■ AUSTRALIA
Goodbye, nasal twang
People who sound like Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin could soon be a relic of the past, a report said yesterday. Research shows the nasal twang — exemplified by the late Irwin and Crocodile Dundee actor Paul Hogan — will be phased out within a few decades as the country shakes loose its colonial roots and moves towards a standard national pronunciation, the Sunday Telegraph said. Citing a new book by Australian National University academic Bruce Moore, the paper said the change would come about as the need for Australians to distinguish themselves from their British forebears faded.
■ INDONESIA
Id-al-Fitr costs lives
At least 427 people were killed and more than 1,400 injured in traffic accidents across the country during the Id al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, media reports said yesterday. National police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said the figures were tabulated from reports between Sept. 25 and Saturday, with a total of 970 accidents involving 1,258 vehicles.
■ NEPAL
Trio jumps over Everest
Three skydivers made the first ever parachute jump over Mount Everest yesterday, organizers and participants said, culminating years of preparation. About 32 skydivers from more than 10 countries including Britain, Canada, the US and New Zealand have been in the Everest region since last week to jump from an aircraft flying 142m higher than the Everest summit. Yesterday, Wendy Smith of New Zealand, Holly Budge of Britain and British-Canadian Neil Jones made the leap, said Krishna Aryal, an official of the Explore Himalaya, the agency that arranged the logistics.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Mineworkers protest racism
Thousands of mineworkers marched to protest against racism in the mining and construction sectors on Saturday, the country’s largest mineworkers’ union said. The 320,000-strong National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said members marched to deliver a letter of complaint to the Chamber of Mines about racism and low levels of affirmative action, known as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). BEE is designed to include more blacks in the mainstream economy after decades of exclusion under apartheid. The NUM said it was also protesting about discrimination against women in the industry.
■ GERMANY
Boars threaten residents
Wild boars are breeding at a huge rate and wreaking greater havoc than in any other European country by destroying crops, killing pets and even attacking people, a new study shows. Findings by the Hanover-based Institute of Wildlife Research show that the boar population rose by 320 percent last year because of better access to food and bigger litters of young. Increasingly encroaching on suburban areas, boars have been reported attacking people, killing pets and digging up corpses in cemeteries.
■ AUSTRIA
Man torches step-parents
A man killed his parents-in-law by setting them on fire with a homemade flame-thrower, Austrian police said on Saturday. The 48-year-old man used a flame-thrower he had created from a propane gas container to set the elderly couple alight as they lay in bed late on Friday, chief police investigator Anton Kiesl said. The woman burned to death in her bed, while her husband’s body was found on a bench outside their home in the southeastern village of St Magdalena am Lemberg, Kiesl said. Both victims were in their 80s; the woman’s lower legs had been amputated due to diabetes-related complications. The man’s motive was not immediately clear. His wife — and the victims’ daughter — was in the house at the time of the incident, and escaped through a window, Kiesl said. The chief investigator said the man fled the scene and stabbed himself in the stomach.
■ ITALY
Mormons arrive in Rome
The Mormon Church will build its first temple in the country in Rome, and other new temples in Argentina, the US and Canada, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) said on Saturday. The LDS Church, the fourth-largest Christian denomination in the US and by far the largest denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement, has rapidly expanded in recent years, and constantly seeks growth. The LDS temple in Rome is the first for that nation, as well as the first in the Mediterranean region. LDS Church membership in Italy tops 25,000 followers over 102 congregations. Worldwide, there are more than 13 million Mormons.
■ EQYPT
Bus collision kills 11
At least 11 people were killed when an intercity bus collided head-on with a truck on a highway south of Cairo yesterday, and 23 others were injured, security and medical sources said. Security sources said the bus had been trying to overtake another vehicle when it hit a truck traveling in the opposite direction near the town of Beni Suef. The bus had been taking people from Giza, near Cairo, to Beni Suef following the Muslim Id-al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
■ HAITI
Death toll doubles
The number of deaths in the wake of four major storms in August and last month has more than doubled to at least 793, reports said on Saturday. A further 300 people were still missing, Civil Defense Director Marie Alta Jean Baptiste was quoted as saying by local media. Early last month authorities had estimated 326 deaths. Hundreds of bodies were found during clean-up operations after waters in flooded areas receded, Jean Baptiste said. The country was hit by tropical storms Fay and Hanna and hurricanes Ike and Gustav. A total of 22,702 houses were destroyed.
■ MEXICO
Overweight men team up
When critically obese, bedridden Jose Luis Garza pleaded for help in shedding a few hundred pounds, he landed the world’s biggest weight watcher. Garza is getting diet advice from Manuel Uribe, who has been fighting to lose his title as the world’s heaviest man. Both men live in the Monterrey area and neither can get out of bed. Although Garza has not been on a scale in years, doctors estimate he could weigh around 450kg. He got a call from Uribe after going on national television to plead for help. “Manuel inspires me with courage and the will to live,” Garza said. Uribe, 43, has shed about 250kg with the help of his fiancee, Claudia Solis. Garza said he has always been overweight, but his condition worsened nine months ago when both his parents died within 13 days of each other, plunging him into a cycle of depression.
■ VENEZUELA
Chavez promises free cars
Give up your gas-guzzler and get a free car: That’s President Hugo Chavez’s offer to citizens. Chavez said he would start a program next year to give away cars running on less-polluting natural gas to people who turn in old cars that consume “too much gasoline.” Chavez said he would even throw in one year of free fuel — though that’s a relatively minor bonus in a country where gasoline goes for US$0.03 a liter. He did not say what sort of cars would be offered or how many.
■ UNITED STATES
Giant pumpkin wins contest
A gigantic pumpkin weighing in at 697kg on Saturday broke California state records at a quirky festival celebrating the humble squash. The pumpkin came all the way from Port Alberni, Canada, and crushed the competition at the Giant Pumpkin and Harvest Festival in Elk Grove, California, ABC news reported. The pumpkin was grown by Jake van Kooten and transported from its Canadian island home by ferry. Elk Grove held its first harvest festival 14 years ago. This year’s theme was “The Giant Pumpkin Party,” a play on the Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party. “We’re having fun with democracy,” festival director Kristyn Staby told the Sacramento Bee.
■ UNITED STATES
Chicken dinners sicken 32
The government is urging consumers to thoroughly cook frozen chicken dinners after 32 people in 12 states were sickened with salmonella poisoning. The health warning by the Department of Agriculture cited frozen dishes in which the chicken is raw, but breaded or pre-browned, giving the appearance of being cooked. The agriculture agency said many of the people who became ill did not follow the package’s cooking instructions and microwaved the dishes. Microwaving did not heat the meals enough to kill the salmonella. The department said consumers should heat chicken products to an internal temperature of 74ºC.
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,
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
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