■ India
Unknown gunman killed
A gunman involved in a daylong gunbattle with soldiers at an army employee residential complex was killed early yesterday morning, an army officer said. The guerrilla was pinned down and shot dead at 1:15am in the family quarters of the complex in Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, said Army Brigadier Ravi Tusshir. He said the identity of the gunman and his group were unknown. Family members of Indian army staff were hit by the gunfire, killing two children, and wounding two women, a child, and two soldiers on Tuesday, Tusshir said.
■ Japan
Cult leader to be hanged
A medical doctor who acted as a senior leader in the doomsday cult that carried out the deadly 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway will be hanged for his role in that crime and several other murders. Tomomasa Nakagawa, 41, was sentenced to die yesterday by the Tokyo District Court, for helping to make the sarin nerve gas used in the subway attack, which killed 12 people, and another earlier attack that killed seven people. He was also found guilty of taking part in earlier cult murders. Nakagawa is the 10th member of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult to be given the death sentence.
■ Japan
South Korea slams governor
South Korea criticized Tokyo's governor yesterday for saying Koreans bore responsibility for Japan's 1910 annexation of the peninsula and said his remarks were particularly ill-timed because of tensions over North Korea. Shintaro Ishihara, a nationalist who has angered Asian countries in the past with similar remarks, made his latest comments at a rally in Tokyo on Tuesday calling for the problem of Japanese abducted decades ago by North Korea to be resolved, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said. "We didn't invade using military force. I don't mean to justify 100 percent the Japan-Korea merger, but it is rather the responsibility of their [Koreans'] ancestors," Asahi quoted Ishihara as saying in a speech.
■ China
Popularity kills sex exhibit
A sex exhibition in Beijing has closed early after the number of visitors grew to proportions that made security a real concern, state media said yesterday. The exhibition, featuring sex-related works of art from the past two millennia, opened Monday and was originally scheduled to last a week, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. However, interest on the first day far beat expectations, as 200 crowded into the small exhibition rooms that were designed to hold only 100 at a time, the paper said. Near-chaotic scenes ensued, and the glass pane of one of the exhibits was smashed, while security personnel watched helplessly, according to the paper. So organizers decided to call off the exhibition entirely.
■ China
Crusading lawyer jailed
A lawyer who helped expose a real estate scandal in Shanghai, China's showcase commercial city, has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges that he disclosed state secrets, his lawyer said Tuesday. Western human rights groups say the case against Zheng Enchong amounts to an attempt to intimidate lawyers who aggressively defend their clients. Zheng's five-hour trial last month was closed to the public, and officials have not said why the lawyer was accused of revealing state secrets.
■ United States
Airports tighten up security
The US will beef up security next year at border check points, taking digital fingerprints and photos to compare travellers' biometric data with terrorist check lists. The system, called US-VISIT, will be in place next month at Atlanta airport and then on Jan. 5 at 115 airports across the US, Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchison said on Tuesday during a presentation of the program. Only travelers from countries that do not have a visa-waiver program with the US will be subject to the new procedure, which will add about 10 seconds to the current process but will be "the most dramatic step forward in increasing security in the modern history of immigration," Hutchison said.
■ Chile
Prosthesis deemed weapon
A disabled man was not allowed to board a domestic flight in Chile because the pilot thought his artificial hand could be used as a weapon, press reports said Tuesday. The incident occurred on Sunday when the pilot of a Lan Chile Airlines plane traveling from Iquique to Santiago refused to allow Roberto Carcamo on board because his prosthesis was a sharp instrument and might endanger other passengers. Carcamo, 30, said he even offered to leave his artificial hand behind but the pilot was adamant. Carcamo said the incident had spoiled his honeymoon.
■ Colombia
Hostages to be freed
The Colombian government accepted a proposal on Tuesday by Marxist rebels to free seven foreigners abducted more than six weeks ago, a Catholic church spokesman said. The National Liberation Army (ELN) announced late Monday that it was willing to release the hostages one at a time. The ELN said it would release the hostages to a commission of UN and church representatives and two rebel spokesmen. A British citizen in the original group of eight people abducted managed to escape. Another Briton, a German woman, four Israelis and a Spaniard are still in captivity.
