■VANUATU
Big quake hits remote area
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck off the island nation yesterday, sparking a tsunami warning that was later canceled. The quake hit at 4:14am at a depth of 36km, 214km northwest of Luganville, the US Geological Survey said. In the six hours after the initial tremor, five aftershocks measuring between magnitude 5 and 6.4 shook the area. A spokeswoman for the National Disaster Management Office said the office had not yet received any reports of major damage from remote northern Torba Province, which was closest to the quake’s center.
■SOUTH KOREA
Leftover embryos not alive
The Constitutional Court has ruled that human embryos left over from fertility treatment are not life forms and can be used for research or destroyed, a court spokesman said yesterday. The court’s ruling upheld an existing law allowing the use of leftover embryos for research. The law also allows fertility clinics to dispose of frozen embryos five years after fertilization treatment is completed. “The ruling means that human embryos that are in their early stage and are not implanted into a mother’s womb cannot be seen as human life forms,” spokesman Noh Hui-beom said. The ruling came after a group of 13 people, including pro-life activists filed a petition with the court against the bioethics law.
■CHINA
GOME boss files appeal
GOME founder Huang Guangyu (黃光裕) has appealed his 14-year jail sentence for bribery and insider trading, the Legal Daily reported yesterday. Huang was found guilt earlier this month of bribery, insider trading and illegal business dealings. Huang was fined 600 million yuan US$87.86 million) and had 200 million yuan worth of property confiscated, while his two firms, GOME and Pengrun, were fined 5 million yuan and 1.2 million yuan respectively for paying bribes. The paper said Huang believed the sentence and fines were too heavy, and further disputed the finding that one of his companies, Pengrun, had paid bribes.
■PAKISTAN
Suspect in US plot detained
Another man has been detained in connection with the main suspect in the Times Square attempted car bombing, an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to comment on the record. The latest suspect to be questioned is a named Humbal Akhtar. Akhtar’s wife, Rahila, confirmed yesterday in a brief telephone conversation that her husband disappeared a few days ago. She declined to give more details. Intelligence officials have said around 11 people have been detained in the case nationwide.
■AUSTRALIA
Ban on Cat Stevens urged
Conservative Victoria state Parliamentarian Peter Kavanagh yesterday called for the musician formerly known as Cat Stevens to be denied a visa because he once supported a fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie. Kavanagh said Yusuf Islam should not be issued a visa until he withdraws support for the 1989 edict issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini for Rushdie’s alleged blasphemy in his book The Satanic Verses. “Although Yusuf now denies supporting attempts to murder Salman Rushdie, he is on record at the time for stating that he wanted to see Mr. Rushdie himself burn, not just an effigy of him, and he would like to have reported Mr. Rushdie’s whereabouts to those who were trying to murder him,” Kavanagh said. The musician is on an international comeback tour that will take him to Melbourne next month.
■ISRAEL
Highway partially opened
The Israeli military partially opened a West Bank highway to Palestinian drivers yesterday to comply with a ruling of the country’s highest court. The road, known as Highway 443, is a major link between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and is heavily traveled by Israeli commuters. Much of its length runs through the West Bank, one of the territories Palestinians claim for a their hoped-for state and parts of it were paved on land expropriated from Palestinians. The Israeli military, which maintains overall control of the West Bank, banned Palestinian cars in 2002 after a string of Palestinian shooting attacks on the road killed Israeli motorists.
■SWEDEN
Robbers steal jewels
Armed men robbed a Stockholm auction house of more than 1 million euros (US$1.24 million) worth of jewelry in a daylight heist on Thursday, police and Bukowski auctioneers said. Around 50 people were inside the building in an upmarket Stockholm district when three armed masked men entered around midday. “They came out after a moment and ran into a parked car, a grey Skoda,” and fled, police said, adding that the car was later found abandoned.
■EGYPT
Men fed donkeys to lions
An Uzbekistan embassy official and three Egyptians are facing charges in Egypt after allegedly feeding donkey meat to pet lions, judicial officials said. The Uzbek, an embassy media adviser, was charged along with an Egyptian businessman and two guards who worked in two villas near the coastal city of Alexandria where eight lions were kept without permits, the officials said. The men were also accused of endangering public safety by keeping the lions and polluting the environment with donkey heads and remnants.
