■ Australia
Cancer breakthrough
Australian researchers yesterday unveiled a breakthrough treatment for cancer that uses genetically altered blood cells to attack and kill tumors. Associate professor Joe Trapani said the treatment involved taking hundreds of millions of white blood cells from the sufferer. The cells' DNA is then genetically altered so they can recognize the tumor and attack it. "Instead of having a very, very few, perhaps one in 1,000 cells that can recognize the tumor, now we have virtually 100 percent of them that can home in and so the attack on the tumor is much, much greater," said Trapani. Human trials are due to commence in two years.
■ Vietnam
WHO urges SARS vigilance
SARS may have been contained for the moment but the international community must take immediate steps to prepare for a recurrence or the outbreak of a new disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday. "We cannot rest on our success so far. SARS may return and we should be ready for it," said Dr. Shigeru Omi, the WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific. His comments, read out on his behalf by Pascale Brudon, the UN agency's representative to Vietnam, came on the opening day of a two-day conference in Hanoi analyzing strategies used to contain the recent SARS crisis.
■ Pakistan
3,200kg of hashish seized
Authorities seized 3,200kg of hashish in the back of a truck in southern Pakistan, stashed in wooden crates labeled "Strawberries." Two men were arrested, a government minister said Sunday. The seizure was made near Nawab Shah, a town in the province of Sindh, about 850km southwest of the capital Islamabad, said Rauf Siddiqui, the Sindh minister of excise and taxation. He was quoted by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency. The truck allegedly carrying the hashish was coming from Mardan, a town in the North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan, and was headed to the port city of Karachi, the agency said. It was not known when the seizure was made.
■ South Korea
Defectors arrive in South
A group of 21 North Korean defectors who were holed up in the South Korean Embassy in Beijing have arrived in South Korea, a news agency reported yesterday. Among 120 defectors who sought refuge in the embassy, 21 of them arrived in South Korea on Sunday after traveling through a third country, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Early this month, South Korea closed consular services at its embassy in Beijing because it was housing too many North Korean refugees to continue operating smoothly and issue visas. The consular services resumed early yesterday.
■ Sri Lanka
Grenade set off in argument
A soldier threw a grenade at his wife after an argument in a busy street of a southern Sri Lankan town yesterday, killing a 10-year-old girl and wounding 34 other passers-by, officials said. The wife was in a critical condition in hospital along with the other wounded, said hospital officials in the town of Galle, 110km south of Colombo. "The soldier was arrested and was being interrogated," said M.N. Junaid, secretary to the interior ministry, which is in charge of the police. He said among the injured were several students on their way to school. The soldier was also injured after passers-by beat him up after the grenade explosion, witnesses said.
■ Malawi
Man fined for using loo
A Malawi court fined a foreign journalist on Sunday for breaching security rules by trying to use a business class toilet on a state airliner carrying Vice-President Justin Malewezi. "Your Worship ... I did not know that it was an offense on Air Malawi to visit the toilet in the business class," Peter Chilambwe told Presiding Magistrate Arthur Mtalimanja. The Zambian journalist said after being fined 50 kwacha (US$0.47) on a charge of conduct likely to cause a breach of public peace that he would never travel with Air Malawi again. Regional Police Prosecutor Paul Jeremani said Chilambwe was not armed or violent, but police had treated the case seriously because the security of the vice-president -- who was sitting in the business class section -- had been at stake.
■ United Kingdom
Tube crash injures seven
Seven people were injured on Sunday when a London underground train derailed and slam-med into a tunnel wall in the network's second accident in 48 hours. Rail unions and London's mayor said the accident raised serious questions about safety on the network, which saw another derailment on one of its busiest lines on Friday. A spokesman for the London Underground said one passenger broke a leg and six others suffered minor injuries after part of the train jumped the tracks and careered into a wall. The accident at Camden Town station brought much of the line to a standstill as police, fire engines and ambulances raced to the scene. The cause of the accident was not known.
■ Zimbabwe
Government out of fuel
Zimbabwe's state fuel company has run dry, paralyzing virtually all government departments and stopping many trains, buses and cars across the country. Police operations in many areas are being carried out on foot, bicycle or by public transport, while ambulances have had to be refuelled by patients' relatives. The government has responded by blaming the British government. One official said some fuel was expected this week. International oil companies closed off supplies to Zimbabwe in December 1999 because the government had failed to meet payments.
■ Croatia
Breakfast beats record
Thousands of Croats took part Sunday in a mass, nationwide breakfast in hopes of breaking a Guinness world record held by Taiwan. Croatian officials said 38,660 Croats ate polenta, yogurt and apple during an hourlong breakfast than began at 9am in 11 cities -- more than 15,000 more than in Taiwan in 2001. The authorities of the Guinness Book of Records have yet to issue a ruling. "We have to promote our country any way we can," said 49-year-old Olga Caldarevic, who ate with her husband and two children in a tent set up at the Zagreb's main square.
■ Bosnia
Izetbegovic dead at age 78
Former Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, who led the Balkan country through a turbulent decade of war and peace in the 1990s, died in Sarajevo on Sunday after a long period of heart illness. He was 78. Doctors said Izetbegovic died from chronic heart disease and complications after he fell at home last month and broke four ribs. "He was in a real sense the father of his people," said Paddy Ashdown, the West's top peace envoy in Bosnia.
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