■ Thailand
Dog gets spectacles
A stray dog has been given a new leash on life in Thailand thanks to a veterinarian who has outfitted the near-blind pup with a pair of eyeglasses, a report here said yesterday. Srinuan, a six-month-old mutt who spent his dog day afternoons bumping into tree trunks, fire hydrants and humans, was recently fitted with a pair of prescription goggles, The Nation newspaper said. It cited the canine-caring deeds of vet Kiatisak Rojnirand, who had the dog's eyes checked.
■ Australia
Bad driver snubs parents
Joseph Abdelshahid has racked up A$70,597 (US$45,888) in speeding tickets, parking fines and toll-evasion notices in the six years since he passed his driving test. The 24-year-old is such a frequent offender that his parents have had to take out another mortgage on their Melbourne home to keep him out of prison, Australia's AAP news agency reported yesterday. Abdelshahid skirted a two-year jail term when his parents pledged to take responsibility for about half the 295 unpaid fines. He wasn't thankful. Abdelshahid told the court he wasn't on speaking terms with his parents.
■ Cambodia
Final election results out
Official and final results of Cambodia's July 27 general election, released yesterday, confirmed the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) as winner but showed it lacked enough seats to run the country on its own. A lengthy complaints procedure delayed the announcement of the official poll outcome in the war-scarred southeast Asian nation by more than one month. The CPP, led by Prime Minister Hun, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has been in charge for nearly 20 years, consolidated its grip on power with 73 seats, the National Election Commission said. Cambodia's constitution says Hun Sen needs a two-thirds majority, or 82 seats, to form a government.
■ India
Prisoner saves policeman
A prisoner being transferred in a police van that crashed declined the opportunity to flee and instead pulled his captor out of the wreckage even though he was in handcuffs, officials said yesterday. Debendra Gogoi, 27, was being taken to a court to face rape charges on Thursday when the van rammed head-on into a bus in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. "A police constable, Ramesh Hazarika, escorting the accused to the jail was trapped in the accident and was shouting for help," police official Biraj Baruah said. Gogoi, who suffered only minor bruises, went underneath the van and dragged Hazarika's body out before hailing down a passing vehicle to head to a hospital.
■ Indonesia
Visa-free travel revoked
Indonesia will revoke visa-free travel for most foreign visitors starting Oct. 1, despite fears that the move could further dent the country's beleaguered tourism industry, reports said yesterday. Indonesia plans to charge foreigners US$30 for a 30-day nonrenewable visa upon arrival, Justice Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra was quoted as saying by The Jakarta Post. "Indonesia is poor. Why fuss about US$30?" Mahendra said, adding that the tourism industry should instead provide free hotel rooms to attract visitors. President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed a decree scrapping the visa-free rule in March.
■ Spain
Extradition case dropped
Spain on Friday refused a judge's plea to seek the extradition of 40 people accused of genocide and terrorism during Argentina's "Dirty War," saying possible prosecutions in their home country should take priority. The government asked authorities in Buenos Aires to tell it when the Argentine Supreme Court decided whether to scrap immunity for former military officers of the 1976-83 dictatorship, a move that could see the 40 put on trial in Argentina. It also asked the Argentine government to keep the 40 men at the disposition of the judiciary while the Supreme Court deliberated.
■ United Kingdom
Package prompts arrests
Three men have been arrested over alleged terrorism offences after a suspect package was discovered in a car at the southeastern English port of Dover, bringing the port to a standstill with thousands of passengers stranded on ferries, a police spokeswoman said yesterday. "Emergency services continue to deal with a security incident at Dover Eastern Docks," the spokeswoman said. "This follows the stopping of a car at 7:21pm [on Friday] at in which a suspect device was found. The army's bomb disposal team are currently at the docks and are dealing with this."
