■UNITED STATES
Charles Taylor’s son jailed
“Chuckie” Taylor, son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, was sentenced in a federal court on Friday to 97 years in prison for torturing and killing people in the west African country. Taylor’s mother said on Friday that he would appeal the ruling in coming days. Charles McArthur Emmanuel Taylor, 31, a US citizen also known as “Chuckie,” was found guilty in October of crimes committed while he was the head of Liberia’s antiterrorist services during his father’s 1997 to 2003 rule. Judge Cecilia Altonaga said there was no reason for a reduced, 20-year sentence requested by the defense, instead insisting “1,164 months in prison is the appropriate sentence” for crimes of “universally condemned torture.”
■UNITED STATES
Inmate eats own eyeball
A death row inmate in Texas tore out his eyeball with his fingers and ate it, leaving him blind after he gouged out his other eye several years ago, the state’s department of criminal justice said on Friday. “We don’t know how it happened,” said Jason Clark, a spokesman for the department. “There are no indications that he used anything other than his hands.” Andre Thomas, 25, was now in a secure psychiatric facility after he pulled out his left eye last month at the death row unit in Livingston in eastern Texas, Clark said. Thomas was condemned for killing his wife, son and infant stepdaughter in 2004, according to the department’s brief account of the case. Local media reports said he had ripped out the hearts of his victims.
■UNITED STATES
Would-be robber mucks up
A man may have tipped off his intentions when he stood in line at a bank wearing a ski mask before staging a holdup. Police in Stow, Ohio, said Feliks Goldshtein of Highland Heights was arrested on Thursday following a brief car chase. Police say the teller asked the man to take off the mask before being served. The man displayed what turned out to be a toy gun and demanded money from the teller. He made off with an undisclosed amount. Police Captain Rick Myers said it was unusual for a masked robber to wait in line at a bank. The 24-year-old man remained jailed on Friday on charges of aggravated robbery and failure to comply with a police order.
■UNITED STATES
Army uses video games
The US Army, struggling to ensure it has enough manpower as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is wooing young people with video games, Google maps and simulated attacks on enemy positions from an Apache helicopter. Departing from the recruiting environment of metal tables and uniformed soldiers in a drab military building, the army has invested US$12 million in a facility that looks like a cross between a hotel lobby and a video arcade at the Franklin Mills shopping mall in Philadelphia.
■UNITED STATES
‘Sopranos’ actor jailed
Former Sopranos actor Lillo Brancato Jr was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison for his part in a botched 2005 burglary in which his accomplice killed an off-duty police officer. The actor, who played a low-level mafia operative in the hit show, was found guilty last month of attempted burglary but was acquitted of second-degree murder charges. His accomplice, Steven Armento, received a life sentence after being found guilty of first-degree murder. The case stemmed from an attempt by the two men to break into a New York apartment to steal painkillers.
■GREECE
Charles Taylor’s son jailed
“Chuckie” Taylor, son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, was sentenced in a federal court on Friday to 97 years in prison for torturing and killing people in the west African country. Taylor’s mother said on Friday that he would appeal the ruling in coming days. Charles McArthur Emmanuel Taylor, 31, a US citizen also known as “Chuckie,” was found guilty in October of crimes committed while he was the head of Liberia’s antiterrorist services during his father’s 1997 to 2003 rule. Judge Cecilia Altonaga said there was no reason for a reduced, 20-year sentence requested by the defense, instead insisting “1,164 months in prison is the appropriate sentence” for crimes of “universally condemned torture.”
■UNITED STATES
Inmate eats own eyeball
A death row inmate in Texas tore out his eyeball with his fingers and ate it, leaving him blind after he gouged out his other eye several years ago, the state’s department of criminal justice said on Friday. “We don’t know how it happened,” said Jason Clark, a spokesman for the department. “There are no indications that he used anything other than his hands.” Andre Thomas, 25, was now in a secure psychiatric facility after he pulled out his left eye last month at the death row unit in Livingston in eastern Texas, Clark said. Thomas was condemned for killing his wife, son and infant stepdaughter in 2004, according to the department’s brief account of the case. Local media reports said he had ripped out the hearts of his victims.
■UNITED STATES
Would-be robber mucks up
A man may have tipped off his intentions when he stood in line at a bank wearing a ski mask before staging a holdup. Police in Stow, Ohio, said Feliks Goldshtein of Highland Heights was arrested on Thursday following a brief car chase. Police say the teller asked the man to take off the mask before being served. The man displayed what turned out to be a toy gun and demanded money from the teller. He made off with an undisclosed amount. Police Captain Rick Myers said it was unusual for a masked robber to wait in line at a bank. The 24-year-old man remained jailed on Friday on charges of aggravated robbery and failure to comply with a police order.
■UNITED STATES
Army uses video games
The US Army, struggling to ensure it has enough manpower as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is wooing young people with video games, Google maps and simulated attacks on enemy positions from an Apache helicopter. Departing from the recruiting environment of metal tables and uniformed soldiers in a drab military building, the army has invested US$12 million in a facility that looks like a cross between a hotel lobby and a video arcade at the Franklin Mills shopping mall in Philadelphia.
