■ Australia
Sheep on ship go home
Fifty thousand Australian sheep stranded at sea will be brought home rather than slaughtered if a buyer can't be found, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday. Shooting the sheep on board the ship was impractical, he said. "The current intention of the government, I can tell you, is clearly to bring them home," Howard told radio station 2GB. "I can't see the circumstances in which they could be slaughtered at sea." The MV Cormo Express has been the focus of international attention for weeks as it tours the Persian Gulf seeking a country willing to take its cargo of sheep.
■ Vietnam
Agreement signed with US
Vietnam and the US yesterday initialled an air-services agreement that would allow direct passenger and cargo flights, tapping a surge in trade and travel between the former war foes. Neither side provided a time frame for ratifying the agreement, but it was expected this could take place within a few months. Several US carriers said they thought the first direct flights from America might begin next March. Vietnam Airlines said it was unsure when its jets would land in the US. Prior to the pact, it had planned to do so in 2006. Now, "we hope we can cut short the time," said Pham Ngoc Minh, executive vice president in charge of commercial affairs.
■ China
Belgium rejects rights case
Belgium has thrown out a human rights abuse lawsuit against China's former president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) under the country's revamped genocide law, one of the plantiffs in the case said on Wednesday. Six members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, labelled an "evil cult" by the Chinese authorities, took the case to a Belgian court, alleging Jiang had put together a plan aimed at eliminating the group in China. Matthias Slaats, one of the six plantiffs, said he had been informed of the decision by the Belgian federal prosecutor to reject the case a few days ago. He added the group might appeal. "We are still checking the possibility," he said.
■ Myanmar
US critical of ASEAN stance
The US sharply disagreed on Wednesday with an ASEAN statement welcoming "positive developments" in Myanmar and a promise of democracy from its military rulers. "They noted, quote unquote, `positive developments.' We don't see those," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "And we don't see any need for a road map unless it has full participation of the opposition, and that's the way forward to us," the spokesman added. The ASEAN statement, released in Bali on Tuesday, welcomed a "road map" presented by Myanmar Prime Minister Khin Nyunt but made no mention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in detention at her home since May.
■ China
Coal power banned in cities
China has banned coal-fire power plants in Beijing and other major cities -- a long-awaited move expected to reduce chronic air pollution and acid rain. The plants have been banned in Beijing, Shanghai and 21 provincial capitals, the China Daily said. The cities are responsible for some 60 percent of China's sulphur dioxide emissions. In other big and medium-sized cities, thermo-electric projects approved under national energy polices must meet environmental protection standards.
■United States
Priest arrested
A man arrested on charges that he made harassing telephone calls to a Catholic high school in Brooklyn turned out to be a Roman Catholic priest whose Queens apartment contained guns, pornographic magazines, Nazi memorabilia and thousands of dollars he said he stole from a church, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday. Reverend John Johnston, 64, of 35th Avenue in Jackson Heights, was charged with aggravated harassment and criminal possession of a weapon. Officials said they found a Nazi dress cap, swastikas and several World War II-era photographs of Nazi officers in the apartment. "It looked like Hitler's tomb," one investigator said.
■ South Africa
Row over `colonial' airport
A plan to rename Johannesburg international airport after a black liberation leader has stirred fresh controversy over whether South Africa should replace colonial-era place names with African ones. The ruling African National Congress pledged this week to push ahead with a proposal to name the airport after the party's former president Oliver Tambo. Critics say changing its name would confuse travelers, waste money and undermine reconciliation. Originally named after Jan Smuts, a white premier, it was renamed Johannesburg airport in 1994.
■ Mexico
Funding probe dropped
A criminal investigation into the origin of donations to the 2000 election campaign of President Vicente Fox has been dismissed, Mexico's Justice Department announced Wednesday night. Federal prosecutors had been looking into opposition party charges that members of "Friends of Fox," a key private group backing Fox's 2000 campaign, engaged in money laundering to hide the origin of donations from foreign contributors. Donations to the "Friends of Fox" group came from legitimate activities, the Justice Department announced in a short written statement.
■ Canada
Art grant stirs controversy
A Canadian art jeweler who gilds her work with mouse droppings, toenail clippings, dead insects and pubic hair has fanned a debate in her prairie city about the nature and funding of art. Winnipeg artist Aliza Amihude found herself at the center of controversy when she received a C$5,000 (US$3,760) grant from a provincial funding agency to help defray costs for her collection of jewelry, made mainly from natural materials. The Manitoba Arts Council grant was panned in letters to the editor of a local newspaper and made waves in the provincial legislature, where one politician called Amihude's "public pubic" work offensive.
■ Colombia
Bomb kills at least six
At least six people, including two police officers, were killed and 12 civilians injured when a car bomb exploded on Wednesday in a grimy commercial district known for selling smuggled goods in Colombia's capital. No group fighting in the country's four-decade guerrilla war immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. Two officers were killed after arriving in the San Andresito district to investigate a telephone call about a suspicious vehicle. About 50kg of explosives packed in an old jeep detonated as they arrived on a motorbike about 8am, also killing four civilians, police said.
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