■ 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.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the