■NEW ZEALAND
‘Lord of the Ring’ succeeds
A man who promised his wife he would find his wedding ring after it fell into the capital’s murky harbor has been successful, 16 months later. Ecologist Aleki Taumoepeau was checking Wellington harbor for invasive plant species in March last year when the ring went into 3m of water. “It flew off into the air and everyone on the boat was looking at it and said it was like a scene from ‘Lord of the Rings’ in slow motion,” Rachel Taumoepeau was quoted as saying in Thursday’s Dominion Post newspaper. He tossed an anchor overboard to mark the spot and pledged to Rachel, his wife of three months, that he would find it. She offered to buy a replacement. “I just said ‘No, I’ll find it,’” he said. An initial search three months after the loss failed, but Taumoepeau was determined. He returned again recently for another dive, risking chill midwinter temperatures. He spotted the anchor — with the ring lying just inches away. Friends have taken to calling Taumoepeau “Lord of the Ring.”
■HONG KONG
Cop admits to raping girls
A detective yesterday admitted raping a teenager and molesting three other teens and young women in the identity parade room of a police station. Leung Lai-chung, 29, used the police computer to contact female victims of crimes and then invited them on false pretenses to the police station, the High Court heard. He called the four victims into the city’s Mongkok police station over a 10-day period in November, raping a 19-year-old woman who had reported a lost purse and sexually assaulting the three others, ages 16 to 21.
■THAILAND
Monkeys getting hernias
The town of Lopburi has coughed up a special budget to perform hernia operations on its resident monkey population, who have been harming themselves in their greedy pursuit of handouts, veterinarians said on Wednesday. More than 100 macaque monkeys have already undergone surgery on their hernias, but hundreds more are in need of the operation among the town’s 1,700-strong simian colony, said Juthana Supanam, a volunteer veterinarian. The semi-wild monkeys are the main tourist attraction for Lopburi, 100km north of Bangkok. “Macaques like to live up high in tree branches, and here they are constantly jumping down to the ground to grab food from tourists,” she said.
■HONG KONG
Local expats richest
Hong Kong’s expatriates are the wealthiest in Asia, with more than one in four earning more than US$250,000 a year, a survey published yesterday showed. Thirty-nine percent of expatriates in the city of 7 million earn more than US$200,000, while 27 percent earn more than US$250,000, compared with 16 percent of expats globally. Forty-eight percent of expatriates have monthly disposable income of more than US$4,000 and 89 percent said they had more disposable income than in their home countries.
■AUSTRALIA
Parliament passes green bill
Parliament passed a law yesterday requiring that 20 percent of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources such as the sun and wind by 2020, matching European standards and up from about 8 percent now. The law would quadruple the renewable energy target set by the previous government in 2001 and provide enough clean electricity to power the households of all 21 million residents.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Two arrested in gem heist
London police have arrested two men in connection with what is thought to be the UK’s biggest jewelry heist, a spokesman said late on Wednesday. Two gun-toting and smartly dressed men walked into an exclusive Graff store in central London earlier this month and stole jewelry worth £40 million (US$65 million). The Metropolitan Police did not say whether the pair arrested on Wednesday were the same two captured on video pulling off the raid.
■GERMANY
Convert relieved at arrest
The youngest member of an alleged radical Islamic terrorist cell whose plot to attack US targets in Germany was foiled by authorities testified on Wednesday he would not repeat his actions. Daniel Schneider, a 23-year-old German convert to Islam, told the court he was relieved to have been arrested along with three other alleged cell members in 2007 and said that he now believes such an attack would be harmful to Islam. The four are suspected of operating as a German cell of the radical Islamic Jihad Union.
■GERMANY
Three arrested over art scam
Police have confiscated hundreds of bronze and plaster statues alleged to be the works of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti and arrested an art dealer and two others on suspicion of selling the fakes across the globe. The trio face charges of collaborating since 2004 to offer and sell the forged artworks, complete with certificates of authentication, for tens of millions of dollars. Prosecutors said a 61-year-old man posed as a count offering the statues to potential buyers. His 59-year-old colleague then posed as a friend of Giacometti’s brother, saying he had found the statues in a secret cache after the artist died in 1966. Giacometti is probably best known for his skeletal and elongated human figures depicted on the current 100-Swiss franc bank note along with a portrait of the artist. One piece sold earlier this year for US$7.7 million.
