■ Myanmar
Suu Kyi on hunger strike: US
The US Department of State said it believes Myanmar pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi is on hunger strike to protest her detention by the country's military regime. "We have what we consider credible reporting from our embassy, but I'm not in a position to go through the sourcing of that," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Tuesday when asked how the US learned that Suu Kyi was on hunger strike. Boucher said that the department was "deeply concerned for her safety and her well-being" and added that it continued to urge the Burmese government to release the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and all other political prisoners immediately.
■ India
Fifty feared drowned
About 50 people, including 10 women, were feared drowned after a boat capsized in a river in eastern India, police said yesterday. Police officer Nayeem Akhtar said the overloaded boat was carrying some 75 people when it capsized in the Kosi river on Tuesday evening. Only 25 managed to swim to safety. India has been hit by a string of disasters in recent days, starting with twin car bombings in the financial capital, Bombay, last week in which 52 died. The motorboat capsized midstream in the Saharsa district about 240km north-east of Patna, capital of the eastern state of Bihar.
■ Afghanistan
US bombs Taliban redoubts
US jets kept up their bombardment of suspected Taliban positions in the mountains of southern Afghanistan yesterday, while US and Afghan troops tightened the noose around a cave where several insurgents are holding out, an Afghan commander said. American fighter jets and attack helicopters yesterday bombed several suspected Taliban positions in the Larzab and Sairo Ghar mountains, in Zabul province's Dai Chupan district, said Haji Saifullah Khan, the main Afghan commander in the area. "US and Afghan forces have surrounded the cave," said Khan, speaking by satellite phone from the front lines. He said it was possible that several Taliban commanders were inside. Khan's account could not be independently verified.
■ Hong Kong
Falun Gong appeal begins
An appeal hearing began yesterday for 16 Falun Gong followers who were convicted in Hong Kong over their protest against China's crackdown on the spiritual movement. The followers -- four Swiss citizens, a New Zealander and 11 Hong Kong people -- were fined for obstructing a public place during a March 14 sit-in last year outside the Chinese government's liaison office in Hong Kong. Three of the Hong Kong protesters were convicted of assaulting police in a scuffle with police that broke out during the protest. Nine of the protesters, including the New Zealander, were convicted of obstructing police.
■ Australia
Murder trial ends soon
Two men accused of Australia's worst serial killings awaited their fate in Adelaide, Australia yesterday. South Australia's infamous "bodies in the barrels" case followed the discovery in 1999, of eight dismembered bodies in six plastic barrels in the vault of an abandoned bank. Prosecutors alleged the two men were members of a gang that tortured and murdered their victims for enjoyment and to fraudulently claim their welfare benefits. John Bunting, 36, is facing 12 murder charges, and Robert Wagner, 31, is charged with eight.
■ Austria
Cough CPR developed
Coughing vigorously until an ambulance arrives could save the lives of people whose hearts suddenly stop beating, a doctor said Tuesday. Dr. Tadeusz Petelenz, a researcher in Poland, said the technique, called cough CPR, forces blood to the brain while the heart is starting to fail and keeps patients conscious long enough to call for help. It may also rectify their heart rhythm, he told a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology. He recommended cough CPR be taught to the public, but other experts said while the concept is provocative, it needs more study.
■ Canada
Flight 111 remembered
Dozens of relatives and friends of victims gathered on Tuesday for a remembrance ceremony on the fifth anniversary of a Swissair crash off the coast of Nova Scotia that killed 229 people. Many carried flowers to a stone memorial on Nova Scotia's eastern coast, 11km from where Swissair Flight 111 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 2, 1998. A Canadian navy helicopter flew over the crash site and dropped a single wreath in the water during a ceremony that included prayers and music. Miles Gerety, whose brother died in the crash, remembered and spoke of the kindness and help that local residents showed relatives of the victims.
