■ Australia
Two in Cuba to see lawyers
The two Australians being held by US authorities at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba would serve any sentence imposed on them in Australia, officials in Canberra said yesterday. They would also be allowed to meet their families and to see an Australian lawyer before their trial, the attorney general's office revealed. Adelaide-born David Hicks and fellow alleged al-Qaeda member Mamdouh Habib of Sydney have been held in Guantanamo for two years. Hicks, a Moslem convert who was captured in Afghanistan, and Habib, who was picked up in Pakistan on suspicion of links to terrorist organizations, are expected to face military tribunals.
■ Thailand
US praises drug crackdown
A senior US official yesterday described as "successful" Thailand's war on drugs, in which more than 2,000 people were killed, provoking an international outcry about alleged police excesses. William Snipes, the regional director of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said the war on drugs has been effective. He was speaking to reporters at the Bang Pa-In industrial estate where government officials torched drugs worth nearly 2.9 billion baht (US$72 million), including 19 million methamphetamines pills, marijuana, heroin, ketamine liquid and Ecstasy pills. The drug burning is Thailand's 30th since 1977 and the third this year.
■ Australia
Jail for `resilient' fraudster
A judge paid tribute yesterday to an 82-year-old fraudster's resilience, then jailed him for 30 months. Raymond Lewis Oughton was convicted of defrauding the government to the tune of A$270,000 (US$194,400) by claiming benefits for an elderly couple he invented back in the 1970s. "One cannot help but admire your resilience," Victoria state County Court judge Michael Strong told Oughton, who has been handed a total of 22 prison sentences since doing time for the first time in 1939. "But I have to say you are one of the most dishonest and disreputable individuals I have been called upon to sentence," Strong added.
■ China
Crying dog saves master
A doctor's pet dog saved the life of his collapsed master in China by turning up on a neighbor's doorstep with tears in his eyes. Village doctor Liu Jian-yao collapsed with a burst artery as he returned from a house call in the early hours of the morning, the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily reported yesterday. His dog, which always follows the doctor on his house calls, ran to a neighbor's house and pawed at the door and barked until someone came to the door. The neighbor said the dog had tears in his eyes when he opened the door. It then led him to where his master was lying.
■ Japan
Spy satellites set for launch
After several delays, all systems are go for this weekend's launch of Japan's second set of spy satellites, part of a multibillion dollar surveillance program aimed primarily at North Korea, officials said yesterday. The satellites are to be launched on Saturday atop an orange and black H-2A rocket, the workhorse of Japan's space program, said Hiroaki Sato, a spokesman for Japan's space agency, JAXA. The launch was originally scheduled for Sept. 10 but had to be postponed three times due to technical problems.<
■ Argentina
Jobless go on the march
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Tuesday to disperse hundreds of jobless demonstrators marching in southwestern Argentina to demand greater government subsidies for the country's unemployed. At least 19 people were injured, police said. Helmeted police carrying riot shields clashed for hours with rock-throwing protesters in the streets of a poor district in the city of Neuquen, some 1,000km southwest of Buenos Aires.
■ United States
Agents arrest airport staff
Federal agents on Tuesday arrested 20 airport baggage and cargo handlers and charged them with running a decade-long drug smuggling operation that brought hundreds of pounds of cocaine and marijuana a year through Kennedy International Airport under the noses of customs officials. The arrests unveiled a criminal conspiracy of stunning duration, prosecutors said, in which the baggage handlers moved drug shipments worth tens of millions of US dollars through the airport with virtual impunity.
■ United states
Bullet hits Klan member
A Ku Klux Klan member has been critically injured after being struck by a bullet fired into the air during a Klan initiation ceremony. While the white-supremacist organization is more a subject of ridicule than fear these days, it still has members and still holds initiation ceremonies. The latest took place in Johnson City, Tennessee, the state where the Klan was formed in 1866 by veterans from the Confederate forces. About 10 people were present at the ceremony, in which a new member was blindfolded and tied to a tree. One member, Gregory Freeman, 45, fired a loaded pistol straight up into the air. The bullet, having gone straight up in the air came straight down and straight through the head of Jeffrey Murr, 24. It went through his skull, leaving him in critical condition.
■ Italy
Former PM on cocaine
Former prime minister Emilio Colombo, 83, has stunned prosecutors in Rome by telling them he is a regular cocaine user. Colombo, a former president of the European parliament said he used the drug for "therapeutic purposes." Italy's news agency, Ansa, quoted Colombo as saying: "I have not been a user for long -- not more than a year, year and a half." His disclosure last Thursday was made voluntarily to prosecutors investigating a ring alleged to have supplied drugs and prostitutes to high society figures. The investigation has already seen allegations levelled at a junior minister in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government, a former porn star and the owner of one of Rome's most fashionable restaurants.
■ Yemen
Al-Qaeda suspect detained
Yemen's security forces on Tuesday detained a top al-Qaeda suspect who had evaded arrest despite heading the Arab state's wanted list for nearly two years. The official Yemeni news agency, Saba, said Mohammad Hamdi al-Ahdal, also known as Abu Asem al-Macci, surrendered to police after they surrounded a house in the capital, Sanaa, where the Islamic militant had been hiding. In Washington, a US counterterrorism official said Ahdal had been among the top 20 to 25 al-Qaeda leaders still at large and called his capture a significant development.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the