■ Uzbekistan
Plane crash kills 37
All 37 people aboard a Russian-built Uzbek passenger plane, including the top UN official in Uzbekistan, died when the aircraft crashed on coming in to land in thick fog in the capital of the central Asian country, officials said. Uzbekistan's public prosecutor, Rashitjon Kadirov, said there were no indications that the crash, of a 28-year-old Yak-40 craft which was almost at the end of its working life, resulted from terrorism, but a full investigation would be held. The aircraft crashed and then burst into flames on approaching Tashkent airport on a flight from the southern city of Termez, near Uzbekistan's border with Afghanistan, at 7:27pm on Tuesday, Kadirov said.
■ China
Activists head to Diaoyutais
Twenty activists from China headed yesterday to a group of small, Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea to plant a sign claiming the disputed chain for their country, a spokesman in Hong Kong said. The five uninhabited islands, called Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyutai by China, are surrounded by rich fishing waters and are located between Japan's southern island of Okinawa and Taiwan. Chinese activists have tried for years to reach the islands, only to be blocked by the Japanese Coast Guard.
■ Nepal
Maoists clash with police
At least 17 Maoist rebels and four policemen have been killed in bloody clashes in various parts of the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, a defense ministry source said yesterday. Clashes took place at Gulmi, Surkhet, Salyan and Dang in the west, Parsa in the south and Kavre in the east on Monday and Tuesday, the source said. He said three Maoists were shot dead in Aru Chanautey village in western Gorkha district while setting up an ambush, while another was killed in Dhanusha, in the southeast, when he tried to shoot soldiers on a bus. A policeman was killed and two others injured in a clash at Dhanusha, while three more were killed in other incidents.
■ New Zealand
Elderly man scares off thief
A 90-year-old man grabbed a carving knife from his kitchen and chased away a masked intruder who had threatened his wife with a butter knife. The intruder waved the flimsy weapon at David Saulbrey's wife when she tried to ring the police to report Tuesday's break-in at their home in Lower Hutt, near Wellington, the Dominion-Post newspaper reported. Saulbrey, who failed to hear the hapless intruder's demand for money because he was not wearing his hearing aid, then beat the burglar in a search for a more threatening weapon.
■ Bangladesh
Opposition holds strike
Opposition groups enforced an eight-hour general strike yesterday in a northeastern city to protest the bombing of a Muslim shrine complex in which three people were killed and 26 injured, police said. Residents said roads were empty of vehicles except for some rickshaws and that shops were shut as police patrolled the streets. Protesters staged marches around Sylhet city chanting, "We want punishment of the bombers of the sacred place." There were no immediate reports of violence during the strike, which began at 6am. The main opposition Awami League of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and ousted military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad's Jatiya Party faction separately called for the stoppage to protest the bombing.
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■ Israel
Syria offered peace talks
Israeli President Moshe Katsav on Tuesday offered Syria peace negotiations in "secret or public, anywhere and without pre-conditions," in an interview with Qatar's Al-Jazeera television. Katsav invited Assad on Monday to visit Jerusalem for peace talks, echoing Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat's historic mission to Israel in 1977. That paved the way for the Jewish state's first peace treaty with an Arab country two years later. Damascus dismissed Katsav's offer as "not serious."
■ United States
Troops sent to Sahara
The US is sending troops and defense contractors to the Sahara desert of west Africa to open what it calls a new front in the war on terror. A small vanguard force arrived this week in Mauritania to pave the way for a US$100 million plan to bolster the security forces and border controls of Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger. The US Pan-Sahel Initiative will provide 60 days of training to military units, including tips on desert navigation and infantry tactics, and furnish equipment such as Toyota Land Cruisers, radios and uniforms.
■ Israel
Suicide bomber kills four
A Palestinian woman suicide bomber struck at the main border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least four Israelis and wounding seven people, security sources said. The woman blew herself up in a terminal where Palestinian laborers were being put through Israeli security checks before entering a nearby industrial complex. "Glass and black smoke flew everywhere. Arabs were screaming, Jews were screaming, nobody knew what was going on," a Palestinian witness said. Israeli security sources said two Palestinians were among the wounded. It was the first Palestinian suicide attack since a Dec. 25 bombing that killed four Israelis near Tel Aviv.
■ Sweden
Minister's killer on trial
The self-confessed killer of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh went on trial yesterday for murder, where he is expected to tell the court that Jesus ordered him to do it and that he had no political motive. Mijailo Mijailovic, a 25-year-old Swede born to Serbian parents, admitted last week to fatally stabbing Lindh, one of the country's most popular politicians, at Stockholm's upmarket NK department store on Sept. 10. Given the confession and the prosecution's overwhelming evidence in the case, the court's main task will be to determine whether Mijailovic, who has a history of psychiatric illness, intended to kill Lindh. If convicted of murder, which implies intent to kill, he faces a life sentence, which in Sweden usually corresponds to around 15 years.
■ United States
Another journalism scandal
The newspaper USA Today on Tuesday went public with its own Jayson Blair-style scandal, delivering another hammer blow to the reputation of American journalism. The national newspaper printed a half-page mea culpa, admitting that its star foreign correspondent, Jack Kelley, had "repeatedly misled editors" during a seven-month internal investigation into the veracity of his work. Kelley, 43, had been with the paper since its launch in 1982 and was a Pulitzer prize finalist in 2002. He was forced to resign last week. On one occasion, the paper said, Kelley invented a witness to corroborate a story he reported from Belgrade in 1999.
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