■Pakistan
Man shoots seven cousins
A Pakistani man allegedly shot dead seven relatives yesterday in a remote tribal village, apparently enraged because he was not allowed to marry the woman of his choice, police said. Shahzado Khan is suspected of shooting his cousins in Paryo Behan village, about 200km northeast of the southern city of Karachi, Deputy Superintendent of Police Qamar Zaman Jaskani said. Khan reportedly wanted to marry one of his cousins, but others in her family refused his request. The object of Khan's desire was not hurt in the incident. Marriage-related feuds are common in Pakistan's deeply conservative, male-dominated areas and often lead to violence.
■ Bangladesh
Temblor rocks countryside
An earthquake measuring 5.09 on the Richter scale shook southeastern Bangladesh early yesterday, disrupting power and sending residents into the streets, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. The quake damaged a 20-megawatt power sub-station in Chittagong, cutting off supplies to some city areas, said an electricity official and it also caused cracks to appear in buildings in another part of the region. The quake was felt across the entire southeastern region, said an administrative official at Cox's Bazar, 400km from the capital.
■ The Philippines
Officials burn drugs
Philippine officials Saturday burned more than a ton of marijuana and metamphetamine hydrochloride (ice), confiscated by authorities in an intensive campaign against illegal drugs. The rites were led by Local Government Minister Jose Lina and attended by Mark Connell, assistant attache of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, in Trece Martirez City, some 40km south of Manila.
The burning of the 1.4 billion pesos (US$28.79 million) worth of prohibited substances was in consonance with the directive of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who launched an all-out war against drugs in June.
■ Indonesia
Homemade bombs found
Indonesian police in North Sulawesi province found 18 homemade bombs and 10kg of ammonium nitrate, similar to the explosives used in last October's deadly bombings in Bali that left at least 202 people dead, police officials said Saturday. The explosive material, which could also be used as fertilizer, was seized from a rented house on Friday in the district of Gorontalo, 1,945km northeast of Jakarta, said North Sulawesi police chief Brigadier General John Lalo. Two people, who are being questioned by police in connection with the find, claim that the explosives were to be used to blast tunnels in a gold mine.
■ Hong Kong
Fans want Lee's house
Bruce Lee fans in Hong Kong have asked the government to buy back the star's old home which has been turned into a short-time hotel where men take mistresses and prostitutes for sex, a news report said yesterday. Devotees of the kung fu legend are incensed the home where Lee spent his final years before his mysterious death in 1973 has been turned into a "love hotel" in which rooms are rented by the hour, according to the Sunday Morning Post. The appeal came a week after Hong Kong marked the 30th anniversary of Lee's death.
■United States
Love turns to hate
A man has been charged with the slayings of a former Greek Orthodox priest once jailed for child molestation -- who prosecutors allege was his lover -- and a former in-law. Tu Luong Hua, 24, allegedly shot and killed Stanley Adamakis, 61, a former cleric convicted of molesting boys more than a decade ago, police said Friday. Adamakis' body was found July 20 in the parking lot of his apartment complex. Later that day, police found the body of Yu Huynh, Hua's former brother-in-law, in the home the two men shared.
■ United States
Governor faces recall
Backers of the drive to oust California Governor Gray Davis had a boisterous celebration at the state capitol building on Saturday, as four potential candidates sought to tie up their support in advance of the Oct. 7 recall election. The rally capped a week when the Republican-led petition drive qualified for the ballot, making Davis, a Democrat, only the second governor in the nation ever to face a recall ballot. People in the crowd of around 1,000 waved signs with slogans like ``Hey Davis, the fat lady is singing,'' and ``Sav-us from Dav-us.''
■ United Kingdom
Bobbies join gay parade
It's good to be gay, and London's bobbies were happy to say so on Saturday with a group of uniformed police marching up front of the annual Gay Pride parade, which drew some 15,000 people into the city centre. Behind the 40-strong lead team, in full navy blue uniform, came another 40 plain-clothes officers wearing white tee-shirts and baseball caps, followed by the more conventional paraders -- from a gay and lesbian rugby team to body-building types squeezed into superhero outfits. The crew danced through the streets of London, past the houses of parliament and Downing Street.
