■AUSTRALIA
Officials kill baby humpback
Wildlife officials killed a baby humpback whale that was trying to suckle on yachts moored north of Sydney after losing its mother, saying it would otherwise have starved to death. Vets lifted the female calf in a stretcher and sedated it before giving it a lethal injection yesterday, National Parks and Wildlife Service spokesman John Dengate said. “It’s been a harrowing decision to put this calf down, a last resort,” Dengate said.
■SOUTH KOREA
Students witness murder
Students were in shock after a repairman fatally stabbed his boss, teachers and police said yesterday. The 38-year-old suspect identified only as Lee was arrested for killing his 52-year-old boss, identified as Kang, at a middle school in Cheonan, 80km south of Seoul, on Thursday. Lee repeatedly stabbed Kang after being admonished for failing to replace light bulbs, police said. “Many students saw the victim fleeing the scene, bleeding from wounds,” a schoolteacher said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Tribe to help clean river
The government signed a multimillion-dollar deal yesterday with an indigenous Maori tribe to clean up the tribe’s Waikato River, one of the most polluted waterways in the country. The NZ$300 million (US$215 million) agreement, signed by leaders of the Waikato-Tainui tribe and Treaty Negotiations Minister Michael Cullen, makes the tribe a major player in the cleanup of the 350km river, the country’s longest.
■HONG KONG
Man missing after storm
One man was missing and 49 people were injured after Tropical Storm Nuri hit yesterday. Nuri, which had left seven dead in the Philippines, had weakened en route and been downgraded into a severe tropical storm by the time it hit late yesterday afternoon. Still, a total of 49 people were injured — two when scaffolding collapsed — as winds reached 87kph. A search was also mounted early evening after a man went missing at Big Wave Bay. By 10pm, the worst of the storm had passed and was centered over Shenzhen.
■JAPAN
Ashes stolen from graves
Police in Toyama Prefecture said on Thursday that they were trying to find out who has been snatching human ashes from graves, mostly those of women. Japanese cremate their dead and keep the ashes in urns, placed in a slot inside the gravestone. Jiji Press reported that at least 24 urns had been stolen from graves, mostly those of women. Some of the people who opened family graves found a piece of paper saying, “I got your ashes,” Jiji said. Another person had a note reading, “I will take care of it. Don’t worry.”
■JAPAN
Stem cells from teeth
Scientists said yesterday they had derived stem cells from wisdom teeth, opening another way to study deadly diseases without the controversy of using embryos. Researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology said they created stem cells of the type found in human embryos using the removed wisdom teeth of a 10-year-old girl. “This is significant in two ways,” team leader Hajime Ogushi said. “One is that we can avoid the ethical issues of stem cells because wisdom teeth are destined to be thrown away anyway. Also, we used teeth that had been extracted three years ago and had been preserved in a freezer. That means that it’s easy for us to stock this source of stem cells.”
■UNITED KINGDOM
Pensioners outnumber kids
For the first time there are more people of pensionable age than children under 16, the Office for National Statistics revealed on Thursday. Confirmation of the ageing nature of the population comes as the improvement in mortality rates seen in the second half of the 20th century is shown to have accelerated during this decade. More people are living longer as medical advances continue to reduce the annual number of deaths, which fell to 571,000 last year from 599,000 in 2001.
■ALGERIA
Al-Qaeda claims bombings
The North African wing of the al-Qaeda terrorist network claimed responsibility for two car bombings this week that killed 12 people, the al-Jazeera television network reported. In an audio recording, a spokesman claimed Wednesday’s bombings in Bouira, about 100km southeast of the capital, Algiers, were carried out by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the news network said late on Thursday. The two car bombs detonated in the city center.
■LEBANON
Beirut approves Syria ties
The Unity Cabinet has formally approved diplomatic ties with Syria and the opening of an embassy in Damascus. Information Minister Tarek Mitri said following a Cabinet meeting late on Thursday that the foreign minister has been entrusted with following up on the mechanism to set up the embassy. He did not set a time frame. The two countries agreed earlier this month to establish full diplomatic ties for the first time since they gained their independence from France in the 1940s. They also agreed to demarcate their border.
