■Bangladesh
Ferry sinks, 400 missing
Up to 400 people were feared drowned after a ferry sank in a river swollen by monsoon rains in southeastern Bangladesh, the latest in a long series of shipping disasters in the nation. The double-decker M.V. Nasreen was on its way to the southern town of Barisal from Dhaka when it went down in the Meghna river in Chandpur, 170km southeast of the capital on Tuesday, officials said. "The ferry sank at 11pm on Tuesday night with over 600 people ... According to survivors, only 200 swam to safety or were rescued and the rest sank with the ferry," Baktiar Alam, police superintendent of the Chandpur district, said by telephone.
■ Laos
Convicted trio deported
Laos yesterday released and deported two European journalists and their inter-preter sentenced last week to 15 years' jail in a case that triggered an international outcry. Arriving in Bangkok on a Lao Aviation flight from Vientiane, journalists Thierry Falise and Vincent Reynaud, looking tired but unhurt, described their ordeal as "terrifying." The two men and their translator, Naw Karl
Mua, an American pastor of Laotian origin, were arrested last month while reporting on an ethnic Hmong rebellion in northern Laos. Falise told reporters in Bangkok that the trial was "a farce ... it was like a bad movie." The US embassy in Vientiane said Naw Karl Mua was also aboard the flight, but reporters in Bangkok did not spot him.
■ The Philippines
Priest admits having children
A Roman Catholic priest has been relieved of his duties after confessing before church members in a central Philippine town that he fathered two children, a news report said yesterday. According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parish priest Oscar Ornopia was relieved on Tuesday, more than a month after he made the surprise announcement. The report said Ornopia bravely faced a packed church June 1 in Talamban,Cebu Province, and asked for forgiveness for his indiscretion.
■ Australia
Transsexual seeks police job
Police in Victoria state drew conservatives' ire yesterday by accepting the application of an admitted transsexual
to join the force. Police officials defended the right
of the unnamed applicant -- described in press reports as a 1.88m male who dresses
as a woman and plans to undergo a sex-change operation -- to apply for a job. Police human resources director Sanjib Roy said, "We want to make sure we don't discriminate on the basis of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or religion as this would be contrary to equal-opportunity laws."
■ Pakistan
Editor sentenced to life
A court in northwestern Pakistan sentenced an editor to a life term for publishing a blasphemous letter that insulted Islam, a news report said yesterday. Sub-editor Munawar Mohsin was held responsible for the publica-tion of a letter in the daily Frontier Post containing
a derogatory remark about the Prophet of Islam, according to the newspaper Dawn. Mohsin said it was
a mistake caused by a computer glitch, and tried
to shift responsibility to his news editor and computer supervisor, but the judge did not find them guilty. The judge ruled on the basis of Mohsin's confession that he had selected the letter for publication, rejecting a late plea by the defense lawyer that his client was a drug addict and not in proper senses when he let it pass.
■Germany
Man gets cocaine with car
A German who bought a car at an auction was surprised to find 10kg of cocaine in its trunk, German media reported Tuesday. The 41-year-old in the northern city of Hamburg discovered the stash hidden in the back of his Chevrolet station wagon, which he had bought at an auction held by customs authorities, the Hamburger Morgenpost and NDR Hamburg Journal reported. The Hamburg customs office said that the cocaine had been overlooked during an inspection of the vehicle in 1997. At the time, 54kg of the powder had been found in the tank and spare tire compartment of the car.
■ United States
Americans carry most arms
A study released Tuesday on legal gun ownership worldwide shows the US -- not surprisingly -- leads the world, but it also shows that Europeans own a high number of firearms. The number of guns owned by civilians in the US is between 238 million and 276 million, making country of 268 million people the most armed in the world, the study by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva said. But it also said the 15 EU nations, with more than 300 million people, have a total of 84 million firearms, with Finland leading in per capita gun ownership.
■ Northern Ireland
Prisoners protest with feces
Guards at Northern Ireland's main prison forced Irish Republican Army dissidents from their cells Tuesday so that they could be hosed clean of excrement. About 15 prisoners this week began smearing their own feces onto the walls of their dorm-style cells at Maghaberry Prison, 50km west of Belfast, in protest the fact that they have to share space with convicted anti-Catholic militants. Marion Price, a leading advocate of IRA dissident prisoners' rights, accused the Maghaberry guards of clubbing and hosing down the inmates.
