■ Hong Kong
Man found in suitcase
A Pakistani man who tried to sneak into Hong Kong in a suitcase and the two Indian smugglers who helped him have each been sentenced to 10 months in prison. Abdul Basit, 32, pleaded guilty to a charge of entering Hong Kong without permission and was ordered jailed on Friday by the Kwun Tong Magistracy, the South China Morning Post and other newspapers reported. His smugglers, Ravinder Singh, 23, and Amarjit Singh, 37, also pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting Basit's illegal entry. Judiciary spokeswoman Jamie Or said Saturday that she had no information on the case.
■ Vietnam
Boy sold as dog
Vietnamese drug addicts kidnapped a mute teenager, bundled him in a sack and sold him to a dog-meat eatery as a stray canine, state media said yesterday. The Gia Dinh Xa Hoi (Family and Society) newspaper said the two addicts grabbed the homeless 13-year-old from a busy market in Halong city. The kidnappers tied up the boy, bundled him into a sack and sold him to the restaurant for 300,000 dong (US$19), the newspaper said. The restaurateur, shocked to find the boy, fed him and released him. In Vietnam, eating specifically farmed breeds is believed to bring health benefits and is seen as auspicious.
■ China
Police raid gay brothel
Police in southwest China's Chongqing municipality raided the city's largest gay brothel, state media reported yesterday. In Thursday's sweep of the Blue House Club, officers found records of what they believed to be close to 100 male and female prostitutes, the Chongqing Economic News said on its website. The newspaper quoted staff as saying the number of regular club members was probably in excess of 300. A journalist who posed as a job hunter was told he would be required to serve both male and female customers, according to the paper. Prostitution has emerged as a growth industry during the years of economic reform in China.
■ Afghanistan
Bin Laden not a priority
Catching terror mastermind Osama bin Laden is not a priority in the war on terror, top US General Peter Pace said on Friday on a visit to troops hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. "We would be glad to capture Osama, that's certainly something that we would like to do, but that is not essential to the proper prosecution of the war against terrorists," the vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters. "He is an individual that we would like to bring to justice but what we need to do, without focusing on individuals, is focus on the campaign," he said in the US-led coalition's Bagram Air Base headquarters north of Kabul.
■ China
Guard gets jail for assault
A guard at a south Chinese labor camp has been sentenced to two years in jail for beating a prisoner senseless over a minor infringement of the rules. The incident happened at the Baiyun Re-education Through Labor Camp in Guangzhou province in May when the guard, 25-year-old Cai Zheng, beat and kicked the prisoner into a state of shock, the Beijing Legal Times said. Cai, who was annoyed because the prisoner had been hard to manage, was assisted by two other officers, one of them wielding a baton, the newspaper reported.
■ Israel
Settlements to come down
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to remove some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by the summer of 2004 to make way for a Palestinian state, Israel's Channel 2 television said on Friday. Israeli and Palestinian officials were not immediately available for comment, but a source in Sharon's office said: "There is such talk, but for now it only concerns settlements in Gaza. A lot could happen by next summer." The decision would mark Sharon's most significant move towards implementing a US-backed "road map" to peace and Palestinian statehood -- and away from his traditionally unswerving support for settlements in the occupied territories.
■ Peru
Toledo says sorry for deaths
Peru's president apologized for the 70,000 deaths from the country's 20-year battle with the Shining Path insurgency, and promised to punish officers that a scathing report blamed for many of the worst abuses. Alejandro Toledo announced the government would spend US$800 million in the next two years on public works in the areas hurt most by the fighting, from 1980 to 2000. But he didn't offer individual reparations that victims and human-rights groups had sought.