■UNITED STATES
Israelis sue Bank of China
A group of Israelis sued the Bank of China (BOC) in a California court on Thursday, saying it facilitated terrorism by transferring millions of dollars for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The 100-some plaintiffs are victims of “a series of terrorist attacks” carried out in Israel by the two Palestinian groups between May 2004 and January last year, documents filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court show. Beginning in 2003, US branches of Bank of China executed dozens of wire transfers totaling several million dollars to an account at a BOC branch in Guangzhou, China owned by Said al-Shurafa, “a senior operative and agent of the PIJ and Hamas,” the lawsuit alleged.
■ISRAEL
Police question Olmert
Police questioned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the sixth time yesterday over fraud and bribery allegations, a police spokesman said. Detectives arrived at his official home around 10am, in what has become a familiar weekend pattern since the scandal broke in May. It led last month to Olmert announcing he would resign once a successor is chosen. The prime minister, suspected of taking bribes from a US businessman and of making false travel expense claims, could step aside immediately after his centrist Kadima party votes in a leadership election on Sept. 17.
■RUSSIA
Khodorkovsky refused bail
A court rejected a request by jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky for parole yesterday. The judge said Khodorkovsky was ineligible for early release from a sentence for tax evasion and fraud because he had refused to undertake professional training at his prison, which specializes in sewing, and because of an incident in which he flouted prison rules.
■UNITED STATES
Ex-Marine in landmark trial
A former Marine ignored clear rules for handling prisoners and ordered the killing of four unarmed Iraqis during 2004 fighting in Fallujah, a landmark trial heard on Thursday. Jose Nazario, 28, disregarded Marine Corps training that prisoners must be protected at all times, shooting dead two of the captives himself before ordering two subordinates to kill the others, prosecutors said. The allegations came in opening statements of a trial that has made legal history. It is the first time a military veteran has been tried by a civilian jury for actions that occurred during combat. Nazario, who had left the Marines by the time he was arrested last year, denies the charges.
■IRAQ
US releases cameraman
The US military released an Iraqi television cameraman for the Reuters news agency and other news organizations without charges on Thursday, after 26 days in detention. Ali al-Mashhadani, who also works for the BBC and National Public Radio, had been detained twice before, including for a five-month stretch. Al-Mashhadani was freed “because he was deemed not to be a security threat,” Major John Hall, a US military spokesman, said in a statement. Reuters and the BBC demanded an explanation for al-Mashhadani’s detention.
■CHILE
Gas subsidy suspended
The lower house of congress has suspended plans to boost a US$1,626 gasoline subsidy for each of its members. The payment dwarfs a US$2.80 monthly electricity subsidy that President Michelle Bachelet unveiled this week for the nation’s poor. Legislators were planning an 11 percent increase in extra gas money, but quickly backed down on Thursday and even criticized the increase. The lawmakers have received the subsidy for years and there was no talk of ending the practice.
■BRAZIL
Bishops defend reservation
Roman Catholic bishops urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to uphold the creation of a native Indian reservation that sparked a violent land conflict earlier this year. The court is to decide whether to annul an Indian reservation in northern Roraima state created three years ago. Bishop Geraldo Lyrio Rocha, president of the Brazilian Catholic Bishops Conference, warned that a decision against the reservation would undermine the Indians’ constitutional right to live on their ancestral lands. The dispute began in April when police tried to evict rice farmers from the reservation in Roraima. The farmers resisted by blocking roads, blowing up bridges and hiring gunmen. Ten Indians were wounded in a shootout in May.
■UNITED STATES
Couple wins lottery twice
A woman and her accountant husband who claims he has a formula for lottery picks each won US$350,000 jackpots — twice. Verlyn and Judith Adamson claimed two US$350,000 jackpots on Monday because each held a ticket in the state SuperCash drawing last Saturday. They didn’t mention at the time that they also held two more of the winning tickets. They claimed those jackpots on Thursday. Their winnings amount to US$1.4 million, or about US$955,000 after taxes. Verlyn Adamson said earlier in the week that he’s a big fan of math puzzles. He claims he developed a formula for lottery picks. But Steven Post, a mathematics professor at Edgewood College in Madison, wasn’t buying it. He said there is no way to devise a strategy in a game that uses randomly generated numbers.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
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
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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