■AUSTRALIA
Policeman attacked at camp
An outback policeman was pelted with rocks and beer bottles and his stolen patrol car was used to try to run him down, police said yesterday. The officer was attacked by five people on Tuesday night at an Aboriginal camp near the desert town of Alice Springs. The attackers tried to run him down several times with the stolen car before they fled, dumping the vehicle 190km away. Police condemned the assault as “drunken, cowardly and brutal.” Alice Springs, a base for tourists visiting Australia’s outback, has seen a surge in violence in recent months, much of it blamed on local indigenous youths.
■AUSTRALIA
Shark crashes service
A large shark was an uninvited guest yesterday at a memorial service on a west-coast beach for a 51-year-old who is believed to have been killed there by a shark last week. Bathers at Port Kennedy Beach, south of Perth, were ordered out of the water and the 250 guests at the memorial service watched as a spotter helicopter circled after the sighting. “It was a freak accident and we are in their territory,” a relative of Brian Guest told Australia’s ABC Radio. “He was a man of the sea. We are just glad he went on the ocean. It was his passion.”
■PHILIPPINES
Troops foil bomb attempt
Troops yesterday disarmed a bomb planted under a road bridge in the country’s restive south, an official said. The device, made from a mortar shell rigged to a mobile phone, was discovered under the bridge in the town of Shariff Aguak on Mindanao island, army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Julieto Ando said. He said the device was similar to those used in previous bombings by separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels on the island since August last year. “We believe it’s part of the rebels’ diversionary tactic because they suffered as many as 10 fatalities in our air strikes yesterday,” Ando said.
■AUSTRALIA
Humidity brings spiders
One of the world’s most venomous spiders, Australia’s funnel-web, is enjoying the summer so much it appears to have brought forward its annual mating ritual, an expert said yesterday. Joel Shakespeare, head spider keeper at the Australian Reptile Park north of Sydney, said the number of funnel-webs found around Sydney was unusually high for this time of year, with about 50 specimens brought to him in the past week. “Generally we have an average of about 10 a week,” he said. “But we’re having that wet, humid weather which is bringing them out to mate. So it’s really a spike with the funnel webs.”
■JAPAN
Suicide hotline struggles
The nation’s hotline for people considering killing themselves is stretched to its limit, with the economic crisis feared to be worsening the country’s suicide problem, its director said yesterday. More than 30,000 people kill themselves every year in Japan, giving the country one of the world’s highest suicide rates. A national suicide hotline run by the Inochi no Denwa — Telephone Lifeline — association is struggling to meet demand, with 7,000 volunteers handling some 700,000 calls a year. “We don’t have enough volunteers,” Yukio Saito, the head of the federation, said. “I’m afraid that there will be a rise in suicides with the economic recession,” he said. Japan’s suicide rate shot up in the late 1990s soon after the collapse of the bubble economy.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Princes set up new office
Princes William and Harry said on Tuesday they have been granted their own royal household by their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. Household doesn’t mean a dwelling; it means staff who support royal family members in their public duties and private lives. The two princes will share one household with three main staff members, supported by a small team. Former ambassador to the US David Manning will work as a part-time adviser to the princes. Previously, William and Harry’s affairs had been handled by the office of their father, Prince Charles, at Clarence House in central London. But the brothers’ new household released a statement — complete with their own “cyphers,” or logos at the top — announcing that they have established their own office at nearby St James’ Palace to look after their public, military and charitable activities.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Atheist campaign launched
About 800 buses bearing the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” were set off on roads on Tuesday in an atheist campaign responding to a set of Christian ads. The campaign, which will also see slogans plastered across London’s subway system, was paid for by more than £140,000 (US$200,000) in public donations, the British Humanist Association (BHA) said. It was the brainchild of comedy writer Ariane Sherine, 28, who objected to the Christian ads on some London buses that carried an Internet address warning that people who rejected God would spend eternity in “torment in hell.” She sought £5 donations toward a “reassuring” counter-advertisement and won support from the BHA and atheist campaigner professor Richard Dawkins.
