■ Myanmar
Suu Kyi: Cancer ruled out
An operation on Myanmar opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi, detained at a secret location by the military government for more than three months, showed no signs of cancer, her doctor said yesterday. "It is 99.99 percent not cancer," surgeon Tin Myo Win told reporters, but declined to say what the operation was for. "It is not completely true that it was gynecological disease, but somewhat it was related," the doctor said, a day after the three-hour operation at the private Asia Royal Hospital. He gave no other details, but several sources had said the operation was on Suu Kyi's uterus. Tin Myo Win said Suu Kyi, 58, was in stable condition and would be able to eat normally today.
■ Afghanistan
US air strike kills civilians
At least eight civilians were among those killed in a US air strike in Afghanistan's southern province of Zabul that also killed a Taliban commander, an Afghan official said yesterday. The civilians, nomad women and children, died in their beds when a bomb landed on their tent in Zabul's Naw Bahar district on Wednesday night. Mohammad Omar, the deputy governor of Zabul, said Mohammad Gul Neyazi, a top commander of the Taliban, and another Taliban guerrilla were also killed during the attack in the remote district near the border with Pakistan.
■ Japan
Earthquake jolts Tokyo
At least seven people were slightly injured yesterday as a strong earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale jolted Tokyo and large areas of eastern Japan, officials said. The quake occurred at 12:55pm, with its focus located 80km under the seabed near the coast of Kujukuri in Chiba prefecture, some 80km south of the capital. The seven were injured after loose pieces of a wall at a Buddhist temple in southern central Tokyo's Ota collapsed. The jolt swayed high buildings in the capital, but it has not so far affected train and aviation services.
■ The Phillipines
Sex stories by telephone
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT), the country's dominant telecom firm, was asked yesterday to explain one of its services, which allegedly offers sexual stories to listeners. "Such sexual promotions seem unfit for a telephone company like PLDT. We are asking them to defend themselves, to give themselves a chance to explain why they are being accused of such," Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza said. He was reacting to accusations by some legislators that PLDT had been offering a phone sex service narrated by starlet Patricia Javier where she talks about her sexual experiences.
■ South Korea
North sympathises
North Korea, in a rare show of friendliness to its southern neighbor, sent a message of sympathy to South Korea yesterday for the damage caused by Typhoon Maemi last week. The typhoon left 117 people dead and 13 others missing in South Korea and caused 4.78 trillion won (US$4.09 billion) in damage. "I express profound compatriotic sympathy with you, feeling painful for the big human and material losses," said Jang Jae-on, chairman of the North's Central Committee of the Red Cross Society. "It is our hope that the living of the people in the afflicted areas will return to normal and the aftermath of the calamity will be eradicated as early as possible.
■ Zimbabwe
Newspaper charges police
Zimbabwe's embattled independent daily on Friday filed contempt of court charges against police after they refused to allow staff to re-enter their offices, defying a High Court order, a company official told AFP. Police on Friday barred staff members at the Daily News from returning to their central Harare offices despite a court ruling on Thursday allowing the paper to reopen. The Daily News, Zimbabwe's best-selling daily, was shut down a week ago for operating illegally. It has not appeared on the streets since.
■ United States
Pigs close highway
Interstate 40, the main east-west highway in Oklahoma, was closed for several hours on Thursday when about 800 baby pigs spilled on to the road after the truck transporting them overturned, police said on Friday. Several pigs were killed when their vented livestock truck overturned just east of Oklahoma City. And the pigs, all of which were under a year old, had little idea what to do with their first taste of freedom. Some of the pigs plunged to their deaths when they jumped off a highway bridge near the wreckage as law enforcement officials were closing in for their capture. Several motorists who stopped at the scene asked if they could take home a pig or two in their pickup trucks, police said.
