■ Pakistan
Libya nuke link denied
Pakistan on Tuesday denied reports that Libya had obtained a design for enriching uranium from Pakistani scientists, The Associated Press reported from Islamabad, the capital. "This is total madness," Information Minister Sheik Rashid Ahmed told the agency. "The report is absolutely false, and there is no truth in it." Asked Tuesday about the report, Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "I don't have enough information at hand to answer a question quite as specific as that. We know that there have been cases where individuals in Pakistan have worked in these areas and we have called it to the attention of the Pakistanis in the past."
■ Afghanistan
At least 17 dead in blasts
At least 17 people were killed and dozens injured, many of them children, in a double bomb blast in the southern city of Kandahar on Tuesday, local officials said. The bombing came just one day after the country triumphantly adopted a new constitution. The governor of Kandahar, Yousuf Pashtun, blamed the Taliban movement for the explosions, which took place in the middle of the day within minutes of each other. "They are terrorists, they are coming from Pakistan and they are killing innocent people," he said in comments to Kandahar Television. A statement from Afghan President Hamid Karzai office said that at least eight children were among the dead.
■ Thailand
Insurgents attack police
Suspected Islamic insurgents attacked a police station with grenades and guns yesterday, the latest violence in the spiraling unrest in Muslim-dominated southern Thailand, police said. There were no casualties in the 2:30am attack on the Haiyaveng police station in Yala district, police Major Thani Twibsi said in a telephone interview. Police fired back at the assailants, who fled after a short gunbattle, he said. "On our side there is no casualty, no injury because we were on full alert," Thani said from Yala, about 1,050km south of Bangkok. The gunbattle came on the heels of a string of arson attacks on 21 schools and a raid on a military armory on Sunday in Narathiwat province and two bombings in Pattani province on Monday.
■ Cambodia
Killing fields remembered
Cambodia's ruling party released 25 doves yesterday to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and assured the nation that the genocidal regime's victims will finally get justice through a UN-sponsored tribunal this year. "Imminently, we can surely bring a complete closure to this darkest chapter through a successful implementation of ... a tribunal for prosecuting crimes," Cambodian People's Party president Chea Sim told about 10,000 people celebrating the anniversary at the party's headquarters. About 1.7 million Cambodians died under the communist Khmer Rouge, which ruled from 1975 to 1979.
■ Malaysia
Abdullah orders reshuffle
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced a minor cabinet reshuffle yesterday after naming Defense Minister Minister Najib Razak as deputy premier. Najib retains his defense portfolio, and Abdullah retains his posts as finance minister and home (interior) minister. Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Muhyiddin Yassin takes over as agriculture minister from Effendi Norwawi, who becomes special functions minister in the prime minister's department.
■ United States
Lottery payout stopped
A woman who told authorities she lost a winning lottery ticket filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to halt any payout to a hospital worker who came forward to collect the US$162 million jackpot. Rebecca Jemison, 34, of suburban South Euclid, turned in the ticket for the 11-state Mega Millions jackpot at Ohio Lottery headquarters. The lottery validated it Tuesday as the sole winning ticket for the drawing. But the woman with the competing claim, Elecia Battle, filed a lawsuit later Tuesday asking a Cuyahoga County judge to block the lottery from paying Jemison. Dennis Kennedy, director of the Ohio Lottery, said the lottery was confident Jemison had purchased the ticket, not found it.
■ United States
Defense for airliners studied
The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that it had picked three teams of companies to try to adapt military missile defenses to civilian airliners, in an effort to counter the threat of terrorists with shoulder-fired missiles near US airports. Government officials said it would take two years to determine whether the system was practical. Along with the costs, officials said they were worried about blinding people on the ground with lasers and about starting fires with flares if the system was activated by a "false positive" or actual attack.
■ Dominica
PM dies of heart attack
Prime Minister Pierre Charles, who supported tough measures to improve the Caribbean island's economy and was an outspoken critic of US policy in the region, died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack. He was 49. Charles was leaving his office after a Cabinet meeting Tuesday night when he complained of chest pains and collapsed, Tourism Minister Charles Savarin said. He was rushed to Princess Margaret Hospital, where he was pronounced dead and officials said the apparent cause was a heart attack. "It's a tremendous shock to the nation," Savarin said. Charles suffered from heart problems and recently took a brief leave of absence to rest on his doctor's advice.
■ South Africa
Boys suspected of murder
An 8-year-old boy was allegedly murdered by three of his playmates, who then covered up their tracks by making it appear that he had accidentally drowned, the Star newspaper reported yesterday. Isaac Muggels, who was on holiday with his grandmother at her farm in the Western Cape province, was hit with a plank, throttled and had his head bashed with a stone, a policeman investigating the case told the daily. The alleged suspects are aged seven, eight and nine.
■ Russia
Putin faces challengers
Russia said on Tuesday a total of 10 candidates could be eligible to run in the March 14 election, which President Vladimir Putin is expected to win comfortably. Unlike the last two elections in 1996 and 2000, the list of candidates did not include ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, communist party chief Gennady Zyuganov and Grigory Yavlinsky of the liberal Yabloko party. All three -- political evergreens on the post-Soviet scene -- decided against standing after elections last month to the State Duma lower house of parliament gave a resounding victory to the pro-Putin United Russia bloc.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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