■CHINA
Drunk driver gets life
A local lawmaker was sentenced to life in prison in Zhejiang Province after ploughing his luxury sedan into a crowd, killing four people and injuring eight, state media said yesterday. The case again highlighted the dangers of China’s tradition of mixing booze and business, as the April incident happened after the defendant, 48-year-old Yang Shuzhong (楊曙忠), had been drinking at a banquet. A court convicted him on Tuesday of endangering public security, Xinhua reported.
■CHINA
Teen tried for group sex
A 17-year-old girl in China has been tried for having group sex with two men, in the latest case to raise questions about the nation’s changing sexual mores, state press said yesterday. The father of the vocational school student, who reported the case to the police, has insisted his daughter was drugged, raped and forced to participate in the videotaped sex acts and should be set free, the Global Times reported. A court in the southern city of Dongguan has already tried the men and the girl, identified by her pseudonym, Li, on charges of “group licentiousness,” the paper said, but no verdict has been reached. The eight-minute video clip of the sex romp began circulating on the Internet earlier this year, showing the girl “talking and laughing with her naked sex partners,” the paper said.
■INDIA
Bus crash kills at least 20
At least 20 people were killed and 15 others critically injured in eastern India yesterday when a minibus crashed into a tree and fell into a ditch, police said. The accident took place in the Gobindpur area of Jharkhand state, according to police officer Binod Kumar. Initial investigations suggest the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel, Kumar said. All 40 passengers in the private minibus were part of a wedding party, but the bride and groom were not on board, Kumar said.
■MALAYSIA
Princes settle luxury car row
Two Malaysian princes reached an out-of-court settlement yesterday to end a spat over who had the right to use a Bentley luxury car owned by their father, a lawyer said. The dispute between the sons of Sultan Tengku Ismail Petra has embarrassed the royal household of Malaysia’s eastern Kelantan state and aggravated a recent power struggle among palace figures while the sultan was stricken by illness. Tengku Muhammad Fakhry Petra, the sultan’s third son, filed a lawsuit against his eldest brother, Tengku Muhammad Faris, in September last year to seek a court declaration that he had the right to use a Bentley Brooklands car worth 1.6 million ringgit (US$480,000). In July, representatives of Faris took away the car while Fakhry was abroad and refused to return it.
■MALAYSIA
Pygmy elephant calf saved
Malaysian wildlife authorities have saved a second endangered pygmy elephant calf on Borneo island, a state minister said yesterday as he called for an urgent effort to safeguard its shrinking habitat. Masidi Manjun, eastern Sabah-state tourism, culture and environment minister said the two-year-old female elephant was found last Friday. About two weeks ago plantation workers found a starving six-month-old elephant in another area. “I hope the saving of the two pygmy elephants will highlight the need by the people of Sabah to treasure our jungles and our rare animals,” he said. Pygmy elephants are unique to Borneo and form a sub-species of Asian elephant.
■FRANCE
Students get dream job
Perched in a beach hut on the Atlantic shore and paid to dole out suntan lotion and the odd body rub, two French students on Tuesday clinched what was billed as the ultimate summer job. More than 700 young hopefuls flocked to respond to an online ad to work as “Creamers” in Les Sables d’Olonne, with a shortlist of 10 battling it out in face-to-face interviews with tourism officials this week. Estelle, a 22-year-old trainee osteopath from the western city of Nantes, was described by jury members as “dynamic,” serious about health and with a “proven interest in seaside activities and nightlife.” Maksim was chosen for “his interest in the mission of ‘Creamer’, his command of foreign languages and his qualities as a serious sportsman.” The pair will share a small booth on the vast Sables d’Olonne beach, dishing out sun protection advice and cream samples — for a pay check of 850 euros (US$1,000) per week.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Cocaine seized in Gambia
About 2 tonnes of cocaine with a street value of roughly US$1 billion has been seized in Gambia, a British official confirmed yesterday. Twelve people of various nationalities were also arrested after investigators discovered the drugs in an underground bunker in a warehouse outside the Gambian capital Banjul. Agents from Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency working in west Africa played a supporting role in the operation, providing forensic assistance.
