■ Afghanistan
Taliban kidnapping
A Turkish engineer working on a road in Afghanistan has been kidnapped and his suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda abductors are demanding the release of six Taliban prisoners, officials and company sources said yesterday. Hasan Ornal was abducted Thursday night in southeastern Zabul province where the Kabul-Kandahar road is under construction, they said. A military official in Ghazni province said the abductors also took away Ornal's Afghan driver during the incident.
■ Bangladesh
Refugees line border
Border troops were on alert against a possible influx of Muslim refugees from Myanmar, officials said yesterday. Local media reports said minority Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have recently been attacked by that country's military. Several thousand Muslims have gathered along the border in Myanmar's western Arakan province, and they may try to cross into Bangladesh, officials said, quoting intelligence reports. Nearly 250,000 Muslims from Arakan fled to Bangladesh's southern coast in 1990 and 1991, accusing the military of torture and forced labor.
■ India
Ritual child abuse persists
Children, most of them girls, who are "married" to a goddess of good health in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu are usually sexually exploited, according to a news report yesterday. A survey revealed that the practice, called "arunthathiyar," thrives in Tamil Nadu state despite police claims to have stopped it a decade ago. All 75 villages of two districts in the state pledged at least three girls under 18 to the goddess Mathamma, the study said. The children selected are usually suffering from a prolonged illness. A girl pledged to the goddess can never marry. She is treated as public temple property, and is usually vulnerable to ongoing sexual abuse.
■ Malaysia
Bogus witch doctor jailed
An Indonesian man was sentenced to 18 years in jail and six lashes of the whip after he tricked a woman into having sex with him as a remedy for her husband's impotence, the Berita Harian daily reported yesterday. Usim Room, 36, had pleaded guilty to raping the 46-year-old housewife in August at the victim's home in central Pahang state. Usim, who worked at a local plantation, claimed to be a witch doctor and reportedly told the victim's husband that he specialized in healing erectile dysfunction. The bogus medicine man then duped the couple into allowing the victim to have sex with him, claiming the man's impotence would then be cured.
■ Japan
Nukes taboo easing
In a sign that a taboo on discussing nuclear weapons is easing in Japan, a survey yesterday showed one candidate in eight in this month's election think there may be situations where Japan should consider acquiring nuclear arms. Japanese lawmakers who have previously hinted at ending the nuclear ban have faced fierce criticism, but the alarm over North Korea's nuclear weapons program had prodded some politicians to challenge the taboo, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said. It said 13 percent of candidates running in the Nov. 9 lower house election thought Japan should, depending on international conditions, consider obtaining nuclear arms.
■ United Kingdom
Men fume over TV joke
British television station Sky One said on Friday it had shelved a reality show that set up six male contestants with a gorgeous woman -- before revealing to the unwitting men that she was a transsexual. London law firm Schillings, acting on behalf of the six men, wrote to Sky and program makers Brighter Pictures on Thursday, alleging conspiracy to commit a sexual assault, defamation, personal injury and breach of contract. Schillings demanded that the program, provisionally scheduled to be broadcast next month, be ditched. Only at the end of the show did the men discover that Miriam was a preoperative transsexual.
■ France
Catholics turn on Halloween
Saints instead of witches, pop songs instead of hooting owls, "Christian cake" instead of pumpkins -- France's Catholics are trying everything to fend off a Halloween celebration they say is an ungodly US import. As hordes of French children dressed up as witches and monsters on Friday night, some 10,000 Christians were expected at a free rock concert in Paris to celebrate the Christian All Saint's Day yesterday and today's Festival of the Dead. "Halloween has put these Christian holidays into the shade. Lots of young people don't even know them any more," said Ines Azais, in charge of an initiative by the French Catholic Church.
