■The Philippines
Kidnap crackdown ordered
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday ordered a renewed crackdown on kidnapping-for-ransom syndicates in the country. Arroyo noted that while the police has dismantled "a good number of the big syndicates" in its original order of battle, she has been informed that "there are new groups that have sprouted." "I have directed the national police chief to make a quick reassessment and a new order of battle, followed by a renewed crackdown," she said in a statement.
■ Cambodia
King refuses to open session
Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk refused to open the first meeting of the country's new National Assembly, despite a personal appeal by Prime Minister Hun Sen and strong urging by the constitutional council, a letter said yesterday. The king staved off intense pressure from the government to preside over the scheduled Sept. 27 meeting, which opposition lawmakers have threatened to boycott, and asked the president of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) to take his place.
■ Thailand
Homeless called `wimps'
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has heaped scorn on those at the bottom of society, saying Bangkok's homeless people are "wimps" who have "weak characters," a news report said yesterday. Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon reputed to be the country's richest individual, was quoted by The Nation newspaper as saying he planned to enlist the military to organize training camps for homeless people. "These people are known to have weak characters," he said. "They are seen as wimps, hence the need for physical and mental training to fortify them for employment and the ability to overcome life's challenges."
■ India
In Tamil Nadu, green is in
Green has become the color of sycophancy in the politics of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, it was reported yesterday. After the state's chief minister J. Jayalalitha started wearing only green saris on the advice of her astrologer, party workers have been literally painting towns and villages green, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported. Tamil Nadu loves its politicians with a passion bordering on obsessive. Many of them are former film stars and some, like Jayalalitha, are revered as gods. Her arrest in a corruption case triggered off immolation attempts across the state. A farmer cut off his right thumb to prove his loyalty to her. Every day she is greeted by senior officials who bow their heads and lie on the ground. Now green is the color of invitation cards, sweets, furniture and clothes worn by party workers and other officials, the report said.
■ India
Man tried to kill father
A 20-year-old Indian high school dropout who tried to kill his father three times in order to take over his property was arrested, according to news reports yesterday. Police claim Gaurav Narang hired hitmen twice to kill his father Ram Prakash. Narang apparently confessed to crushing cyanide pills into Prakash's food, but later realized the pills were fake, the Indian Express newspaper reported. Deputy Commissioner of Police Vivek Gogia said Narang was a high school dropout who "had picked up bad habits and was always in debt." He wanted to sell off the top floor of the family's New Delhi home in order to pay off creditors, but his father refused.
■The Netherlands
Milosevic's trial suspended
Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial in The Hague has been suspended for the second time this month due to his ill health, the court said on Thursday. Milosevic, who has suffered from high blood pressure, flu and fatigue since his trial opened in The Hague in February last year, is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. The UN war crimes tribunal said the trial would be adjourned yesterday and Monday due to the ill health of the accused. The court did not give details about Milosevic's condition.
■ United Kingdom
Dead men officially fathers
Britain passed legislation on Thursday allowing birth certificates to name the dead fathers of children born from frozen sperm, ending a long-running legal battle with a small group of women seeking to have their late partners officially recognized. Diane Blood, who became the most public face of the campaign to modernize the law, was among those watching the Human Fertilization and Embryology (Deceased Fathers) Bill pass through its final phase in Parliament on Thursday. The bill then received royal assent to become law. Previous legislation stated that if a man's sperm or an embryo created after his death is used in a pregnancy, he is not legally the father of the child.
■ United States
Defense systems for aircraft
American airliners may be fitted with systems to combat terrorist-fired missiles under a plan to which the White House has committed US$100m in research funds. The Department of Homeland Security is making "aggressive" efforts to adapt systems used by the armed forces, according to a document sent to defense contractors. Many US air force planes are equipped with jamming technologies and flares intended to disrupt the trajectories of shoulder-launched missiles such as the two launched at an Israeli airliner leaving Mombasa airport in Kenya last year.
■ Iraq
Looter ejected from plane
A young Iraqi unwittingly ejected himself from a fighter he was looting to land on a pile of scrap and suffer several injuries, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The fighter was one of several aircraft stationed by the former Iraqi military in the farms of Balad, some 75km north of Baghdad, for safekeeping, An-Nahdha said. Looters discovered the planes in the wake of the US-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein in April and started looting them, the newspaper said. An 18-year-old looter who sought to play pilot sat in the cockpit and pushed buttons only to be ejected from the plane.
■ European Union
Pub smoking ban proposed
The EU's health commissioner has proposed a ban on smoking in the workplace that could make smoky bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants a thing of the past. David Byrne, the commissioner for health and consumer affairs, said he wanted the sort of ban being adopted -- amid furious controversy -- in his native Ireland. "There might ultimately be legal exposure for employers in circumstances where workers have been exposed to this risk," Byrne said. Commission spokesmen insisted that the initiative was only at an early stage, and no decision had been made. Any move to enforce a total ban could meet furious opposition, especially from southern European countries with cafe cultures.
Agencies
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema