■ Japan
Compensation offer mulled
Tokyo is considering paying as much as US$400 million to China for the injuries and deaths caused by chemical weapons abandoned by the Japanese army after World War II, according to media reports yesterday. Tokyo's offer to set up a fund for the victims appears aimed at defusing diplomatic tensions before Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi meets Chinese President Hu Jintao (楊建利) at the APEC summit in Bangkok. Beijing has been pressing for compensation since one person died and dozens were sickened by Japanese drums of mustard gas dug up at a construction site in Qiqihar in August. The Yomiuri newspaper said Tokyo would pay up to US$400 million, but would refrain from any reference to "compensation"to avoid reopening the question of war-related reparations.
■ United States
Appeal for dissident made
Members of Congress have urged President George W. Bush to ask Chinese Presi-dent Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to release a Boston-area activist imprisoned in China on spying charges. In a letter to Bush sent on Thursday, 36 US House members said Yang Jianli's (楊建利) impri-sonment will continue if Bush does not intercede. Yang a Chinese citizen with permanent US residency, has been held since April last year. He was tried Aug. 4 on charges he spied for Taiwan. He pleaded innocent during the three-hour trial. The verdict has been delayed because the prosecutor asked for additional time.
■ Indonesia
Al-Ghozi given hero's burial
Hundreds of militant Mus-lims shouting "Allahu Akbar!" (God is greatest) attended the burial yesterday of bomb-maker Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi in his home town in East Java, a family lawyer said. Activists from the Big Family of Mujahideen and the Indo-nesian Council of Mujahi-deen ran chanting behind the ambulance carrying the coffin to the cemetery, said attorney Wirawan Adnan. Al-Ghozi was killed Sunday by troops in the Philippines three months after he broke out of a Manila jail. The results of an autopsy in Indonesia "indicates that he was not killed during a shootout but in a secret execution" by Philippine soldiers, the lawyer said. Al-Ghozi's body was buried without being bathed and shrouded, as is usual at Islamic burials, because his family believes he had died as a martyr, Adnan said.
■ China
Beijing taking to the sky
China's lofty talk of space tourism may take a while to materialize but, come 2007, Beijingers could be in orbit aboard the world's tallest Ferris wheel. A 210m, US$100 million wheel will soar over the capital's often-hazy skyline by the time of the Olympic Games there in 2008, the English-language China Daily said yesterday. It said the ride was set for completion prior to 2007 in a large park in Beijing. It would overtake both the London Eye, currently the world's tallest at 135m, and one Shanghai plans to build ahead of the World Expo in 2010.
■ India
Mine cave-in kills 10
Ten miners were killed and two injured when the roof of a coal mine collapsed in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh yesterday, a mine company official said. The Singareni Collieries official said the accident occurred in Godavarikhani village about 170km from of the state capital, Hyderabad. This is the second accident for the company in the past four months.
■ United States
General becomes abusive
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined on Thursday to criticize a senior Pentagon intelligence official who has told Christian gatherings that Muslims worship an "idol" and not "a real God," and instead praised the general's "outstanding" military record. Army Lieutenant General William Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and war-fighting support, has used speeches at churches and prayer breakfasts to portray the US battle with Islamic radicals as a fight with "Satan," saying they sought to destroy America "because we're a Christian nation."
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