■ United States
Spy wants secret files
The lawyers of a man sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for spying for Israel told a Washington judge on Tuesday that the government should be forced to turn over secret files to help clemency appeals. Jonathan Pollard, 49, a former civilian analyst for the US Navy, was convicted of espionage for giving Israel tens of thousands of top-secret documents. He pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, but later argued that the government double-crossed him. Prosecutors had promised not to seek a life prison term.
■ United States
Coffee tax irks residents
Espresso drinkers are uniting in Seattle in opposition to plans to impose a new tax on their morning habit. In two weeks' time, voters in the city which gave birth to Starbucks will decide whether to agree to a special tax that would be used to pay for childcare and early learning. But dismay at the idea is percolating through the espresso drinkers, coffee houses and business organizations of the city. An organization called JOLT (Joined in Opposition to Latte Tax) has been formed and is trying to persuade coffee drinkers to vote against the initiative.
■ United States
Pizza-man bomb revealed
The metal collar used to lock a bomb on pizza deliveryman who died after a bank robbery near Erie, Pennsylvania, was highly unusual and could help identify its maker, investigators said on Tuesday. The oval collar did not appear to have "any legitimate industrial use" and was probably made solely for use in the robbery, the investigators said in a news conference in Erie. "It is unique in its construction," said Special Agent Bob Rudge, a supervisor in the FBI's Erie office. The deliveryman, Brian Douglas Wells, died when the bomb around his neck exploded shortly after he was arrested for robbing a branch of PNC Bank just outside Erie last Thursday. Wells, 46, told police officers that someone had attached the bomb to him and forced him to commit the robbery.
■ Ivory Coast
Assassination plot revealed
Eighteen people, including two generals, have been detained in Ivory Coast in connection with a plot to kill the president of the war-divided West African nation. Commissioner Ange Kessi, whose role is akin to that of a state prosecutor, sketched out at a news conference what he said was a "terrorist" plan to assassinate President Laurent Gbagbo, his wife, top military officials and some politicians. The alleged conspiracy came to light last week after France said it had foiled a plot to destabilize its former colony and arrested a group of suspected mercenaries in Paris.
■ United Kingdom
Iran's ambassador leaves
The Iranian ambassador to London has returned to Tehran, British and Iranian officials said yesterday, amid a dispute over the arrest in Britain of an Iranian diplomat and pressure over Iran's nuclear program. "We understand that the Iranian ambassador has returned to Tehran, but this is not a downgrading of relations," a British Foreign Office spokesman said. Relations have been strained between the two countries following the arrest on August 21 of Hadi Soleimanpour in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center which killed 85 people and wounded some 200.
■ Colombia
President slams insurgents
President Alvaro Uribe called for the destruction of Colombia's insurgent groups, saying on Tuesday that they have spread their inhumane ways beyond the country's borders by kidnapping 46 Venezuelans. He condemned the brutality of both the leftist rebels and the right-wing paramilitary groups who are fighting the rebels. "We must make every effort to capture the violent groups here, to reduce them in number here, to destroy them here and keep them from doing harm on the other side," Uribe said, referring to the cross-border kidnapping raids carried out by the rebels and paramilitaries.
■ United States
US$1 million for POW story
Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch has signed a US$1 million agreement with Alfred Knopf, giving the injured former US Army private the chance to tell her own story, the publisher said on Tuesday. The publisher said the book, I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story, will be written by former New York Times reporter Rick Bragg. Sources familiar with the book said it will tell the tale of a small-town girl who goes to war and becomes a national hero, recognition she does not feel she deserves. An army private, she became a symbol of American patriotism during the war, which generated controversy as accounts of her rescue in Iraq varied.
■ Russia
Bombs kill train commuters
At least five people died and another 30 were wounded when bombs rocked a commuter train in southern Russia, killing at least five people, officials said. Dmitry Oliferenko, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin's envoy to southern Russia, said that five people died when two bombs exploded at both ends of the second car of the train on route from Kislovodsk to Mineralnye Vody in the Caucasus region. Another 15 people were hospitalized, he said. Each of the bombs contained about 150 grams of explosives according to a preliminary estimate. There were about 50 people in the car when the explosion occurred, railway officials said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of