■ZIMBABWE
Gay activists free on bail
A Zimbabwe court freed two employees of a gay organization after six days in jail on allegations of possessing indecent material and displaying a placard seen as insulting to President Robert Mugabe, an outspoken critic of homosexuality. The Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe organization said that the two employees were assaulted by police while in custody. Magistrate Munamate Mutevedzi on Thursday released the two on bail of US$200 each until a trial set for June 10, where they will face penalties of imprisonment or a fine. Homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe and most African countries.
■PERU
Bodies from ferry found
Five more bodies, including those of three children, were found by divers on Thursday in a sunken ferry in Peru’s Amazon River, bringing the death toll from the accident to 17, authorities said. More than 160 people survived Wednesday’s ferry sinking, which was apparently due to overcrowding, near Santa Rosa village close to the Colombian border. The five bodies were added to 12 people already found drowned, regional civil defense chief Robert Falcon told reporters. “We’re still searching for another 18 missing people,” Navy Rear-Admiral Rodolfo Reategui said. It was unclear how many passengers were aboard the ferry Camila after it left Iquitos on Tuesday, but witnesses said it made two stops to pick up additional passengers, animals and cargo, dangerously overloading the vessel.
■CANADA
Firefighters battle blaze
About 800 firefighters were dispatched on Thursday to combat more than a dozen forest fires raging north of Montreal, a provincial agency announced. Most went to the Haute-Mauricie region 400km north of the Quebec metropolis to douse a dozen of the blazes. Thick smoke swept over the Wemotaci native reservation, forcing more than 1,300 people to evacuate their homes overnight.
■UNITED STATES
Little nun stops thief
A thief turned out to be no match for a little nun with a commanding voice. Sister Lynn Rettinger didn’t even have to break out a ruler for a man who reached into an open car window and stole a wallet on Tuesday. She just needed the tone of voice she’s used for nearly 50 years in Catholic schools. After seeing a man swipe the wallet, the diminutive principal of Sacred Heart Elementary School went outside and firmly told him “You need to give me what you have.” The thief turned over the wallet, apologized and walked away.
■UNITED STATES
Kiss singer not charged
Prosecutors will not charge Kiss rocker Gene Simmons over an alleged attack on a couple at an upscale outdoor mall the district attorney’s office stated on Wednesday, citing a lack of evidence. The 60-year-old musician allegedly threatened Nathan Marlowe and his wife, Cynthia Manzo, at The Grove mall in Los Angeles last December. A civil lawsuit filed in December against Simmons is still pending. The couple are seeking more than US$25,000 in damages for claims of assault, battery and emotional distress, including damage to their sex life.
■MEXICO
McCartney broadcasts free
Paul McCartney is allowing his concert in Mexico City to be viewed for free on a giant movie screen. Culture Secretary Elena Zepeda says the screen was due to be set up last night at a plaza in the capital’s Chapultapec park. She says it’s the former Beatle’s gift to Mexico City residents. Zepeda says the plaza can hold 10,000 people. McCartney scheduled Mexico City performances on Thursday and last night as part of his “Up and Coming Tour.”
■GUATEMALA
Pacaya volcano erupts
Pacaya volcano erupted on Thursday, covering the capital with a cloud of black ash that closed the airport, forcing villagers to evacuate and reportedly killing one person. Vulcanologists measured plumes of ash reaching almost 1,500m above the volcano’s peak. Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez said a local television journalist who had been reporting from the volcano died when it erupted and he was crushed by falling rocks.
■CANADA
Family billed for pet’s death
A car insurer has asked a family to pay for a broken bumper after their dog was struck by the vehicle and died, local media said on Thursday. The accident occurred in March while Jake, a 12-year-old yellow Labrador, was out for his daily walk around a quiet neighborhood in Aurora, Ontario. Kim Flemming let the dog out when she arrived home from work. Moments later, a man knocked on the door to say a car had run over Jake. “I got to the road and he was dying,” Flemming told the Toronto Star. “He died in my arms.” Two months later, the family received a bill in the mail for C$1,732.80 (US$1,648.95) from State Farm Insurance.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
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