■ United states
Dylan leans on Japanese
Bob Dylan, perhaps the most renowned pop lyricist of the modern era, has borrowed at least a dozen lines in songs on his latest album from an obscure novel about a Japanese gangster, according to media reports Tuesday. The lines from Dylan's new album, Love and Theft, bear striking similarities to a little-known book, Confessions of a Yakuza by Japanese physician Junichi Saga. Among the images Dylan appears to have borrowed is one from the song Floater, which says, "My old man, he's like a feudal lord." A corresponding line on the first page of Confessions: "My old man would sit like a feudal lord." Other similarities: Dylan's "I'm not quite as cool or forgiving as I sound," compared to Saga's "I'm not as cool or forgiving as I might have sounded."
■ United States
Ashtray killer executed
A man who beat his roommate to death with an ashtray stand and fireplace poker was executed by injection. Robert Don Duckett, 39, directed his last words to his relatives. "I just want to apologize and hope my family forgives me," said Duckett, who spend his final hours with his parents. "I love them very much, and I hope they never forget that." Duckett, the 11th inmate executed in Oklahoma this year, was pronounced dead at 6:16pm Tuesday. Duckett killed John Howard, 53, in October 1988 in the apartment they shared. Howard had hired Duckett, an escaped convict, to work at an Oklahoma City convenience store operated by Howard's brother.
■Poland
Pope wants reconciliation
Pope John Paul II has appealed for reconciliation between Poland and Ukraine ahead of commemorations for the wartime murder of tens of thousands of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists. The pope wrote to Cardinal Jozef Glemp, the head of the Polish Roman Catholic church, and Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the head of Ukraine's Greek Catholics, that the two countries should move to work together now that they have moved from Soviet domination to democracy. In all, historians estimate that 80,000 to 100,000 Poles were murdered during World War II. Poles are believed to have killed some 20,000 Ukrainians.
■ Spain
Police smash drug ring
Spanish police have seized a haul of cocaine with a street value of several million euros, smashing what they say was a nascent drugs ring targeting Britain. Five people -- two Britons and three Colombians -- who are suspected of being members of the gang were arrested in the town of Algete, 13 km northeast of Madrid, police said Tuesday. The cocaine, which the authorities say has a very high level of purity, was seized on Friday after investigators stopped a horse transport van driven by one of the Britons near Madrid, police said. Police estimated its worth at two million euros (US$2.2 million).
■ Russia
Suicide rate doubles
The suicide rate in Russia has almost doubled since 1990, with nearly 57,500 Russians taking their own lives every year, according to figures released by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO's report showed the suicide rate among Russians to be 39.7 cases per 100,000 people in 2001, the equivalent of 57,500 cases among Russia's 146 million-strong population. This is about twice the world average. The peak of recorded suicides was in 1994, when 42.1 people killed themselves in every 100,000, close to 2001's figure. Russian men, the report said, are six times more likely to commit suicide than women.
■ Turkey
Calls for US apology
Turkey said on Tuesday the US had been the biggest loser in a weekend incident involving the arrest of Turkish commandos in northern Iraq which has badly strained ties between the two NATO allies. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, speaking as Washington's top soldier in Europe flew into Ankara to mend fences, repeated Turkey's call for an apology for the three-day detention of the 11 special forces officers. The men were released on Sunday. "It was the US that lost in the Iraq incident, not Turkey," Gul told parliament, referring to the harm done to Washington's image in this traditionally pro-US Muslim nation.
■ France
Artists extend strike
The fate of one of Europe's most prestigious arts events hung in the balance yesterday as performers at the Avignon theatre festival announced they would extend a strike to protest plans to reform their unemployment benefit system. To the despair of organizers and ticket-holders, the opening day of the three-week gala was called off Tuesday with the cancellation of two evening shows. Meanwhile, stages were darkened across France, from the Paris Opera and to the lyrical arts festival in Aix-en-Provence, while some 6,000 arts workers took to the streets of the capital in protest.
Agencies
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not