World Briefs

Fulham chairman Mohammed Al Fayed has told fans they can “go to hell” if they don’t like the statue of Michael Jackson he has erected at the club’s Craven Cottage stadium.

Mr Al Fayed, who was a close friend of the King of Pop, caused controversy after announcing he wanted to place the tribute to Jackson outside the west London ground.

The statue shows Jackson – who visited Craven Cottage as a guest of Mr Al Fayed before his death – in one of his signature poses and stands on the banks of the River Thames. (AFP)

Coming of age

A 92-year-old has become the oldest woman committed to stand trial for murder in Australia, accused of bludgeoning and stabbing her wealthy 98-year-old husband to death, a report said yesterday.

Clara Tang, who allegedly killed Ching Yung Tang after 70 years of marriage in their Sydney apartment in March last year, has pleaded not guilty on the grounds of mental illness. Mrs Tang, who suffers dementia, allegedly feared her husband was poisoning her food.

When arrested, Mrs Tang was almost totally soaked in blood. Her husband had been stabbed twice in the stomach and his head was bludgeoned.

The couple had survived the Japanese invasion of China and Mao’s Cultural Revolution before moving from Shanghai to Sydney 30 years ago. (AFP)

New Polar Bid

A 16-year-old boy is set to make his second bid to be the youngest person to ski to the North Pole.

Londoner Parker Liautaud attempted the stunning feat last year but had to stop 15 miles shy because of injury and atrocious weather.

But now the teenager, an environmental campaigner, will try again and will take snow and ice thickness measurements as part of ongoing climate change research for Canada’s University of Alberta.

TV adventurer and UK chief scout Bear Grylls said: “A huge challenge and a huge ambition but such endeavours bring out the best in us.” (PA)

Christian writings

Jordan’s archaeology chief says he has a solid legal case to press for the return of 70 ancient lead books stolen and smuggled into Israel.

Ziad al-Saad says the relics could be the earliest Christian writing in existence.

If authenticated, he says they would be the most significant find in Christian archaeology since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.

He says there is strong evidence that the material was excavated in a northern cave by a Jordanian Bedouin five years ago. But they made their way into the hands of an Israeli Bedouin.

He said yesterday that initial carbon and metallurgy tests performed by British experts date the material, depicting messianic symbols and written in archaic Hebrew, to the first century AD. (AP)

Defective submarine

A British Trident submarine is returning to its home port after a mechanical failure led to a loss of power while on a training exercise.

HMS Vengeance, one of the Royal Navy’s four nuclear-powered Vanguard class submarines which comprise Britain’s nuclear deterrence, is returning on the sea surface to Faslane naval base, Scotland.

An MoD spokesman said: “Vengeance has suffered a mechanical defect resulting in a reduction in propulsion. She is returning to Faslane under her own power. She is still at sea.”

He added that the incident is “not nuclear related”. (PA)

Shoot out

Top female boxer Rola El-Halabi, who is recovering in hospital after being gunned down by her step-father before a world title fight, may never return to the ring, her promoter said yesterday.

Ms El-Halabi, 26, was shot in her hands, feet and knees in her dressing room as she prepared to fight for the WIBF world lightweight title in Berlin, on Friday.

“I was with my coach and manager in the changing room when Dad rushed into the room, threatening us with a gun and shouted ‘All out!’,” Ms El-Halabi said.

“Then he shot me in the hand from three feet away, I cried and cried, begging him to put the gun away... He took his time aiming and shot me in the knee, then in my right foot.”

The background of the attack stems from Ms El-Halabi’s decision in January to stop working with her step-father as her manager. (AFP)

Saudi acquitted

A court has acquitted a Saudi who had been jailed for three years after being found guilty of torturing her Indonesian maid, a local newspaper said yesterday.

“A court in Medina acquitted on Saturday a Saudi woman who was sentenced in January to three years in prison for severely torturing her Indonesian housemaid,” reported Arab News.

The judge “said there was no evidence that the 53-year-old woman tortured her maid, Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, 23,” said the English-language daily.

During a hearing in January, Ms Mustapa showed the judge her injuries. But “The court suspected the truth of the accusations made by the maid because she refused to take her oath in court,” the Saudi woman’s lawyer, Ahmad Al-Rashid, told Arab News. (AFP)