■INDONESIA
Bengal cub tiger mauls girl
A young Bengal tiger mauled a three-year-old girl after breaking free from its handlers at a zoo, a spokeswoman said yesterday, leaving the toddler with head injuries that required surgery. The 10-month-old male tiger, Ony, attacked Angelica Rosa while it was being transferred between enclosures at Taman Safari Prigen zoo in East Java on Monday morning, park spokeswoman Tisa Ananda said. “It seems that the tiger, who’s only 10 months old, was excited to see the girl and wanted to play with her,” Ananda told reporters.
■MALAYSIA
Military student hazed, dies
A student died at the top military college, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, after he was allegedly hazed and authorities were investigating five schoolmates, one of whom had been expelled, officials said yesterday. The 17-year-old boys are being investigated for suspected murder in connection with the death of Mohammed Naim Mustaqim Mohamad Sobri, 16, district police chief Abdul Rahim Hamzah Othman said. Media have reported Mohammed Naim apparently collapsed after being kicked in the abdomen while doing push-ups, but police and school officials declined to confirm the details.
■MYANMAR
Rare white elephant seen
A rare white elephant, historically considered an omen of political change, has been captured, state media reported yesterday. The female pachyderm was captured by officials on Saturday in the coastal town of Maungtaw in Rakhine State, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said. She is aged about 38 and more than 2m tall, the English-language paper said, although it did not mention where she would be kept.
■ICELAND
PM takes same-sex spouse
Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, has married her long-term partner, her office said on Monday, making her the world’s first national leader with a same-sex spouse. Sigurdardottir, 67, married writer Jonina Leosdottir on Sunday, the day a new law took effect defining marriage as a union between two consenting adults regardless of sex. The two had had a civil union for years and changed this into a marriage under the new law, which was approved by parliament earlier this month.
■RWANDA
Two arrested over murder
Rwanda arrested two men on Sunday in connection with the murder of a journalist who had linked the government to the shooting of an exiled general in South Africa last week, police said. Jean Leonard Rugambage, acting editor of the vernacular Umuvugizi newspaper, was shot twice outside his home in Kigali on June 24 and died on the spot. A national police statement dismissed accusations that Rugambage’s death was related to his work as a journalist and suggested that it was probably revenge for alleged crimes committed during the 1994 genocide. President Paul Kagame said Rugambage’s death was unacceptable.
■RUSSIA
Official flings out millions
A fisheries official suspected of accepting bribes tossed 10 million rubles (US$322,000) from his car after a police chase and a crash on a busy Moscow highway, investigators said on Monday. Pursued by police, Federal Fisheries Agency official Boris Simonov crashed his Cadillac on Friday and frantically flung 10 million rubles into the wind, local media reported. State-run First Channel television showed scores of large-denomination ruble notes being collected by police and cast into a torn, grimy cardboard box beside a thoroughfare in south-central Moscow. A spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee said Simonov’s boss, Roman Postnikov, who oversaw two Moscow rivers, was arrested on suspicion of forging a contract that allowed a fishing firm to operate without the proper documents. Both fishery officials will be jailed for two months pending further investigation, the committee said.
■SWITZERLAND
Mr Swatch dies at 82
Nicolas Hayek, chairman and former chief executive of the giant Swiss watch-manufacturing firm Swatch, has died. He was 82. Swatch Group said Hayek died unexpectedly of heart failure on Monday at his office in Biel, Switzerland. “Nicolas G Hayek’s greatest merit was his enormous contribution to the saving of the Swiss watch industry and the foundation and the commercial development of the Swatch Group,” the company said in a statement. The self-styled Mr Swatch is credited with reinventing Swiss watch-making in the 1980s by introducing radical cost-saving moves after he was asked to help close it down. SMH started to produce a plastic wristwatch — the Swatch — which revolutionized the industry.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Flight attendant charged
A South African Airways flight attendant has been charged with trying to smuggle 3kg of cocaine into Britain through London’s Heathrow airport, the UK Border Agency said on Monday. Elphia Dlamini, 42, was arrested after arriving on a flight from Johannesburg on Saturday. The UK Border Agency said officers found the cocaine, worth an estimated £120,000 (US$181,000), on Dlamini during crew clearance checks.
