlier this week in a suburban park near a housing enclave, has sparked a hunt by authorities. Experts told local newspapers that the 1m long reptile seen at Pasir Ris Park is most likely a saltwater crocodile, more commonly found in neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia. Civil servant K.C. Wong, who was at the scene with his son, told the Straits Times newspaper: “I wanted to see the crocodile in its natural habitat before someone does something to it. After all, Singapore has so little wildlife left.” But experts urged the public to stay clear of the toothy animal.
■ INDIA
Group says mom negligent
A social welfare group asked a court on Tuesday to charge the mother of a 15-year-old British girl who was raped and killed in India’s Goa with neglect. Utt Goenkara, a local privately funded organization, has lodged a petition with the district court, saying Scarlett Keeling died because her mother had left her alone in Goa, an area with a reputation for widespread drug abuse. The girl’s mother, Fiona MacKeown, was traveling elsewhere in India when police believe two men gave Keeling a cocktail of illegal drugs before one of them repeatedly raped her and left her for dead in February. MacKeown has denied the accusations, her lawyer said.
■ GERMANY
'Bulletproof' bras ready
Thousands of women working for the federal police will receive “bulletproof bras.” Made of white cotton and featuring the word Polizei (Police) along the seam, the bras are meant to better protect policewomen who wear bulletproof vests. “There was a slight safety risk for women wearing normal bras with metal parts underneath a bulletproof vest,” a police spokesman in Hanover said. “If the vest is hit by a projectile, this can have an impact on the metal bit in the bra underneath and cause injuries.”
■ GERMANY
Secret police bar criticized
You do not expect to be interrogated under a bright lamp when you go into a bar. But the owners of a new Berlin bar plan to offer this service and more at their espionage-themed pub, which pays tribute to the old East German secret police, the Stasi. The Firm — the slang term to describe the Stazi — is decked out with East German memorabilia, including shredded surveillance logs, Stasi porcelain and an urn the owners claim contains the ashes of the former leader Erich Honecker. The pub has provoked outrage among former Stasi victims. “This pub cannot be beaten for tastelessness,” said Marianne Birthler, director of the government’s archive of Stasi records.
■ BOSNIA
Would-be murderer kills self
An angry employee killed himself with a hand grenade in an attempt to kill his boss in Sarajevo, media reported on Tuesday. Ahmet Kutijar, 56, a worker at a Unis komerc company shop entered deputy manager Mirsad Mahmutovic’s office on Monday, started an argument and then activated a hand grenade in an attempt to kill him. The 42-year old Mahmutovic jumped out his ground-floor office window, sustaining injuries to his stomach, chest and face while Kutijar was killed in the blast.
■ GERMANY
Fixed uranium limits urged
State Environment Ministries on Tuesday called for a fixed legal limit to the amount of uranium in tap water after a nationwide survey found higher than recommended levels. The environmental organization Foodwatch uncovered levels of the toxic heavy metal exceeding 10 micrograms per liter in 150 of the 8,200 measurements it took across the 16 states. Levels above 2 micrograms a liter were found in 950 measurements. Foodwatch said this was the legal upper limit for uranium in water used to prepare baby food. “Both consumers and business would be safer if Germany had the courage to set a firm limit rather than a soft guideline,” the social minister for Saxony-Anhalt was quoted as saying in the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung yesterday.
■ MAURITANIA
President arrested in coup
The former head of the presidential guard reportedly led the troops who staged a coup yesterday. Troops moved through the capital and detained President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf after Abdallahi named a new head of the army, sources said. “The president has just been arrested by a commando, who came to fetch him, arrested him here and took him away,” the president’s daughter, Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, told Radio France International from the presidential palace.
■ UNITED STATES
Self-deportation plan tested
A pilot program was launched on Tuesday that allows some illegal immigrants to come forward and schedule their own deportation, after criticism that stepped-up raids cause traumatic family splits. Immigration — principally what to do with some 12 million mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants living and working in the shadows — is a hot issue in the country, especially in the midst of an election year and an economic downturn. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s Scheduled Departure program is set to run through Aug. 22 in five cities. It offers fugitive illegal immigrants with no criminal history up to 90 days to leave, during which time they can stay out of jail.
■ UNITED STATES
Foot washes ashore
The shoe found on an Olympic Peninsula beach with the remains of a human foot inside has been identified as an Everest brand, size 11. The sock found inside the shoe is described as a Levi’s brand tube sock. The Clallam County sheriff’s department allowed photographs of the dark, hiking-style shoe on Tuesday. It was found on Friday by a woman camper on a beach about 48km west of Port Angeles. Authorities are trying to determine whether the shoe and foot have any connection with a series of five shoes and feet that have washed up on British Columbia beaches in the past year.
■ UNITED STATES
Mountain lion kills dog
A mountain lion crept through an open door into a house outside Denver, snatched a Labrador retriever from a bedroom where two people were sleeping and left the dog’s dead body outside, wildlife managers said on Tuesday. No one else was hurt. Officials didn’t know how many other people were in the home about 23km southwest of Denver. Wildlife officials later trapped the 59kg male cat using the dog’s body as bait and fatally shot it. Colorado Division of Wildlife spokesman Tyler Baskfield said the cat entered the house through an open door early on Monday and fled with the Labrador after the owners woke up.
■ BRAZIL
Lynch promotes meditation
US movie director David Lynch says transcendental meditation is the cure for Rio de Janeiro’s rampant violence. Lynch said he hoped to meet with President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva to discuss the possibility of offering mediation studies in the country. The director of Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive was in Rio on Monday to promote his new book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity. He proposed bringing meditation studies to schools and universities, and said such a move “would end the stress among youths and free the country of violence.”
■ MEXICO
Migrants engage in risky sex
People who migrate annually to the US change their sex habits significantly on arrival there and increase their risk of catching HIV/AIDS, a Mexican/Californian study released on Tuesday said. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans migrate to the US each year. Male migrants increase high-risk sexual practices including relations with sex workers or other men, under the effects of drugs and alcohol, or in exchange for money, food or lodging, said the study, which looked at 458 men aged 18 to 69 who arrived in the US in the past five years. Those who had relations with sex workers increased from 18.1 percent to 29.4 percent.
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,
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported yesterday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since US president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory on Oct. 6. At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region. Kim also criticized the US over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion.
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
RSS