■ISRAEL
Dudu dies in prison
Entertainer Dudu Topaz — whose turbulent struggle to deal with his waning stardom enthralled the country — died yesterday after apparently hanging himself in the shower of his jail cell, prison officials said. He was 62. Topaz, one of Israel’s most famous television stars, had been in jail for several months since the start of his trial for allegedly hiring thugs to assault top media executives he blamed for keeping him off the air. Topaz, a variety show star who earned himself the moniker “the ratings king,” was a household name in Israel. But in recent years, his career has been in a downward spiral — in part due to the dominance of reality shows on prime time TV, a plight he apparently blamed on network executives.
■GERMANY
Pensioner kills three
A pensioner who went on a shooting rampage that left three people dead did so in order to teach people “not to mess” with him or his family, police said on Wednesday. The 71-year-old on Tuesday shot dead two lawyers, 38 and 70, and a surveyor, 48, who had come to discuss the sale of a house in the town of Schwalmtal as part of a divorce settlement between the gunman’s daughter and her ex-husband. “I think [the victim] was meant to be me,” 44-year-old Hubert K., the pensioner’s former son-in-law, told rolling news channel NTV. The pensioner stuck his tongue out at his wife’s ex-husband and his grandson as he was whisked away by police, news reports said.
■UNITED STATES
No regrets: Yettaw
American John Yettaw said on Wednesday he had no regrets about taking a secret swim to the home of Myanmar’s detained democracy leader — a decision that landed them both in prison — and indicated that he still believed his bizarre visit somehow saved her from being assassinated. “If I had to do it again, I would do it a hundred times, a hundred times, to save her life,” an exhausted-looking Yettaw said of Aung San Suu Kyi in an interview after arriving in the US on Wednesday. He added: “That they locked her up, it just breaks my heart.” Yettaw, 53, has testified that he swam to the Nobel Laureate’s house in May to warn her that he had a “vision” that she would be assassinated.
■BRAZIL
Silva may run for president
Former environment minister Marina Silva, a rainforest champion, gave a strong signal on Wednesday of her intention to run for president when she resigned from the ruling party and berated the nation’s leaders for pursuing material wealth at the expense of the natural world. Speculation has been growing for weeks that Silva, who resigned from the government in May after a dispute over the development of the Amazon region, would defect to the Green party in order to contest the presidential elections next year. Speaking at a press conference in Brasilia, Silva, who has been a Workers’ party member for more than 30 years, said politicians had failed to give sufficient attention to the environment.
■BRAZIL
Priest accused of abuse
An Italian priest who ran an award-winning shelter for homeless children in Brazil has been charged with sexually abusing boys for years and allowing visiting foreigners to exploit the children, prosecutors said on Wednesday. Father Clodoveo Piazza, now working as a missionary in Mozambique, was charged along with another former director of the nonprofit group Fraternal Help Organization, a private group based in Salvador. Lidivaldo Britto, chief prosecutor for Bahia state in Brazil, said at least 10 boys were sexually abused over several years while Piazza ran the group. Roman Catholic Church officials in Brazil confirmed that Piazza was a priest but declined to comment on the case.
■UNITED STATES
Burglar targets cop station
A brazen burglar picked the wrong place to target: a police station. Police Chief Steve Scibelli said it was pretty embarrassing to have a thief hit his downtown station last week, stealing a radio, two stun guns and a Crown Victoria patrol car. The one saving grace was that police made a quick arrest. “I’m so upset about it, I can’t even find any humor in it,” Scibelli told the Register-Guard newspaper. “It’s pretty embarrassing.” Robert Lloyd Finder, 26, remained in the Coos County Jail on Wednesday, facing multiple charges.
■ARGENTINA
Man gets 20 years for fire
A music promoter was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday after being found responsible for a 2004 fire that swept through his crowded discotheque, killing 194 people. Omar Chaban, 57, received the heaviest sentence for arson, but lesser prison terms were handed out to four other people implicated in the fire, which broke out when spectators ignited fireworks during a packed concert. Some 3,000 fans had squeezed into Cromagnon Republic nightclub on December 30, 2004, for a performance of the rock group Callejeros, but many were trapped inside because the the main exit doors had been locked.
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.
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
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
THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF WAR: Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe was in Kyiv because ‘it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake. It’s Europe’s destiny’ A dozen leaders from Europe and Canada yesterday visited Ukraine’s capital to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion in a show of support for Kyiv by some of its most important backers. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were among the visitors greeted at the railway station by Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha and the president’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak. Von der Leyen wrote on social media that Europe was in Kyiv “because Ukraine is in Europe.” “In this fight for survival, it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is
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