■EGYPT
‘Arabian Nights’ case fails
The public prosecutor on Tuesday dismissed a complaint brought by Islamists seeking to ban Arabian Nights, which they judged to be immoral, MENA news agency reported. Prosecutor Abdel Megid Mahmud threw out the case, saying the epic tales had been published for centuries without problems and had been an inspiration to countless artists, MENA said. The case was brought by a group of Islamist lawyers after a new edition was published by the state-run General Agency for Cultural Palaces. They had filed a complaint to the public prosecutor against the publication because they said it was lewd.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Ritz Hotel case begins
Three men appeared in court on Tuesday accused of trying to sell London’s Ritz Hotel for £250 million (US$360 million) in a deal described by prosecutors as “complete fantasy.” The men allegedly used the promise of acquiring the five-star hotel as a way of convincing potential buyers to hand over a £1 million deposit, but prosecutor Ahuja Dhir said the deal was based on “one great big lie.” “They promised their targets something that seemed to be too good to be true,” she told Southwark Crown Court in London, where the men are on trial. “The deal that sounded too good to be true was a complete fantasy.”
■FRANCE
Descartes letter returned
A letter by 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes that languished unnoticed in a US college library for more than a century has been restored to France. The president of Haverford College — which has had the letter since 1902 — handed over the plastic-covered missive at a ceremony on Tuesday at the Institut de France in Paris. The 1641 letter had been donated to Haverford, near Philadelphia, by the widow of an alumnus and remained in the college library, unnoticed by academics, until a librarian posted about its existence online last fall.
■CANADA
Mom charged after mauling
The teenage mother of a three-week-old girl mauled to death by a dog was charged with manslaughter on Tuesday. The 17-year-old was arrested late on Monday after the newborn baby was killed by a husky inside the family home in Saint-Barnabe-Sud, northeast of Montreal. Quebec police Sergeant Ronald McInnis said the baby was left in a car seat on the kitchen floor while her mother and grandmother were smoking cigarettes outside. The newborn’s 19-year-old father said the attack took place within a matter of seconds. “The girl’s mother went outside for a puff on a cigarette. She hadn’t even closed the door when she heard noise. She went into back the house and the dog had jumped on the child. It was a moment of inattention,” he said. The father said he does not blame the mother and hopes that she’ll be acquitted.
■MEXICO
Father admits killing kids
A father who had told police he gave his two children to a woman to settle a debt of 25,000 pesos (US$1,925) now says he asphyxiated the toddlers himself, authorities said on Tuesday. Javier Covarrubias, 20, didn’t say why he killed his children, only that he did and hid their bodies in different locations, according to a statement from the attorney general’s office. Hours later on Tuesday, authorities said the bodies of two children had been found in plastic bags and were being tested to see if their DNA matched that of Covarrubias.
■MEXICO
Managers accused of theft
Several midlevel managers with a state railroad company are accused of stealing more than 590km of railroad and selling the materials to help pay off a company debt, authorities said on Tuesday. The railroad scrap, much of it high-grade steel, weighed roughly 47,000 tonnes, about seven times the steel used in the Eiffel Tower, Secretary of Public Administration Salvador Vega Casillas said. He said the sale of such material is prohibited and that the managers never sought permission for their actions. The employees targeted abandoned railroads in five states. The sale allegedly occurred from 2003 to 2005.
■UNITED STATES
Document from 1792 found
A Massachusetts teacher cleaning up her classroom in preparation for a move has discovered a colonial-era document buried in a pile of outdated textbooks and dusty scraps of papers. Michelle Eugenio, a fourth-grade teacher, found the yellowed sheet of paper two weeks ago. Dated April 1792 and protected by plastic, it appears to document the payment of a debt by a Vermont man named Jonathan Bates. Peabody Historical Society president Bill Power verified the paper’s authenticity. He told the Salem News he was thrilled with the discovery.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Diana’s black gown sold
A racy black gown worn by Lady Diana Spencer on one of her first official engagements has been snapped up by a Chilean fashion museum for nearly £192,000 (US$278,000) — several times the original estimate. The strapless silk taffeta dress’ revealing cut and striking black color caused a minor scandal when Diana was pictured stepping out of a limousine in the outfit at a London charity event in 1981. While some thought the dress was too daring for the 19-year-old royal bride-to-be, it helped turn Diana into an overnight fashion icon. Also for sale were sketches, notes and invoices connected to her wedding to Prince Charles.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Sri Lanka’s fragile economic recovery could be hampered by threatened trade union strikes over reduced benefits for government employees in this year’s budget, the IMF said yesterday. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s maiden budget raised public sector salaries, but also made deep cuts to longstanding perks in a continuing effort to repair the island nation’s tattered finances. Sri Lanka’s main doctors’ union is considering a strike from today to protest against cuts to their allowances, while teachers are also considering stoppages. IMF senior mission chief for Sri Lanka Peter Breuer said the budget was the “last big push” for the country’s austerity
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