■ Canada
Inuit gain new territory
After decades of negotiations, Inuit leaders have reached an agreement with the local and federal governments establishing a new Inuit territory in northern Labrador. Under the agreement, which was announced on Friday and still requires ratification by the 5,000-member Labrador Inuit Association, the region's Inuit would govern a 72,500km2 territory to be called Nunatsiavut, which means "Our beautiful land" in the Inuktitut language. The Labrador Inuit would get a 140 million Canadian dollar (US$100 million) payout in government money, along with an additional 156 million Canadian dollars (US$111 million) to implement changes.
■ United States
Herpes drug halts spread
A drug widely used to treat genital herpes can now be touted as a way to help prevent the virus' spread as well, the US Food and Drug Administration ruled on Friday. About 45 million people are infected with herpes simplex virus type 2, the primary cause of sexually transmitted genital herpes. Until now, the only advice for not spreading genital herpes has been to use condoms and to avoid sexual contact during the infection's periodic flare-ups, when lesions appear. Valtrex, also known as valacyclovir, treats herpes flare-ups by suppressing the virus.
■ United States
Hospital-bed swapper dies
A woman who swapped beds with another patient in their hospital room so she could be nearer the window died after receiving the wrong type of blood during surgery. In preparation for the surgery last month, a technician at Inova Fairfax Hospital mistakenly took a blood sample from the woman's roommate, hospital officials said. Hospital spokeswoman Beth Visioli said on Friday the woman had switched beds, but the death was the result of human error by a hospital employee. The technician did not follow the hospital's established procedures for identifying patients, which requires examining each patient's wristband and having the patient state his or her name.
■ Brazil
Brazil plans new rocket
Brazil on Friday pledged to launch a new rocket by 2006 after 21 people died in an explosion last week that ended the country's third attempt to become a space power. The nation promised to press on with its program to honor workers who died on Aug. 22 and said it would cost about $33 million to rebuild the platform and equipment destroyed after a rocket engine ignited by mistake. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who began a four year term on Jan. 1, wept at the Wednesday commemoration for victims of the disaster and promised their families full compensation.
■ Italy
Melon bred for singles
Rome's street vendors scored a hit this summer with a designer fruit aimed to suit Italy's changing demographics -- watermelon for singles. "It was bound to happen, because Italian families are becoming smaller and smaller," said one of its promoters, Daniela Santori, who heads the Coldiretti farmers' union in Latina province, south of Rome. The area's potassium-rich soil is known for producing juicy, sweet green giants that often weigh around 10kg to 20kg. Latina's growers developed a scaled-down model that weighs in at a dainty one kilo (2.2 pounds) by using a technique that inhibits growth but retains the good taste, Santori said.
■ United States
Gay marriages opposed
The Roman Catholic Church will intensify its efforts to prevent legalization of same-sex marriages, the president of the US' Catholic bishops said on Friday. Bishop Wilton D. Gregory said the bishops could endorse a proposed amendment to the US Constitution to define marriage as only heterosexual, though he stopped short of making such an endorsement himself. Gregory said the church is seeking "the best, most effective and surest means" for protecting marriage. The Vatican denounced same-sex marriages in a July doctrinal decree, while Canada's government is working to legalize them -- a move that Gregory said "brought this close to us."
■ United kingdom
Inquest into Diana's death
Inquests are to be held into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, a British coroner announced on Friday. The dates and location of the hearings will not be known for some time. They will take place more than six years after the couple died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. It is believed that the inquest into Fayed's death will take place in Surrey, where he used to live and is buried. However, it is not yet known where the princess's inquest will take place. It will be the first official public hearing in Britain to examine the circumstances surrounding the death of the princess and her boyfriend.
■ United states
Monument: Plaintiffs content
A federal judge has said the state of Alabama is in compliance with his order requiring the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. The monument is now inside a locked storage room off an employee lunchroom, attorney-general Bill Pryor said in a conference call on Friday. "We told the court that we had verified the monument was moved and are satisfied the state is in compliance with the court order,'' said Richard Cohen, an attorney for plaintiffs who sued to have the monument removed.
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