■ Germany
UFO watcher overworked
An amateur astronomer who monitors reports of UFO sightings said he had been flooded by calls from terrified Germans after a solar flare caused brilliantly colored skies over Germany this week. Werner Walter, who runs a call-in service called UFO-FON, said he had disconnected his phone at 3am after more than 30 calls from people reporting eerie, streaking lights in the sky. "People were calling from all over Germany," he said. An abnormally strong solar flare that erupted this week caused a dazzling display of polar lights, normally seen only in far northern arctic regions, in various parts of Germany. One couple from the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen reported what they feared was a nuclear explosion in Denmark.
■ Germany
Thief nabbed over airwaves
A woman in Germany was surprised when the intercom system she was using to monitor her sleeping baby picked up a radio conversation in which a luckless would-be thief described his bungled robbery of a nearby bar. "Instead of hearing her baby's wails, the mother got the 46-year-old's confession. She then informed police," authorities in the western city of Bochum said in a statement. The man had been talking about the attempted robbery to friends over a CB radio set, when the transmission was intercepted by the baby's intercom system.
■ United States
White House full of spooks
The White House at night is a dark and spooky place, haunted, according to legend, by ghosts of dead presidents and a former British soldier. "It is a big old house, and when the lights are out it is dark and quiet and any movement at all catches your attention," longtime White House chief usher Gary Walters said during a Halloween chat session on the White House Web site. US President George W. Bush, who was spending Halloween at his Texas ranch, has never reported seeing a ghost, Walters said.
■ United States
Lawyer shot outside court
A lawyer was wounded in a courthouse shooting that was captured by television crews gathered to cover a hearing in the case against actor Robert Blake, who is accused of murdering his wife. Gerry Curry was shot on a walkway outside the Van Nuys courthouse on Friday by a man who was upset that Curry was being paid from his trust fund. Dramatic footage showed Curry, 53, trying to hide behind a tree as a man identified by police as William Strier, 64, fired a revolver at him several times from close range. Strier was involved in a dispute in which he alleged a trustee appointed by the court to manage his trust fund was withholding money he needed for medical care.
■ United States
Peace poll `antisemitic'
A leading US Jewish lobby group on Friday denounced as "shocking" and "antisemitic" a poll indicating that almost 60 percent of Europeans felt Israel was a greater threat to world peace than North Korea, Iran or Afghanistan. The influential Simon Wiesenthal Center said the European Commission poll of around 7,500 people across the continent that is scheduled to be made public tomorrow defied logic and was a "racist flight of fantasy." The results of the poll were reported on Friday by the Paris-based International Herald Tribune newspaper.
■ Canada
`Blood diamond' pact passed
The incoming Canadian chairman of a global group of diamond-producing countries trying to eradicate the trade in "blood diamonds" said on Friday he wanted to press ahead with reviews of each nation's record. Members of the Kimberley Process, which includes some 70 producer and importer countries, industry players and non-governmental organizations, passed a pact on Thursday that paves the way for individual countries to volunteer for review by their peers. The Kimberley Process has also set up a certification scheme aimed at stopping trade in "blood" or "conflict diamonds" -- blamed for fueling wars and instability in many African countries. The grouping includes 45 nations.
■ United States
Iraq papers handed to probe
The US State Department has delivered documents to a Senate committee probing US pre-war intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons programs, a spokesman said on Friday. The State Department has provided 11 of 15 document requested by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Two more were to be submitted on Friday and the remaining two are being worked on, spokesman Richard Boucher said. The Senate committee has complained that the White House, State Department, CIA and Pentagon have been too slow in providing documents and access to certain officials, and the legislative panel sent a letter to the agencies setting a deadline of Friday.
■ United States
Girls chase down flasher
About 20 Catholic schoolgirls chased down a man who had been flashing them near their high school, tackled him to the ground and held him there until police arrived. The students from St. Maria Goretti's High School for Girls in South Philadelphia said the man had been flashing students since September. He typically hid behind a van, waited for students and then jumped out and exposed himself, police said. But on Thursday, store owners saw the man flashing girls and started yelling at him. The students then chased him down the street and subdued him with the help of a passer-by. The suspect was treated at the hospital for minor injuries to his mouth.
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