■ United States
Man married cousin
An alleged polygamist has been arrested and charged with marrying his first cousin, and Utah's attorney general says it's a signal that the state is going after more offenders. Jeremy Kingston, a member of the large, polygamous Kingston clan, was arrested Thursday at a family gathering in Bountiful on a charge of incest stemming from his 1995 arranged marriage to LuAnn Kingston, when she was 15 and he was 24. Police had been looking for Jeremy Kingston since May when the incest charge was filed. LuAnn Kingston had left the marriage after five years and two daughters and asked the state to prosecute.
■ Argentina
Dictators rounded up
A judge overseeing a historic round-up of collaborators of Argentine military dictators began hearings Saturday to determine if 40 men will be extradited to Spain on human rights charges. Argentine judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral said four of 46 whose extradition had been requested by Spanish judge Balthasar Garzon were still at large. In Santiago, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos on Saturday praised the historic roundup. The arrests were made possible by Argentine President Nestor Kirchner's repeal Friday of a decree that had barred the extradaction of collaborators with the Argentine dictatorship on human rights charges.
The military ran Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
■Iraq
Troops miss out on Saddam
US soldiers said that they missed catching Saddam Hussein's security chief -- and possibly the former dictator himself -- by a mere 24 hours early yesterday. Troops stormed three farms in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown town, in simultaneous pre-dawn raids after receiving a tip that Saddam's new security chief was staying at one of the farm houses, said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell, who led the operation by the of the 4th Infantry. "We missed him by 24 hours," Russell said, adding residents told soldiers that the man they sought had been at one of the farm houses.
■ Niger
PM denies uranium sale
The prime minister of Niger has denied claims his nation was involved in trying to sell uranium to Iraq and challenged his British counterpart Tony Blair to prove otherwise, a Sunday newspaper reported. "Our conscience is clear. We are innocent," Hama Hamadou told the Sunday Telegraph in an interview in Niamey, capital of the West African nation. "If Britain has evidence to support its claim then it has only to produce it for everybody to see," he added.
■ Iran
Agents detained over murder
Five Iranian security agents have been detained in connection with the death of an Iranian-Canadian journalist who died in police custody, state-run Tehran radio reported on Saturday. The officers were detained on Friday after "comprehensive investigations" into Zahra Kazemi's July 10 death, the radio report said quoting a statement released by Iran's judiciary. Iran's vice president has announced Kazemi died of a beating after a presidential committee investigating her death found she had complained of punishment by guards and died of a "fractured skull, brain hemorrhage and its consequences resulting from a hard object hitting the head or the head hitting a hard object."
■ Russia
Female bomber dies
A female suicide bomber detonated explosives Sunday near a base of a security force in Chechnya, killing herself and injuring a woman who was passing by, the Interfax news agency reported. The attacker blew herself up in the village of Tastsan-Yurt near the base of a division of Moscow-backed Chechnya administration chief Akhmad Kadyrov's security force, Interfax reported, citing unidentified sources in the regional Interior Ministry. The report characterized the bombing as an attack aimed at the commander of the squad, Ramzan Kadyrov. Female suicide bombers have carried out several attacks in Chechnya and Moscow in recent months.
■ France
Teacher wins rooftop protest
A primary school teacher in southern France, who spent 44 days living on the roof of a cathedral to highlight a grievance in relation to his pension entitlements, finally descended yesterday after the authorities yielded to his demands. On June 13, Andre Menras, 58, made himself as comfortable as possible at a height of 57 metres in Beziers Cathedral. This weekend, the administration yielded to his demands and agreed to include a disputed 30 month period in calculating his pension entitlements. He spent some of this time as a political prisoner in Saigon and two years travelling the world to highlight the plight of political prisoners.
Agencies
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