■ Philippines
Guerillas kill vice mayor
Communist rebels killed a town's vice mayor and wounded a mayor in separate attacks yesterday, just weeks before fresh peace talks aimed at ending the 35-year-old Marxist insurgency, police said. New People's Army guerillas shot dead Eduardo Durante, the vice mayor of Burdeos in Quezon province, as he waited for a ferry at dawn on nearby Polilio island. Hours later, about 50 guerrillas attacked Mayor Armando Guerrero of Gigmoto in Catanduanes Province at his home, wounding him, a police officer and a driver, police said. Fifty guerrillas were seen nearby, apparently to ambush reinforcements, but they withdrew after a 30-minute gun battle, police said.
■ Philippines
Arroyo loves death penalty
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said yesterday her decision not to stay the executions of two convicted kidnappers scheduled for later in the month was "an act of love." Arroyo, a devout Catholic who earlier professed opposition to the death penalty, lifted last month a four-year moratorium on judicial executions following an upsurge in heinous crimes, particularly kidnapping and drug trafficking. She stressed that the upsurge in crimes, especially kidnappings, has scared off potential investors denying employment to millions of jobless Filipinos. "This [execution] is an act of love to those who are still looking for jobs," she said.
■ China
Kidnapped kids freed
Police in southwest China have cracked a gang suspected of being behind a wave of child kidnappings, reuniting 63 boys with their parents after weeks or months of separation, state media said yesterday. Four gang leaders have been apprehended in the city of Kunming as well as 47 others suspected of trafficking the children, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. The children -- all boys who are much in demand among childless Chinese couples -- were sold as far away as Fujian Province, the paper said. The children, who ranged in age from five months to 13 years, changed hands several times.
■ India
Drunken elephants killed
Four wild elephants who ran amok after getting drunk on rice beer were electrocuted in India's northeastern state of Meghalaya when they brought down power lines, an official said yesterday. The herd went on the rampage on Sunday night after storming into villages and drinking from open casks of beer in a remote area in Meghalaya's West Garo Hills district. "The elephants after getting high on rice beer, went berserk and started dashing against an electric pole," the forest official said. "A live high-tension wire fell on the herd, leading to the deaths of four elephants instantly," he said.
■ Australia
PM hits out at PC schools
Prime Minister John Howard faced a furious backlash yesterday after claiming parents were pulling their children out of state-funded schools because the schools were "politically correct" and not teaching true Australian values. Howard told The Age daily that many parents were switching to private schools because "they feel that government schools have become too politically correct and too values-neutral." He said public schools had become "antiseptic," claiming that some had banned Christian plays like the nativity scene depicting Jesus' birth for fear of offending religious groups.
■ Israel
Troops arrest 34
Israeli troops operating in the West Bank arrested 34 wanted Palestinians overnight, a military spokesman said. He said 24 Palestinians, all of them either members of the radical Hamas movement or Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah, were arrested in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Another seven, all of whom belonged to the radical Islamic Jihad group, were picked up near the southern town of Bethlehem. Two more Fatah militants were arrested in the northern city of Nablus and another in the Jenin area, also in the north.
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