■GUINEA
ECOWAS suspends Guinea
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has no option but to suspend Guinea when regional leaders meet tomorrow to discuss last month’s coup, Nigeria’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. The military junta that seized power on Dec. 23 has tried to reassure nervous neighbors that it poses no threat. It has sent representatives to Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone to explain the takeover, which followed the death of long-ruling President Lansana Conte. But Nigerian Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe said ECOWAS, which is due to meet in extraordinary session in the Nigerian capital Abuja tomorrow, had to follow the African Union, which has suspended Guinea. “Africa has come a long way. It is no longer an issue whether regimes should be democratic or not,” he said.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Xenophobic clashes resume
Six months after violent xenophobic clashes, renewed tensions between locals and foreigners were reported in the port city of Durban on Tuesday. At least three people were killed in the Albert Park area at the weekend when a mob of around 150 locals carrying machetes and other weapons stormed apartment buildings inhabited by foreigners, forcing several to flee by jumping out of windows, police said. The Mercury newspaper on Tuesday reported that a Malawian man died after jumping from the sixth story while two others sustained serious injuries. Police later said the two injured foreigners, a Mozambican and a Zimbabwean, later died in hospital. Heavily armed police were called in to intervene in a hostile confrontation involving locals and foreigners from other parts of Africa who live in the area, the newspaper said.
■UNITED STATES
Gates projects war costs
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would cost almost US$136 billion for the budget year that began Oct. 1 if they continue at their current pace. Speaking for neither his current boss, US President George W. Bush nor his new one, president-elect Barack Obama, Gates told top lawmakers in a New Year’s Eve letter that the Pentagon would need nearly US$70 billion more to supplement the US$66 billion approved last year. All told, Congress has approved US$864 billion for the overseas wars and other programs related to the battle against terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.
■MEXICO
Gunmen attack TV station
Masked gunmen opened fire and tossed a grenade at a television station as it aired its nightly newscast on Tuesday. No injuries were reported in the assault on the Televisa network’s studio in the northern city of Monterrey. Televisa Monterrey director Francisco Cobo said the masked gunmen arrived in two pickup trucks and opened fire during the station’s evening newscast. They left a message outside the station that read: “Stop reporting only about us, also report about the narco-officials. This is a warning,” Cobo told the El Universal newspaper. Officials say at least 5,300 people died in Mexico in drug-related slayings last year.
■BRAZIL
Toddler found in well
A 21-month-old girl who went missing during a New Year’s party in northern Brazil was found alive on Tuesday at the bottom of an abandoned well after five days without food or water, national media reported. Television images showed members of the Military Police bringing Ana Clara out of the well showing a few minor injuries and insect bites all over her body. Clara disappeared from her ranch in Ariquemes, in the northernmost state of Roraima.
■UNITED STATES
Boy drives to school
A six-year-old Virginia boy who missed his bus tried to drive to school in his family’s sedan — and crashed. His parents were charged with child endangerment. State police say the boy suffered only minor injuries and authorities drove him to school after he was evaluated at a local hospital. Sergeant Tom Cunningham said the boy arrived shortly after lunch. The accident happened around 7:40am on Monday near Wicomico Church. Police say the boy, ran off the road several times before hitting an embankment and utility pole about 2.4km from school. “He was very intent on getting to school,” said Sheriff Chuck Wilkins. “When he got out of the car, he started walking to school. He did not want to miss breakfast and PE.”
■UNITED STATES
Stooges guitarist dies
Ron Asheton, the guitarist for The Stooges whose raw sound helped inspire the first generation of punk musicians, has died. He was 60. Asheton was found at his Ann Arbor home early on Tuesday morning by police officers after they were called by an associate who had not heard from him in several days, said city police Sergeant Brad Hill. There were no signs of foul play, and the death appeared to be of natural causes, Hill said. After recording three albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, The Stooges split and lead singer Iggy Pop went on to a successful solo career. Asheton played guitar for bands including The New Order, New Race, Destroy All Monsters and Dark Carnival.
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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