■ PHILIPPINES
Store bombs kill two
Bombs ripped through two department stores in the southern city of Iligan yesterday, killing two people and injuring at least 36, police and hospital officials said. Police swarmed the bloodied, upturned baggage check-in counters of the Unity store and the neighboring Gerry’s Shoppers’ Plaza in downtown Iligan to collect evidence shortly after the early afternoon blasts. Local police investigators and witnesses said the bombs went off within 15 minutes of each other.
■SWEDEN
Latvians invite invasion
An online petition in favor of a Swedish invasion of Latvia is proving a seasonal hit — among Latvians. Fed up with a government that failed to prevent the Baltic state lurching into a serious recession and unimpressed by belated efforts to get out of it, Latvian Roberts Safonovs took the matter into his own hands and set up an online petition calling on Sweden to take over. “We, people of Latvia would like to ask Sweden to occupy Latvia. We consider the Latvian state has no reason to exist. We would like to become Swedish citizens and promise that we will comply with Swedish laws; in exchange we would like to get Swedish citizenship and share the same rights that Swedish people have,” the petition says. Word of mouth and local media reports have spread awareness of the petition, attracting more than 10,000 signatures by Wednesday.
■GERMANY
Budgie birds rule roost
Berlin city officials, summoned by complaints over the noise, found a 60-year-old man sharing his two-room flat with 1,700 budgerigars. The budgies were living on perches installed along the walls, while the floors were saturated with droppings, veterinary services said on Wednesday. The pensioner told officials he had adopted two birds because he felt lonely and that nature had done the rest. About 1,000 of the birds were evacuated on Tuesday. The tenant was also having to move as the flat was deemed no longer fit for human habitation.
■JAPAN
Man dies at retirement party
A 60-year-old man who was thrown into the air in celebration at his retirement party died after his colleagues failed to catch him and he fell to the floor, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. The case came to light after the man’s wife filed a police complaint against colleagues who threw the man up into the air, accusing them of gross negligence, the Mainichi Shimbun paper reported on its Web site.
■EGYPT
Shoe-thrower offered bride
An Egyptian man said on Wednesday he was offering his 20-year-old daughter in marriage to Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush in Baghdad on Sunday. The daughter, Amal Saad Gumaa, said she agreed with the idea. “This is something that would honor me. I would like to live in Iraq, especially if I were attached to this hero,” she said by telephone.
■FRANCE
Nude models protest pay
Artists’ models in Paris stripped naked on Monday, braving freezing temperatures to protest against a ban on tips and to demand better pay and recognition. More than 20 male and female models, some posing nude while others were draped in a colorful array of shawls, sheets and fur coats, took part in the protest that had the backing of two of France’s biggest labor unions.
■UNITED STATES
Father admits to rape
A man accused of raping his daughter and posting the film on the Internet before later fleeing to China pleaded guilty at hearings in Washington state, justice officials said. Kenneth Freeman, a former policeman and bodybuilder, admitted counts of producing child pornography and transportation of a minor across state lines for sex at a Federal Court hearing in Spokane. He later pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree rape at a state court hearing on Wednesday. Freeman, 46, was extradited to the US from Hong Kong in September last year after more than a year on the run which saw him becoming one of the US’ most wanted fugitives. The former reserve sheriff’s deputy faces life in prison at a sentencing hearing on March 25.
■UNITED STATES
NY state mulls MP3 tax
New Yorkers who download music to their MP3 players may soon see the cost rise, after New York Governor David Paterson on Wednesday proposed a 4 percent tax on the practice as part of a plan to ease a massive state budget crisis. The charge, nicknamed “the iPod tax,” will also cover e-books and other “digitally delivered entertainment services,” such as videos and photographs. It is one of 137 additional fees the state aims to exact from residents in its budget for next year if approved by the state legislature.
■UNITED STATES
Women prefer Web to sex
A new survey sponsored by computer chip giant Intel has found that about half of US women would prefer to go without sex for two weeks than manage without the Internet for the same period of time. Titled “Internet Reliance in Today’s Economy,” the poll found that 49 percent of women aged 18 to 34 would opt to forgo sex for two weeks rather than do without the Internet, while 52 percent of women ages 35 to 44 made the same choice. The results among men were less tech-friendly. Among males ages 18 to 34, about 39 percent selected Internet time over sex, while just 23 percent of those between 35 and 44 preferred the Internet.
■UNITED STATES
Teen punished in public
Dennis Baltimore’s punishment for vandalizing his school was to take his confession to the streets. His father made the 16-year-old walk the streets of Long Beach, California, for five hours on Tuesday wearing a sandwich board that said: “I am a juvenile delinquent who should be punished. I have wasted your tax money with dumb acts of vandalism in the public schools.” The 10th-grader painted graffiti from a fictitious gang on property at Wilson Classical High School. His father, Dennis Baltimore Sr, got a telephone call on Monday from the school and was told his son had caused US$875 in damage. “In a time of this uncertain economy, I’m sure the public is not going to like it,” the father said.
■PERU
Cocaine hidden in dung
Traffickers hid 2.8 tonnes of cocaine in thousands of kilograms of smelly bird droppings, police said on Monday after uncovering the latest ruse to conceal drug shipments. Cocaine exporters in the world’s No. 2 producer after neighboring Colombia counted on the stench of the dung, which is sold as a high-end organic fertilizer, to trick dogs trained to find drugs at ports of entry.
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
Czech intelligence chief Michal Koudelka has spent decades uncovering Russian spy networks, sabotage attempts and disinformation campaigns against Europe. Speaking in an interview from a high-security compound on the outskirts of Prague, he is now warning allies that pushing Kyiv to accept significant concessions to end the war in Ukraine would only embolden the Kremlin. “Russia would spend perhaps the next 10 to 15 years recovering from its huge human and economic losses and preparing for the next target, which is central and eastern Europe,” said Koudelka, a major general who heads the country’s Security Information Service. “If Ukraine loses, or is forced
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
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