■ United States
Lesbian pastor faces trial
A United Methodist minister in Washington State who told her bishop that she is a lesbian will likely face a church trial that could mean her removal from the pulpit, but says she prefers that to hiding her sexual orientation. ``I take this over one minute in the closet,'' the Reverend Karen Dammann, of the First United Methodist Church in Ellensburg, said Tuesday. The church's Book of Discipline bars ``self-avowed, practicing homosexuals'' from being ordained or serving as pastors.
■ United States
Elvis tops dead earners' list
Elvis Presley led Forbes.com's list of top-earning deceased celebrities for the third consecutive year, earning an estimated US$40 million. ``Peanuts'' cartoonist Charles Schulz was second, earning US$32 million, followed by writer J.R.R. Tolkien at US$22 million; former Beatle John Lennon at US$19 million; and former Beatle George Harrison at US$16 million. The list is based on estate earnings, the Web site said Friday. Rounding out the top 10: author Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, US$16 million; race car driver Dale Earnhardt, US$15 million; and entertainers Tupac Shakur, US$12 million; Bob Marley, US$9 million; and Marilyn Monroe with US$8 million.
■ United States
CIA reveals spy secrets
The CIA once built a mechanical dragonfly to carry a listening device but found that small gusts of wind knocked it off course so it was never used in a spy operation. The agency also tested a 24-inch-long rubber robot catfish named "Charlie" capable of swimming inconspicuously among other fish and whose mission remains secret. Charlie and the dragonfly were among spy gadgets displayed at CIA headquarters in an exhibit to mark the 40th anniversary of the Directorate of Science and Technology. It is not open to the public. "Charlie's mission is still classified, we can't talk about it," a spokesman said.
■ France
Gnomes find new home
A French police station has been stuck with a room of homeless garden gnomes, victims of a wave of gnome abductions, after a fresh bid to trace their owners failed. Only a trickle of people showed up for Monday's "gnome return day" at the police station in Saint-Die-des-Vosges, near the eastern city of Strasbourg, and only one person was reunited with their stolen gnome, police said. Some 75 kidnapped gnomes were recovered in 2001 after a group called the Garden Gnome Liberation Front released them, leaving them on the steps of the Saint-Die-des-Vosges cathedral. Police are yet to reunite 43 of the gnomes with their owners.
■ United Kingdom
Downing St. angers unionists
Downing Street on Tuesday infuriated unionists by announcing that fresh elections for the Northern Ireland assembly will go ahead as planned on Nov. 26. They will proceed even though Tony Blair failed to secure a deal with the IRA to give further details of the amount of explosives and armaments put beyond use last week. The unionist community described the decision as a disgrace. The announcement means that next month's assembly ballot will largely be an election to give the various sides a negotiating hand ahead of what it is likely to be a formal review of the Good Friday agreement due to commence in December.
■ Zimbabwe
Mugabe's illness denied
The Zimbabwe government on Tuesday dismissed reports that President Robert Mugabe was ill, saying they were invented by white-controlled anti-African media interests in South Africa. South African media reported on Tuesday that Mugabe, 79, had been flown to a hospital in Pretoria for emergency medical attention on Monday. The reports are "baseless" and come from an "uninformed" section of white-owned media that is against land reforms in Zimbabwe, said senior secretary of the Department of Information George Charamba. He added that the government was aware that a Harare-based Western diplomat was behind the rumor in a bid "obviously to destabilize the country."
■ United States
Earth in path of solar storm
The sun hurled a huge cloud of charged particles at Earth on Tuesday, with an intensity that could affect satellites, power grids and pipelines when it reaches our planet, due as soon as yesterday. The cloud, known to astronomers as a coronal mass ejection, is one of the strongest ever detected since scientists started measuring these phenomena a quarter-century ago. Aside from affecting modern electronics and navigation equipment, the solar storm could also create an aurora that might be visible in the southern US and southern Europe.
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