■HONG KONG
Stewardess convicted
A former flight attendant who stole 168 items from the plane’s trolleys on a single flight was sentenced to community service yesterday. Kwong Man-fong, 43, purloined biscuits, beer, mineral water, wine, chocolates, a sewing kit, pens, instant noodles and shaving cream on the Cathay Pacific flight from Auckland to the territory on July 27. Two junior colleagues spotted Kwong, who had worked for the Hong Kong airline for 23 years, and reported her to the captain. She resigned and was prosecuted for theft by the airline. Kwong pleaded guilty to theft.
■MALAYSIA
‘Sex party’ plan condemned
Malaysian authorities have condemned rumored plans for a New Year’s Eve sex party at a remote beach, while police warned the “no-underwear” event could be a con job. Newspaper reports said the party for the under-40s, to be held in southern Johor state bordering Singapore, was being advertised through a Web site that asked for 250 ringgit (US$72) as an entrance fee. “A sex party is against our culture and religion and if it went on, it would damage the country’s reputation worldwide,” Tourism Minister Azalina Othman said according to the New Straits Times newspaper yesterday. Johor criminal investigation department chief Amer Awal warned that the sex party was likely to be a fraud designed to cheat potential partygoers out of the ticket price.
■CHINA
Dinosaur fossil site found
Scientists say they have discovered the world’s largest dinosaur fossil site in the eastern province of Shandong, state media reported yesterday. Scientists had recovered some 7,600 fossils from a 300m long pit near Zhucheng city over the past seven months, Xinhua news agency said. The finds included remains of a 20m hadrosaurus, which could be a record size for the duck-billed dinosaur, Xinhua said. Scientists had put down tools for the winter, but said further excavations could yield more fossils. Zhucheng, known locally as the nation’s “Dinosaur City,” has produced dinosaur fossils in some 30 sites, according to local media.
■HONG KONG
UFO group slams university
A UFO group has condemned the city’s largest university for canceling a course on ufology because, it said, of faculty objections to the subject. The course was set to begin last September as an optional subject for University of Hong Kong students in a joint project between the university and the Hong Kong Institute of Ufology, local newspaper Apple Daily reported on Monday. The course was delayed and discussions were held on offering it at a later date after some academics expressed reservations about its content, said Moon Fong (方仲滿), a committee member of the institute.
■AUSTRALIA
Topless sunbathing debated
A Christian lawmaker has proposed legislation that would ban women from sunbathing topless on Sydney’s beaches, where bare breasts have been a common sight for decades. Critics were quick to condemn the measure — first reported yesterday on the front page of the city’s the Daily Telegraph newspaper — as unnecessary and a distraction from real concerns. Leaders of the two major parties in the New South Wales state parliament, where the bill will be introduced in the coming weeks, have effectively killed it by arguing that local governments should be left to decide the boundaries of decent exposure.
■IRAN
Anti-Israel fighters wanted
A group of influential conservative Iranian clerics launched an online registration drive on Monday seeking volunteers to fight against Israel in response to its air assault on the Gaza Strip. About 3,550 people registered on Monday with the Combatant Clergy Society’s Web site. The weeklong online campaign gives volunteers three options on ways they can fight Israel: military, financial and propaganda. The group, which has considerable political and economic power in Iran, did not provide further details on the program, including how it would contact the volunteers or implement the program.
■AUSTRIA
Incest victims leave clinic
A lawyer says Josef Fritzl’s daughter and her children have left the psychiatric clinic where they were recovering from their incest ordeal. Christoph Herbst says the woman and six of the seven children he fathered with her while holding her captive for 24 years have moved into their own home at an undisclosed location. Herbst announced the family’s move in an interview on Monday with the Austria Press Agency. He could not immediately be reached for more details. Last month, prosecutors charged 73-year-old Fritzl with murder for refusing to arrange medical treatment for the seventh child, who died in infancy. He also faces charges of rape, incest, false imprisonment and enslavement and is expected to go on trial in March.
■UNITED STATES
Boy Scout earns 121 badges
A Long Island teenager has earned all 121 merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts of America. It’s an accomplishment the local arm of the organization calls “an almost unheard-of feat.” Oceanside resident Shawn Goldsmith earned his final badge — for bugling — in time for his 18th birthday last month. He far surpassed the 21 badges required to achieve the elite rank of Eagle Scout. He said he took about five years to earn his first 62 badges and then nearly doubled that number in a few months.
■UNITED STATES
Soldier alleges bias
An atheist soldier suing over prayers at military formations claims a larger pattern of religious discrimination exists in the military, citing attempts to convert Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and an evangelical bias in a suicide prevention manual. The expanded lawsuit filed Monday by Dustin Chalker and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in the US District Court in Kansas City also claims the military doesn’t take complaints of religious discrimination seriously enough. The US Defense Department has identified fewer than 50 complaints about alleged violations of religious freedoms during the past three years, with 1.4 million personnel in uniform, spokeswoman Eileen Lainez said. She declined to comment on a pending lawsuit but said that the military has policies against endorsing any religious view.
■UNITED STATES
Pay stub used in robbery
The robber’s threatening note made a Chicago bank job easy to solve: The FBI said the suspect wrote it on his pay stub. An FBI affidavit said the man walked into a Fifth Third Bank on Friday and handed a teller a note that read “Be Quick Be Quit [quiet]. Give your cash or I’ll shoot.” The robber got about US$400 but left half of his note. Investigators found the other half outside the bank’s front doors. Authorities said that part of the man’s October pay stub had his name and address. The suspect was arrested at his Cary home. A judge ordered him held without bond on Monday.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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