■MEXICO
Famous singer shot dead
A singer famous for ballads lauding drug traffickers has been shot dead on the way to a concert in the northwest of the country, officials said on Monday. Unidentified attackers fired several times on Sergio Vega, or “El Shaka,” in his car late on Saturday as he was traveling to a concert in Sinaloa State, deputy local prosecutor Ramon Ignacio Rodrigo told journalists. Moments earlier, the 40-year-old singer had asked a friend to call the police because his car was being followed, according to the national Reforma daily. “When help arrived, it was already too late,” Ana Luisa Gomez told Reforma. The singer died at the scene after being hit by five bullets, Rodrigo said. Although the motive for the attack was unclear, El Shaka had the risky profession of singing narcocorridos — ballads lauding the exploits of drug traffickers — in Sinaloa, the state at the heart of Mexico’s illegal drugs industry.
■UNITED STATES
Fan beats toddler to death
A Texas man accused of fatally beating his two-year-old stepdaughter when she wouldn’t stop crying as he watched a World Cup game has been charged with capital murder. McAllen Police Sergeant Joel Morales said 27-year-old Hector Castro was charged on Monday after his arrest on Saturday. Castro is being held on US$1 million bond at the Hidalgo County jail, where a booking clerk said he does not yet have an attorney. Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said Castro told investigators the toddler wouldn’t stop crying while he was trying to watch the US-Ghana match on Saturday. Rodriguez said the child was severely beaten and suffered several broken ribs. Police said a screw or bolt was forced down her throat in an apparent attempt to make it look like she choked to death.
■UNITED STATES
Man convicted of hate crime
A New York City jury has convicted a man of murder as a hate crime in the beating death of an Ecuadorean immigrant. Jurors deliberated for about seven hours on Monday before convicting Keith Phoenix in the December 2008 death of Jose Sucuzhanay. Phoenix was also convicted of attempted assault as a hate crime in the attack on Sucuzhanay’s brother. He was retried on the charges after the first jury ended in a mistrial. Prosecutors said Phoenix and Hakim Scott mistook the brothers for gay men and yelled slurs. Scott was convicted in May of manslaughter, but was acquitted of a more serious murder charge.
■UNITED STATES
Actor Klein facing jail term
Los Angeles prosecutors said they have charged American Pie actor Chris Klein with drunken driving. City Attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan said Klein faces two misdemeanor driving under the influence charges and will be arraigned on July 9. Mateljan said Klein faces a minimum of three days in jail and up to a year sentence if convicted because of a prior drunken driving case. Klein played Chris “Oz” Ostreicher in 1999’s American Pie and in the 2001 sequel.
■UNITED STATES
Former champ misses out
Serious eaters are getting ready to scoff their way to glory in New York’s 95th annual hot dog eating contest on Sunday, but a famous contestant will be missing. Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi has won the contest six times. Major League Eating president Richard Shea said contract negotiations broke down this year. Kobayashi was champion from 2001 to 2006. He lost the last three years to Joey Chestnut of San Jose, California.
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
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
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
A rash of unexplained drone sightings in the skies above New Jersey has left locals rattled and sent US officials scrambling for answers. Breathless local news reports have amplified the anxious sky-gazing and wild speculation — interspersing blurry, dark clips from social media with irate locals calling for action. For weeks now, the distinctive blinking lights and whirling rotors of large uncrewed aerial vehicles have been spotted across the state west of New York. However, military brass, elected representatives and investigators have been unable to explain the recurring UFO phenomenon. Sam Lugo, 23, who works in the Club Studio gym in New Jersey’s Bergen
RSS