■ ChinaEscaped tiger returns
A rare Siberian tiger that escaped from an animal park in China's northeast returned on its own after eluding authorities who spent two days trying to capture it, a police official said Tuesday. The tiger, which bit a park employee during its escape on Saturday, returned to the Siberian Tiger Park on Changbai Mountain in Jilin province on Monday, said the official in the nearby town of Erdao. He would give only his surname, Yin. "It came back on its own," Yin said. He said park managers had put out cattle and sheep as bait, though he didn't know whether any were eaten. The Siberian tiger, also known as the Amur tiger, is one of the world's rarest mammals.
■ China
Anti-terror center pact inked
The prime ministers of China, Russia and four Central Asian countries signed agreements yesterday that set plans in motion for a long-awaited regional anti-terrorism center in Uzbekistan. They also agreed to give the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) a leading role in boosting economic ties among members China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan with the goal of creating a free-trade zone. The new center will be in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, but the nature of its role was not made clear. The leaders signed six documents, including one authorizing the regional anti-terror body and its personnel arrangements.
■ Pakistan
Hambali's brother arrested
Pakistani police have captured the younger brother of Hambali, Osama bin Laden's point man for Southeast Asia, in an arrest that may help unravel a tangled web of links between al-Qaeda and the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group blamed for the deadly Bali bombings. Rusman Gunawan, an Indonesian, was among 17 students detained Saturday in raids on three Islamic schools in the southern port city of Karachi -- the latest in a string of high-profile arrests of terror suspects in this Muslim country. The students "are suspected terrorists or have links with terrorists," Foreign Ministry spokesman Massood Khan said Monday.
■ East Timor
Former soldier indicted
A former Indonesian soldier was indicted yesterday in East Timor for crimes against humanity in connection with the disappearance of a pro-independence activist during violence that swept the territory four years ago. Rusdin Maubere, a Timorese national who was detained in March, is accused of taking part in the beating and kidnapping of Andre de Oliviera, who was killed in April 1999 when Indonesian troops and their proxy militias began targeting supporters of the country's independence campaign. Oliviera was arrested by Indonesian soldiers following his escape from a church massacre in the town of Liquica, according to the indictment.
■ Japan
Opposition to join forces
Japan's two largest opposition parties worked yesterday to finalize a merger aimed at strengthening their chances against popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in parliamentary elections expected in November. Senior officials were believed to be holding last-minute discussions on a plan under which the Democratic Party of Japan would absorb the smaller Liberal Party, said Hiromi Nakanishi, a spokesman for the Liberal Party.
■ United StatesNASA safety panel quits
All nine members of a panel of outside experts established by Congress to advise NASA on safety resigned on Monday, with several citing frustration over their lack of influence. The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) established after NASA's first major accident, the 1967 Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts, was criticized by the Senate Appropriations Committee for failing to have foreseen problems leading to the Columbia crash, and in a report on the crash released last month that called the panel "independent, but often not very influential." As an example, the Columbia investigators noted that the advisory panel had complained in 1995 that NASA officials were treating the space shuttle as mature and that the situation "smacks of a complacency which may lead to serious mishaps."
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