■PHILIPPINES
Frenchwoman murdered
A 54-year-old Frenchwoman was shot dead, and three suspects were arrested for alleged involvement in the murder, police said yesterday. Genevieve Sonia Mas, who arrived in the country last December, was killed while riding a tricycle in San Carlos City in Negros Occidental province, 540km south of Manila, on Tuesday. The suspected gunman, Melchorito Alcala, 31, was arrested shortly after the shooting. Police later arrested Abdullah Benamirouch, a French national, and his Filipina wife, Rose, who allegedly hired Alcala to kill Mas.
■NEW ZEALAND
Opera keeps vandals at bay
Opera star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has been credited by a local mayor with keeping vandals away from his city center because they find her singing “bloody hideous.” Bob Harvey, the mayor of Waitakere City, said classical music has been playing through speakers in an area between the city’s transport hub and council offices for the last three years. There has been no defacing or damaging of art works in the area since the music was switched on. “We have been playing ... Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky and a dash of Dame Kiri,” Harvey was reported as saying in the New Zealand Herald yesterday.
■PHILIPPINES
Arroyo slammed over pardon
The family of assassinated Philippine opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr yesterday accused the president of denying them justice by pardoning 10 soldiers convicted of the 1983 murder. Aquino was gunned down at Manila airport as he was returning from US exile. President Gloria Macapacal Arroyo on Wednesday commuted the sentences of the last 10 convicted murderers. They were freed on Wednesday. Senator Benigno Aquino III suggested Arroyo was hitting back at his mother, former president Corazon Aquino, for joining calls demanding Arroyo step down.
■INDONESIA
Couples ordered to buy trees
A cash-strapped Indonesian district in West Java has ordered couples planning to get married to provide 10 trees to local authorities for a reforestation program, an official said on Wednesday. Anyone filing for divorce in Garut in West Java would also have to fork out for at least one tree, district secretary Wibowo said.
■AUSTRALIA
‘Amnesty’ drug bins offered
Last-chance disposal bins for illicit drugs will be offered following the overdose death of a schoolgirl at a rock concert, police said yesterday. Friends of 17-year-old Gemma Thoms claim she quickly swallowed three ecstasy tablets at the entrance to the Big Day Out festival in Perth last month when she spotted police with sniffer dogs. She died in hospital of organ failure after collapsing at the festival. In a bid to prevent similar incidents, so-called “amnesty bins” would be trialed for the first time this weekend at the Rock-it concert in Western Australia state, police said.
■INDIA
Party buys rights to ‘Jai Ho’
Aiming to spice up its election campaign, India’s ruling Congress party has bought the rights to Jai Ho, the Oscar-winning song from Slumdog Millionaire. The world’s largest democracy will hold a general election between April 16 and May 13 in a mammoth logistical exercise in which 714 million people will cast their votes. Congress leaders said the song, whose title is Hindi for “Let there be victory,” will be played during rallies in rural towns, villages and cities.
■UNITED KINGDOM
‘Potter’ stabber convicted
A London court on Wednesday convicted a 22-year-old man of the frenzied murder of a teenage actor who stars in the latest Harry Potter film. Karl Bishop, who had been convicted for a previous knife crime, was found guilty of the killing of 18-year-old Rob Knox outside a bar in Sidcup, southeast London, last May. The actor was stabbed after stepping in to protect his younger brother, Jamie, who he heard had been threatened by Bishop. Knox had finished filming for his part as student Marcus Belby in Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, which is set for release in July.
■AUSTRIA
Police crack drug ring
Police said on Wednesday they seized heroin and cocaine worth 15 million euros (US$18 million) after a three-year international investigation that led to 174 arrests. Operation Leopold also led to the recovery of 150kg of illegal drugs, federal police spokesman Erich Zwettler told a press conference. Zwettler said Austrian police had worked with counterparts in several countries including Britain, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Turkey, the US and Venezuela. The majority of the suspects arrested were of west African origin, police said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Charles tops best-dressed
Prince Charles has beaten off competition from US President Barack Obama to be named the world’s best-dressed man by Esquire magazine. “He is perfectly turned out in a double-breasted suit. Admirably, the prince keeps his wardrobe in appropriate style: We’re told he has a room laid out like a tailor’s shop,” the men’s magazine said. London Mayor Boris Johnson — renowned for his slightly chaotic appearance — was criticized for having “jacket pockets like second-hand bookshops, and hair the result of an encounter with a ghost in a wind tunnel.”
■UNITED KINGDOM
Two convicted for theft
Two men were found guilty on Wednesday of involvement in a bid to steal hundreds of millions of pounds from a Japanese bank in what would have been the biggest theft of its kind. Hugh Rodley and David Nash were linked to a failed attempt to transfer £229 million (US$323 million) from accounts at the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. Rodley, 61, was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to transfer criminal property between Jan. 1 and Oct. 5, 2004. Nash, 47, who ran a sex shop in London’s Soho district, was cleared of conspiracy to defraud but found guilty of transferring criminal property. Prosecutors said the scheme involved an insider letting conspirators into the bank’s London offices, where they tampered with its computer system, gaining access to the holdings of companies including Toshiba International and Nomura Asset Management.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Couple drive with cobra
Gordon Parratt and his wife drove for 170km aware that a deadly spitting cobra was in their car — but not knowing exactly where, it was reported on Wednesday. Parratt felt the 85cm snake against his leg several times during the drive from the Kruger National Park, and at one point “the snake wound itself around my left leg and ankle — its head came up to my knee,” Beeld newspaper quoted him as saying. The Pretoria couple made several stops to remove the snake but could not find it, until it wrapped itself around Parratt’s leg. The couple eventually called in a snake expert to find it.
