■ Vietnam
US may resettle Hmong
The US, still dealing with one of the legacies of the Vietnam War, said on Thursday it may accept thousands of ethnic Hmong refugees from Laos for resettlement. More than 15,000 Hmong people have been living for years around a Buddhist temple in Thailand after fleeing Laos following the communist takeover of the country in 1975. The CIA had enlisted the Hmong -- tough tribal people from the harsh countryside -- to spearhead US efforts to subdue Laotian communists during the conflict in neighboring Vietnam. Many Hmong, fearing retribution, fled after the communists took over Laos.
■ Hong Kong
Haircut leads to stabbing
An image-conscious prisoner stabbed his cellmate more than 20 times for cutting his hair badly then joking about it. Chan Ka-chun, 27, pleaded guilty to wounding with intent for using a pair of lawn trimmers to stab Fung Shing-hong in the head, back and hands to retaliate for the haircut he got a few hours earlier, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. Chan entered his plea on Wednesday in the District Court, the newspaper said, and Judge Peter Line delayed sentencing until he can get a psychiatric report. Fung suffered wounds to his neck, left eyebrow, left forearm and right wrist, but has since recovered and been released from prison, the report said.
■ New Zealand
Mates make own coffins
Builder Tom Pinfold and his friend Roy Booth, of Rotorua, had time on their hands when they retired and did not fancy filling it with golf, bowls or croquet. So, over a few drinks one day, and being capable "do-it-yourself" handymen, they came up with a novel idea: To build their own coffins. With Pinfold's building skills and his friend's assistance, they knocked up a couple of made-to-measure final resting places. Two friends were so impressed with their handiwork that they ordered individually tailored coffins for themselves, but the pair said their production line was stopping there.
"Four mates, four coffins," Pinfold told the local Daily Post. "And we've all had a bit of a laugh about it."
■ Japan
Corpse on street for months
Osaka police said yesterday that a dead body was ignored by crowds on a busy downtown corner for two months before a taxi driver finally alerted authorities. The partially decomposed body, believed to be that of a homeless man in his late 60s or early 70s, was found in front of a popular department store. A police official said the corner is among the busiest in the city, with about 1 million people passing through the area each day. The official said the cause of death had not been determined, but foul play was not suspected.
■ Hong Kong
Education chief plays games
The territory's education chief has admitted to playing computer games during a legislative meeting, a newspaper reported yesterday. Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li came under intense criticism over reports two weeks ago that he played the games during a Legislative Council debate over school funding cuts. Li was quoted as saying he felt out of place in a room full of people opposed to the cutbacks the government is considering -- so he withdrew into cyberspace. "I felt very lonely in the Legislative Council. That's why I played games," Li told an audience of school principals on Wednesday, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.
■ Sweden
Lindh suspect tied by DNA
DNA from the man sus-pected of stabbing foreign minister Anna Lindh matches traces found on his clothes and the knife used to kill her, a Swedish prose-cutor said yesterday. "Taken together, the existing evi-dence is good," prosecutor Agneta Blidberg said in an interview with Swedish radio. Swedish police said on Wednesday that they had finished their initial inves-tigation in the Sept. 10 stabbing of Lindh and are ready to try Mijailo Mijai-lovic for murder. The report will be given this week to Mijailovic lawyer, who has three weeks to read the report before prosecutors can file charges. Mijailovic says he is innocent.
■ Rwanda
Genocide witnesses targets
Witnesses to Rwanda's genocide are being intimi-dated and killed to stop them testifying in court against those who took part in the 1994 slaughter of up to 1 million people, it was claimed Wednesday. Geno-cide suspects who fear prosecution are behind a spate of recent murders intended to deter people from cooperating with the courts, according to Ibuka, an umbrella organization for genocide survivors. One or two survivors are being killed on average each month, but recently three were killed in Gikongoro Province, it said. All were potential witnesses.
■ Iran
Inspection pact to be inked
Iran was scheduled to sign an agreement yesterday to allow intrusive inspections of its nuclear sites, Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh told reporters on Wednesday. Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said signing the agreement would demonstrate Iran's commitment to peaceful uses of nuclear power. "Signing the protocol will also end the propaganda campaign against the nuclear program," he said. On Oct. 21, Iran agreed to sign the additional protocol to the non-proliferation treaty. During a visit by the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France, Iran agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment pro-gram and allow unfettered inspections but demanded technical cooperation for its peaceful nuclear program.
■ United States
Oft-weds fall for each other
A man and a woman who allegedly worked together in several sham green card marriages to illegal immi-grants apparently are in love and want to get married again -- this time to each other. Luis Narvaez, 40, already married seven times, and Evelyn Rivera, 48, who has been married eight times, applied for a marriage license to marry each other while they were jailed at Rikers Island in New York. The pair have been charged with perjury for lying on licenses for the bogus marriages from 1996 through last month. Narvaez and Rivera met when she stood as a witness in at least two of his weddings, an official said.
■ United States
Human smuggler convicted
A Thai man was convicted on Wednesday of smuggling Thai women into the US to work as prostitutes and of plotting to have a hit man kill an FBI agent investi-gating the brothels. Nanta-wat Naovasaisri, 34, was convicted on all five charges he faced following 90 minutes of deliberations in New Jersey, officials said. Sentencing was set for April 2. He faces up to 20 years in prison for the attempted murder of a federal agent and terms of five to 10 years on the other charges.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema