■ Bangladesh
Ladies say, marry or be fired
Bachelor professors at a women's college in Bang-ladesh have been given six months to get married after a teacher left administrators red-faced by running off with a student, a newspaper said yesterday. The Pirganj Women College, 250km north of Dhaka in the Rangpur district, has told the teachers they must all be married within half a year or they will lose their jobs, the mass-circulation Ittefaq daily reported. School adminis-trators took the drastic step after professor Sajedur Rahman Rana fled on Sept. 22 with a female student, sparking protests from parents, the report said.
■ Australia
Slim Dusty mourned
Mourners including Australian Prime Minister John Howard sang about a pub which runs out of beer as they bade farewell to country and western singer Slim Dusty at a state funeral yesterday. Howard and hundreds of mourners in and around St. Andrew's Church in downtown Sydney sang a verse of Dusty's 1957 song The Pub with No Beer, an iconic lament about a remote outback hotel which has been drunk dry of Australians' favorite drink. Dusty died last week aged 76 after a battle with cancer. He wrote his first song at the age of 10 and went on to record more than 100 albums.
■ Australia
Stranded sheep free to Iraq
Australia is in negotiations to buy back over 50,000 sheep stranded at sea for about a month and give them to Iraq to calm mounting protests over the nation's live export trade, a newspaper reported yesterday. The Age said the deal would cost the industry up to A$10 million (US$6.8 million) and may trigger a new levy on live exports but it would end the uncertainty over the shipload of sheep adrift in the Gulf after being rejected by Saudi Arabia on grounds of disease. However, the Australian government refused to say if it was planning to buy the sheep on board the Dutch-owned Cormo Express from their Saudi importer, or if it was in talks with Iraq where there are about 150,000 foreign military personnel.
■ East Timor
Persecutors face prosecution
East Timor prosecutors have indicted 18 people for crimes against humanity, including two Indonesian military officers, in connection with violence surrounding its 1999 vote for independence. The tiny country's serious crimes unit said yesterday the 18 were indicted for crimes ranging from murder to torture and persecution. As well as the two Indonesian officers, those indicted include four East Timorese who were Indonesian soldiers at the time of the vote to break away from Indonesia, the unit said in a statement. According to the UN about 1,000 people were killed before and after the UN-supervised vote in August 1999.
■ New Zealand
Politician driven to extremes
A politician and farmer appeared in court yesterday charged with disorderly behavior after driving a farm tractor up the steps of the Parliament building in Wellington during an anti-government protest by farmers. Shane Ardern, arrived at court driving the same tractor, leaving it at a parking meter outside the court house this time. The farmers were protesting a government plan to introduce a new tax to finance research into global warming. Methane expelled by the country's sheep and cattle accounts for half of all greenhouse gases in New Zealand. Ardern pleaded not guilty to the charge.
■ Israel
Extremist settler held
An Israeli court has upheld a government decision to hold an extremist Jewish settler without trial on the grounds that he was behind a "terrorist group" responsible for attacks on Palestinians, a judicial source said yesterday. The Jerusalem court ruled that Noam Federman, a former leader of the banned racist Kach movement, should remain in administrative detention for six months, a measure more usually applied to Palestinian suspects. Federman was ordered detained by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.
■ Nigeria
Stoning sentence overturned
A Nigerian court on Thursday spared a woman from being stoned to death by overturning an Islamic court's conviction for adultery, easing pressure on the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo. Western governments led by the EU had urged Obasanjo to intervene in the case of Amina Lawal who was convicted in March last year after having a baby outside wedlock. But while Church and moderate Muslim groups applauded the ruling, many in northern Nigeria were not so sure of the reaction from hardline Islamists. Police in Katsina, in the heartland of the conservative Islamic north, braced for a backlash from Muslim fundamentalists demanding Lawal's blood.
■ Serbia
War criminal arrested
Serbian security forces on Thursday arrested Vladimir Kovacevic, indicted for war crimes in Croatia by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, local media reported. A captain of the former Yugoslav People's Army, Kovacevic, 42, was charged in 2001 as one of the officers responsible for the devastation of the ancient port-fortress of Dubrovnik. The alleged crimes, which also include pillaging, occurred during the fighting in the area in 1991, reports said, quoting an interior ministry statement. He was handed over to the Belgrade District Court, where the extradition procedure would presumably be initiated.
■ France
Robert Palmer dies at 54
Rock singer Robert Palmer died yesterday in Paris of a heart attack, his manager said. He was 54. Manager Mick Cater, speaking from Paris, said he had no further details immediately. Palmer, whose hits included Addicted to Love, was on a break in Paris following a TV recording session in Britain, Cater said. The son of a British naval officer, Palmer was a member of several British rock bands before he hit the big time as a solo artist. In the 1980s he became a superstar with singles which also included Simply Irresistible. Power Station, formed in 1985 with John Taylor and Andy Taylor of 1980s supergroup Duran Duran, scored three US Top 10 hits, including Communication and Get it On.
■ United kingdom
Stunt turns expensive
American magician David Blaine's 44-day stunt of starving himself in a Perspex box in London will be more costly than he thinks -- the television company filming him has been hit with a bill from the capital's police force. Scotland Yard said Sky had paid for the cost of policing the crowds of onlookers last Saturday and Sunday and would continue to pay for an extra police presence every weekend till Blaine's scheduled climb down from the box on Oct 19.
■ France
Tourist gets robber on film
A young man who mugged a Japanese tourist in the French Loire Valley town of Tours failed to get away with her video camera -- and was later arrested thanks to images recorded on the device, a court heard. The tourist was filming in the town on May 26 when two men tried to grab her purse, still camera and camcorder, but got away only with the still camera. When she later went to the police, she discovered that her camcorder had remained on and had caught pictures of both assailants. The pictures allowed the police to arrest one of the two on Wednesday.
■ Iraq
Bruce Willis rocks Iraq
Probably the first-ever rock concert held in Telafar, about 60km from the Syrian border, was brought to US soldiers at the desert airfield by movie star Bruce Willis. Hundreds of soldiers sent cheers and whistles into the night air as Willis and his band belted out rock and roll and the blues. Willis and his band -- the Accelerator -- stood atop two flatbed trailer trucks. "If you catch him, just give me four seconds with Saddam Hussein," Willis told the soldiers. He promised US$1 million to the man who captures Hussein.
■ United states
Bush wants help for Czechs
US President George W. Bush asked Congress on Thursday to provide a US$550 million loan to the Czech Republic to help Washington's Iraq-war ally upgrade its air defenses. The 12-year military loan will enable the Czech Republic to buy 14 used F-16 fighter aircraft. It could also provide the NATO member with US training, weapons and logistic support, according to White House documents sent to Congress for review. The Bush administration is offering similar military and economic assistance to other key allies, including Turkey and Pakistan. Both are under pressure from Washington to send troops to Iraq. The Czech Republic broke with France, Germany and Russia by supporting the US in Iraq.
■ Israel
Hopes for peace dashed
A majority of Israelis expect that the three-year-old cycle of violence with the Palestinians will continue and many believe it might even intensify, a poll published yesterday revealed. According to a survey carried by the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily, 67 percent of Israelis predict that "the intifada will continue," while only 25 percent think it will fizzle out. No less than 24 percent believe the cycle of violence which has left nearly 3,500 people dead over three years will escalate further. With the peace process in tatters and a deep economic crisis, a majority of Israelis are generally pessimistic about the future. According to 73 percent of Israelis, the state of Israel "does not guarantee a future to the younger generation."
■ United states
Palestinian scholar, 67, dies
Edward Said -- scholar, literary critic and the most eloquent supporter of the Palestinian cause -- died in New York yesterday after a long battle against leukemia. He was 67. Born in 1935 in Jerusalem, then part of British-ruled Palestine, he spent almost all his adult life in the US, where he became professor of comparative literature at Columbia University. He wrote passionately about the Palestinian question but also on a huge variety of other subjects. His most famous book, Orientalism, published in 1978, exposed the ideological biases behind western perceptions of "the Orient" and changed the direction of academic study of the Middle East.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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