■UNITED STATES
‘Sopranos’ actor jailed
Former Sopranos actor Lillo Brancato Jr was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison for his part in a botched 2005 burglary in which his accomplice killed an off-duty police officer. The actor, who played a low-level mafia operative in the hit show, was found guilty last month of attempted burglary but was acquitted of second-degree murder charges. His accomplice, Steven Armento, received a life sentence after being found guilty of first-degree murder. The case stemmed from an attempt by the two men to break into a New York apartment to steal painkillers.
■PHILIPPINES
Blast disrupts power supply
Electricity was cut to wide areas in the south yesterday after suspected Muslim rebels blew up the main power transmission line with crude bombs, army and power company officials said. Three or four improvised explosive devices made from mortar rounds toppled the transmission line tower in Lanao del Norte Province on the southern island of Mindanao before dawn, army spokeswoman Steffani Cacho told reporters. Cacho said the blasts hit the steel tower and snapped the high-voltage cable supplying electricity to three provinces on the Zamboanga peninsula and most parts of Misamis Occidental and Lanao del Norte provinces.
■HONG KONG
Police search trash for baby
Police will begin sifting through tonnes of clinical waste next week at a landfill site to try to find the body of a baby boy lost three weeks ago by mortuary workers at a public hospital. A spokesman said on Friday that officers from the Police Tactical Unit wearing protective gear tomorrow would begin searching the rubbish, some of it potentially hazardous waste containing human tissue and laboratory waste. However, hopes are slim of finding the body of the premature baby, who died soon after birth on Dec. 15. The baby’s body disappeared after mortuary workers at the Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital put him in a compartment with a large man.
■AUSTRALIA
Cocaine found in forklift
A Canadian man has been charged with trying to smuggle more than US$1.4 million worth of cocaine into the country inside a forklift from Mexico, police said yesterday. The 10kg drug stash was found by customs officers last month after a port facility X-ray revealed “anomalies” in the machine’s battery unit. “Customs officers drilled into one of the forklift’s 24 battery cells to reveal a white powder, which tested positive for cocaine,” the Australian Federal Police said in a statement. Officers tracked down the forklift’s intended destination, and on Friday arrested a man in connection with the address. The 56-year-old Canadian faces life in prison or an A$825,000 dollar fine if found guilty.
■AUSTRALIA
Elvis festival returns
A train with 400 Elvis lookalikes left Sydney on Friday for Parkes and its week-long King of Rock festival. Every year since 1995 thousands of Elvis Presley fans have made the trip to Parkes, an 11,000-inhabitant town in New South Wales, for a convention that has become the southern hemisphere’s biggest. More than 1,000 well-wishers were at central station to see off the pilgrims on their 350km journey north. More than 5,000 fans were already in Parkes and surrounding country towns for a gathering to mark Elvis’ birth in Tupelo, Mississippi, on Jan. 8, 1935. Events awaiting the pilgrims are an Elvis Gospel Church Service, an Elvis street parade, the crowning of Miss Priscilla and the opportunity to renew wedding vows before Elvis impersonator and licensed Elvis marriage celebrant Dean Vegas.
■INDIA
Union calls off oil strike
Oil sector workers called off a crippling strike on Friday after the government in New Delhi threatened action to restore normality across the fuel-starved country, officials said. Thousands of executive-level workers in all state-run petroleum firms have agreed to report back for duty, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora announced in New Delhi.
■THAILAND
Officer absconds with reward
A traffic cop has sped off with his colleagues’ reward money due for bagging traffic offenders, news reports said on Friday. Scores of policemen in the northern city of Chiang Mai filed a complaint that Sergeant-Major Thanawat Sinpieng, 47, had disappeared, along with his family, and a 1.2 million baht (US$35,000) bounty for catching traffic violators. Thanawat had been assigned to collect reward money from a bank for distribution to about 150 officers. His colleagues became suspicious when he failed to return from the bank on Dec. 29, the Nation newspaper said.
■CHINA
Officials jailed for gambling
Dozens of officials from Guangdong Province have gambled away more than 20 million yuan (US$2.9 million) in public funds in Hong Kong and Macau since 2003, state media reported yesterday. A total of 53 officials were brought to justice and some of them were jailed, the China Daily reported. A party official from Foshan city, was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for gambling away 13 million yuan in public money between 2005 and 2006, the Southern Metropolis News reported.
■SINGAPORE
Magnate receives kidney
A wealthy man who was jailed for one day last year for attempting to buy a kidney finally received an approved organ, a news report said yesterday. Ailing retail magnate Tang Wee Sung received a kidney from former organized crime boss Tan Chor Jin, who was hanged in a Singapore prison on Friday morning for the 2006 killing of a nightclub owner, the Straits Times reported. Tang, 56, was jailed for a day and fined S$17,000 (US$11,400) in June last year for trying to buy a kidney from an Indonesian donor.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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