■ Montenegro
Sex slavery report heeded
Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic said Friday Podgorica would implement the recommendations of a European inquiry into a sex slavery scandal involving senior officials. Vujanovic refused to comment specifically on the report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but he promised that the government had "accepted the recommen-dations of the experts and taken measures to implement them." The report accused Montenegro's police and deputy prosecutor of trying to cover up the high-profile sex trafficking scandal following a 28-year-old Moldovan woman's claim that she had been abducted, raped, tortured and forced to work as a sex slave for three years in Podgorica.
■ Norway
Drunken passenger fined
A 19-year-old Norwegian has been convicted of drunken driving, even though he was a passenger, had a sober designated driver and didn't even have the keys to start a car that was turned off. Oysten Haakanes said he reached over from the passenger seat to change a CD in the car stereo and must have hit the manual gear stick. The car went into neutral and started to roll, moving about 3m before he pulled on the hand brake. Unfortunately for him, a police officer was watching and detained him for drunken driving. A blood test showed he was nearly four times above the legal limit.
■ United States
Women sue chemical firm
Four saleswomen sued a Michigan chemical company where they once worked, saying it required them to use suggestive nicknames, revealing photographs and "their own Female Magic" to lure business. The women's lawyer, Deborah Gordon, said Tri-Chem Corp. employed only women on its sales force and sent its customers -- mostly men -- calendars and pictures showing saleswomen posing semi-nude or in skimpy clothing. The women said they were fired or forced to quit for not doing enough to make customers feel "warm and fuzzy" during telephone sales calls.
■ Iraq
Plane on fire lands safely
A civilian cargo plane landed at Baghdad International Airport yesterday with its wing on fire, the military and witnesses said. The plane was trailing thick smoke and part of its wingtip was missing as it overflew Baghdad's Mahmoudiya district prior to touching down, said a witness. Captain Carrie Clear, a spokeswoman at the airport's US military base, said the pilot had declared an in-flight emergency. The plane, belonging to the DHL package delivery service, landed safely and no one was hurt, she said. It was not clear whether the flames had been caused by a technical malfunction, or whether the aircraft had been hit by ground fire, Clear said.
■ United States
Terror suspects to be freed
The US will release two dozen prisoners from its naval base in Guantanamo Bay in the coming weeks, an American envoy said. More than 600 prisoners -- accused of ties to al-Qaeda or the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan -- have been held incommunicado in Guantanamo Bay following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Pierre-Richard Prosper, the US ambassador at large for war crimes, declined on Friday to say what nationalities the detainees were, or to specify the date of their expected release. Several dozen other prisoners will be sent to their home countries for a lengthy process of investigation, detention and prosecution, Prosper said.
■ United States
Terror warning issued
The US government is warning that a surge in terrorist violence overseas and the end of the Muslim Ramadan holy month increases the possibility of attacks on American interests abroad. A classified bulletin was sent on Thursday to law enforcement and government officials. It says the spate of bombings in Istanbul and elsewhere signal al-Qaeda's continued desire to attack US interests abroad, according to a senior law enforcement official. There are no plans so far for the government to raise the US color-coded terror threat level beyond its current "yellow," or elevated, position, the midpoint on a five-level scale, officials said.
■ United States
Hoax disrupts flight
A passenger plane bound for London returned to Kennedy International Airport early Friday after a flight attendant found a threatening note on a passenger seat in the plane, officials said. Airline officials later called the note a hoax. The Virgin Atlantic Airways jet departed from Kennedy at midnight but returned at 1:20am, airline officials said Friday. The 234 passengers aboard the plane were taken off and screened by airport security officials for possession of explosives or weapons. The plane was then searched Port Authority Police.
■ United States
Students, convicts face off
The university students beat the convicts -- but not all of them -- in chess matches Friday that pitted inmates against four Princeton University students, including the son of a Nobel laureate. In the end, two New Jersey State Prison inmates managed to defeat the students, while four others played them to draws. Fifty-eight inmates took part. "I beat one of those guys," said Terrance Manley, 28, who is serving time for manslaughter. "And now I'm ready for the next one." Prison officials touted the match as a way to enhance the players' life skills.
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