■UNITED STATES
Debit card foils robber
Would-be robbers take note: Don’t use your debit card during a holdup. A West Virginia man who police said attempted to rob a convenience store instead ended up buying a soft drink with his debit card — ultimately leading to his arrest, WCHS-TV reported. Shawn Thomas Lester, 33, told the store clerk on Monday that he had a gun and wanted all the money in the register, police said. But the suspect got flustered when a customer walked in and the clerk told him to pay for the soft drink. Lester handed over his debit card, then signed the receipt “John Doe” and left without any cash. Police traced the debit card and found Lester, of Charleston.
■UNITED STATES
Fake guard rips off church
Police say a man posing as an armored car guard made off with more than US$145,000 from a church. Police Officer Katie Flood said on Wednesday that a man dressed as a guard walked into the financial office of the Berean Church on Tuesday and told an employee he was there to pick up the weekly deposit. The employee said the man appeared to know what he was doing, so she gave him the deposit of more than US$145,000 in cash and checks. The real armored car and driver arrived about 15 minutes later and church employees realized they had been robbed. Flood said no one saw what vehicle the fake guard used.
■UNITED STATES
Defendant stabs judge, shot
A man on trial for murder in California was shot dead on Wednesday after leaving the witness stand and stabbing the judge hearing his case, police and local media reports said. David Paradiso, 29, was killed after attacking Judge Cinda Fox shortly after being cross-examined during his trial in Stockton, east of San Francisco, San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department said. It was not clear what Paradiso used to carry out his attack, but local media cited Paradiso’s family as saying they had warned authorities their relative may try to take a weapon into court during the trial. Paradiso was reportedly shot dead by the detective who had led his murder investigation.
■COLOMBIA
Cocaine kingpin extradited
Bogota extradited one of its most-wanted drug lords to the US on Wednesday to face charges of running an armed cocaine-smuggling gang with his twin brother, police said. Ex-paramilitary leader Miguel Angel Mejia Munera was handcuffed and wearing a bullet-proof vest before he boarded a US Drug Enforcement Administration plane in Bogota bound for the US, which had offered a US$5 million reward for information leading to his capture. Mejia, 49, had been held in a high-security prison since his arrest last May.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Kennedy knighted
He won’t be allowed to call himself Sir Ted, but US Senator Edward Kennedy has been awarded an honorary knighthood. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the honor on Wednesday during an address to a joint session of Congress in Washington. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, did not attend Brown’s speech. Brown said Kennedy had helped bring peace to Northern Ireland, expand health care for Americans and improve access to education for children around the world. Brown referred to the senator as “Sir Edward Kennedy,” although unlike British knights he is not entitled to use the honorific “Sir” before his name.
In a market in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, customers flock to Ache Moussa’s stall to have their long plaits smeared with a special paste in an age-old ritual. Each strand of hair, from the root to the end, is slathered in a traditional mixture of cherry seeds, cloves and chebe seeds, the most important ingredient of all. Users say the recipe makes their hair grow longer and more lustrous. Local and natural hair products are gaining popularity across Africa as people turn away from commercial cosmetics. Moussa applies the mixture and shapes the client’s locks into a gourone — a traditional hairstyle consisting of
The US yesterday wrapped up its first multidomain exercise with Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea, a step forward in Washington’s efforts to enhance and lock in its security partnerships with key Asian allies in the face of growing threats from North Korea and China. The three-day Freedom Edge increased the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities. The exercise, which is expected to expand in years to come, was also intended to improve the countries’ abilities to share missile warnings —
‘ONE FELL SWOOP’: Overturning a landmark ruling that said judges should defer to experts would ‘cause a massive shock to the legal system,’ a dissenting opinion said Prosecutors overstepped in charging Jan. 6, 2021, rioters with obstruction for trying to prevent certification of the 2020 presidential election, the US Supreme Court said on Friday, throwing hundreds of cases into doubt, while another controversial ruling struck down 40 years of legal precedent on federal agencies’ ability to regulate critical issues. The matter was brought to the court through an appeal by former police officer Joseph Fischer, a supporter of former US president Donald Trump who entered the Capitol with hundreds of others in 2021. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said prosecutors’ interpretation of the law would “criminalize
‘APOCALYPTIC : An UN official said that Lebanon was ‘the flashpoint beyond all flashpoints,’ and a conflict that involved it would draw in Syria and other nations Israel on Wednesday said that it does not want war in Lebanon, but could send its neighbor “back to the Stone Age.” The border between the two countries has seen daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants since the attack on Israel by Hezbollah’s ally Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, which triggered the war in Gaza. Fears those exchanges could escalate have grown in the past few weeks as cross-border attacks intensified and after Israel revealed it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive, prompting new threats from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said