■AUSTRALIA
Fake war hero unmasked
A celebrated war hero who rose to become head of the Prisoner of War Association of Australia was unmasked yesterday as an impostor who didn’t serve in World War II and never saw the inside of a Japanese prison camp. Rex Crane, 83, is now the subject of a police investigation after admitting to the Age newspaper that he spent the war in Adelaide. Crane told the paper he had never enlisted, never worn a uniform and that what he knew about fighting in the jungles of Malaya or the brutality of the Japanese guards at Singapore’s Outram Road Jail he had gleaned from books. “It looks like the past has caught up, doesn’t it?” he said.
■AUSTRALIA
Indonesians repatriated
A group of 62 Indonesians who sailed to the country have been repatriated after being declared economic migrants rather than genuine refugees, news reports said yesterday. “Someone who is seeking better economic opportunities doesn’t meet the criteria for a protection visa,” Immigration Minister Chris Evans said. The men were flown home on Friday from Christmas Island, where they had been detained since their boat was intercepted off the west coast two weeks ago. Evans said the men had “requested removal” when told they did not qualify for protection.
■CHINA
Bus accident kills 17
Brake failure and overcrowding were blamed for a bus accident that killed 17 people and injured 54 in the south, state media said yesterday. The 30-seat bus was carrying 71 people and flipped while descending a hill on Friday morning in Hunan Province’s Qiyang County, an official from the county’s propaganda office said yesterday. Nine people, including the driver, were declared dead at the scene and eight died after being taken to a local hospital, the official said. An initial investigation indicated brake failure and overcrowding caused the bus to overturn, the Xinhua news agency said.
■SINGAPORE
Thief jailed for nine years
A man who pulled off one of the city-state’s largest thefts in recent memory was sentenced on Friday to nine years in jail, local newspapers reported. Jerry Ee, 36, had admitted stealing valuables worth S$8.16 million (US$5.76 million), including 392 designer watches, from his former employer Cortina Watch in the Christmas Day heist last year, the Straits Times said. A stiff punishment was needed as the theft was one of the “most blatant and audacious acts of criminal breach of trust ever committed by an employee,” sentencing judge Chia Wee Kiat was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “The need to curb this proclivity for criminal activities means that the imposition of a deterrent sentence is all the more necessary,” the judge said.
■FRANCE
Life’s a bitch for pets
In a dog-loving country, every president knows the value of man’s best friend. Former president Francois Mitterrand prized his black labrador and President Nicolas Sarkozy once had a chihuahua named Big. But for ex-presidential pets, life after the Elysee can be a bitch. Former president Jacques Chirac’s miniature white maltese, Sumo, has been banished by the former president after becoming so depressed about leaving the presidential palace that he began routinely savaging his master. Although the Chiracs now live in a vast Paris apartment, Sumo has been on antidepressants to deal with the loss of the presidential garden, where he once roamed freely with a golden retriever named Scott.
■UNITED STATES
Man suffers rough week
An 80-year-old Ohio man is recovering from a week in which he was beaten during a home invasion and then shot while trying to learn about guns. Ralph Needs was tied up and pistol-whipped when at least three intruders broke into his Columbus-area home, the Columbus Dispatch reported. His nose was broken and his pickup truck, a computer and credit cards were stolen. Four days later, Needs was shot in the hand during a self-defense lesson when a 9mm pistol went off as one of his sons was loading it.
■SPAIN
Love letters cost US$1.7m
For Cristian Garcia, 22, the split with his girlfriend was devastating. Her love letters to him were proof of a passion that had since died, so he took them to a skip near her home in Valencia, set them on fire and drove off. Three years later Garcia has lost a lot more than his girlfriend. A court this week handed Garcia a suspended prison sentence of 18 months and ordered him to pay 1.2 million euros (US$1.7 million) in damages for the forest fire that he inadvertently started when he burnt the love letters. With winds gusting at 65kph, within hours thousands of hectares were burning forcing evacuations, stopped traffic and a port closure. The fire raged for three days.
■UNITED STATES
Climate pact unlikely to pass
The US president’s top aide on climate change acknowledged that legislation requiring major reductions in global-warming emissions is unlikely to pass Congress before December’s Copenhagen summit on climate change. Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, said on Friday that completion of the legislative process before the summit “is not going to happen,” the New York Times reported yesterday on its Web site. Drafts proposed in the Senate would cut emissions by between 17 percent and 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by more than 80 percent by 2050.
■UNITED STATES
Lonely llama captured
A lone llama wandering near the summit of Pikes Peak for a month has been captured and is heading to a new home. Tracy Ducharme and Mike Shealy of Black Forest, Colorado, trekked up the 4,300m mountain on Friday to find the little white beast of burden. They took two llamas with them. The wandering llama’s herd instincts lured him to them and Ducharme slipped a rope around his neck. “I dubbed him Homer because of his little odyssey,” she said.
■MEXICO
Raids net meth chemicals
Two raids by security forces netted the largest seizures of methamphetamine precursor chemicals in the country’s history, federal officials announced on Friday. Agents seized 20 tonnes of chemicals used to produce methamphetamine at Manzanillo port in Colima and 17 tonnes in Nuevo Laredo, the Attorney General’s Office said. Meanwhile, in Ciudad Juarez, police said at least 11 people, including two police officers and a child, were killed in less than 24 hours. Gunmen killed eight on Friday in five separate attacks, including a policewoman who was shot in the head in broad daylight in a residential area, a state prosecutor’s spokesman said. Gunmen opened fire on a pickup truck late on Thursday, killing a 22-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl playing in a city park. Earlier, a city police officer was killed as she rode on a bus, he said. Also on Friday, a Mexican Air force plane crashed for unknown reasons in Michoacan, killing three soldiers.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported yesterday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since US president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory on Oct. 6. At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region. Kim also criticized the US over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion.
Texas’ education board on Friday voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools, joining other Republican-led US states that pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, is optional for schools to adopt, but they would receive additional funding if they do so. The materials could appear in classrooms as early as next school year. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has voiced support for the lesson plans, which were provided by the state’s education agency that oversees the more than
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