■ United Kingdom
Chicken sellers jailed
Four British men were jailed for a total of 10 years on Friday after they admitted selling condemned chicken and turkey meat to hospitals, schools and leading supermarkets. The 450 tonnes of poultry, described as unfit even for pets, ended up on the shelves of three top British supermarkets after being sold for an estimated ?1 million (US$1.63 million). "If you had been dealing in Class A drugs rather than in chicken, then the sentences you would be receiving would be in double figures," judge Richard Benson told the four at a court in Nottingham, central England. Ringleader Peter Roberts, 68, known as "Maggot Pete," was convicted of the fraud in his absence after fleeing before the start of the 12-week trial.
■ Iran
Beckham blacked out
David Beckham's face -- one of the most well-recognized in the world -- has been blacked out on billboards in Iran's capital in an apparent backlash against Western cultural influence. Five billboards which carried a head and shoulders shot of the Real Madrid and England soccer star advertising engine oil have been draped in black cloth and television commercials featuring Beckham's famous legs have been pulled off the air. Beckham was the first Western celebrity to be used in an advertising campaign since the 1979 Islamic revolution, after Iran's reform-minded government granted permission.
■ Canada
Military base yields cannabis
Canadian military police have seized close to 1,000 marijuana plants that were brazenly growing on an artillery range, an army spokesman said on Friday. The plants, whose street value is estimated at C$1 million (US$740,000), were found on the National Defense base at Nicolet, Quebec, used for artillery tests. A week-long search of the base ended on Thursday and led to the discovery of 983 pot plants. No one has yet been arrested, but military police are continuing their investigation, Lebel said.
■ Mexico
Ghost workers targeted
The governor of this Pacific coast state acknowledged "historic irregularities" in the state bureaucracy on Friday after the state education department revealed that it pays 6,500 people who never show up to work. Declaring a budget crisis at the Guerrero state education department, Education Secretary Daniel Pano Cruz has revealed the existence of 6,500 aviadores -- slang for bureaucrats that earn government salaries without working -- on the education payroll. Guerrero Governor Rene Juarez said he had been working to phase out the nonworking posts that date back to previous administrations.
■ United states
Clark makes Iraq U-turn
Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark said on Friday he would never have voted for war in Iraq, 24 hours after he told reporters he probably would have supported the Congressional resolution authorizing the US to invade. The retired four-star Army general said his comments had been taken out of context. They were at odds with his public opposition to the war and caught some of his supporters off guard. "I would have never voted for war," Clark said before delivering a foreign policy speech at the University of Iowa. "I'm a soldier. I understand what war's about, but I would have voted for the right kind of leverage for the president to head off war."
■ Canada
Martin takes early lead
Fiscal conservative and former finance minister Paul Martin has taken a commanding early lead in Liberal Party delegate selection this weekend in a race that will effectively decide who becomes Canada's next leader. If Martin maintained the same huge margin throughout the weekend voting, pressure was expected to mount on Prime Minister Jean Chretien to retire earlier than next February as he has planned. Martin took a lead of 382 to 25 delegates -- or 94 percent of those tallied in early counting on Friday night -- in the race against his more liberal rival, Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, according to preliminary figures from the Martin camp.
■ United states
Davis supports early recall
California Governor Gray Davis, buoyed by a week of appearances with well-known Democratic officials, cast his support for a quick recall election after a federal appeals court agreed to reconsider postponing the ballot. Davis' call Friday to bring on the Oct. 7 election defies conventional wisdom that he would benefit from a drawn-out process that would give him a chance to demonstrate his leadership skills. The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announced Friday it would reconsider a three-judge panel's ruling to postpone the vote, extending the uncertainty that has overshadowed the campaign.
■ Israel
Arabs withdraw resolution
The Arab League withdrew a draft resolution on Friday that called on Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and allow the UN to inspect its nuclear program, but vowed to try again next year. Israel has not signed the NPT and has never officially admitted to having nuclear weapons. However, non-proliferation experts estimate that Israel has from 100 to 200 nuclear bombs. On Wednesday, 15 members of the Arab League submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) general conference of the 137 member states the draft resolution which said Israel was the only nuclear power in the Middle East and should disarm.
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