■ Japan
Nuclear safety lagging
The government's Nuclear Safety Commission said yesterday that Japan is more than 10 years behind the US in disclosing risk information on nuclear safety, calling on the government to make better use of risk information to boost nuclear safety. The nuclear-safety watchdog agency said in its annual report that the more risk information was used, the greater the transparency of nuclear-safety regulations and the more effective the distribution of human and financial resources. About one-third of Japan's electricity consumption is met by nuclear power. The US launched full use of risk information following the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, while Japan adopted a basic policy of using risk information in 1992, according to the report.
■ Thailand
Bomb threat raises alert
Security forces went on heightened alert yesterday after receiving reports that militants may be planning motorcycle bomb attacks next week in Thailand's mainly Muslim south. Police in three provinces near the Malaysian border said intelligence reports pointed to possible attacks on government buildings and entertainment venues during the Songkran, or Thai New Year holiday, from April 13 to 15. Thailand's southern region has been on full alert for bombs since March 31 after armed raiders stole 1.4 tonnes of ammonium nitrate from a rock quarry company in Yala. The stolen chemical, the same material used for making the Bali bomb in 2002, was enough to build a bomb capable of blowing up a town, security officials said.
■ The Philippines
Crucifixion ritual starts
Thousands of people yesterday gathered in a northern Philippine farming village where a dozen penitents were to be nailed to wooden crosses in an annual Easter ritual re-enacting the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Local and foreign tourists mingled with devotees in Cutud village in San Fernando town, Pampanga province, 75km north of Manila, to witness the highlight of Easter celebrations in Asia's only predominantly Catholic country. The spectators lined a highway leading to Cutud as the "Kristos" carried wooden crosses on their back and made their way to a dusty hill where the crucifixions were held. The Roman Catholic Church officially frowns on the bloody rituals, but makes little effort to discourage the highly popular practice.
■ Lithuania
President impeached
Lawmakers narrowly ousted Lithuania's scandal-ridden president for abuse of office, ending the Baltic state's worst political crisis since it gained independence from Moscow. The ouster of President Rolandas Paksas in a secret ballot on Tuesday came less than three weeks before the country joins the EU on May 1. The 47-year-old former stunt pilot lost three separate votes in the 141-member parliament by closer-than-expected margins. Before they voted, Paksas asked lawmakers: "Do a few mistakes of mine justify the process of impeachment?" But all three accusations against Paksas carried: that he illegally arranged citizenship for one of his chief financial backers, Russian businessman Yuri Borisov, that he divulged state secrets and that he used his office for financial gain.
■ United Kingdom
Killer mistakenly released
A 17-year-old convicted murderer was released by mistake on Thursday while attending a Scottish court, a private prison transfer company said. James McCormick was convicted of fatally stabbing another 17-year-old boy though the heart in July in Glasgow. He had been appearing in court on an unrelated matter when he was mistakenly released. It was not immediately clear how McCormick came to be released. The Scottish Prison Service said an investigation was under way.
■ Cyprus
`First' pet cat unearthed
What may have been one of the earliest pet cats has been found in a richly furnished tomb in Cyprus, French scientists reported on Thursday. The eight-month-old kitten appears to have been deliberately buried alongside a human in a Stone Age grave 9,500 years ago, the researchers said in the journal Science. The researchers at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris say it represents the earliest example of what was likely a domesticated cat. The team unearthed a grave site in the Neolithic village of Khirokitia, and just 40cm from the curled-up human skeleton in the grave was a wildcat skeleton.
■ Germany
Lover's hoax shuts airport
A Croatian woman was convicted on Thursday of disturbing the peace for phoning a bomb threat to Dusseldorf airport to get out of a vacation with her boyfriend. The woman was given a suspended sentence after admitting that she called authorities and, in a hoax, made an al-Qaeda bomb threat because her parents disapproved of her boyfriend. "I couldn't really say to him, `Listen, my parents wouldn't approve,'" the woman, 28, identified only as Marina B., told the Dusseldorf state court. "Then I had the idea that if the trip could somehow be blocked by someone else, for example a bomb threat, then that would solve all the problems," she added.
■ United States
Briton bets all he owns
A British man who sold all his possessions, including his clothes, will stand in a rented tuxedo tomorrow and bet everything on a single spin of a Las Vegas roulette wheel. If he wins, he doubles his money. If he loses, he will be left with only the TV crew documenting his every move. Ashley Revell, a 32-year-old Londoner, said he was worth about ?100,000 (US$138,000) after he sold everything in March. "I thought I was worth at least ?100,000," he said in a telephone interview from Las Vegas, where he is putting in a week gambling about US$3,000 in a bid to raise his pot. By Wednesday, he was down US$1,000.
■ Russia
Nuclear threat to sea
Russia's Okhotsky Sea is in imminent danger of a nuclear disaster from two sunken power units, local lawmakers warned Friday. The 2.5-tonne IEU-1 units were lost in the Pacific Ocean's Okhotsky Sea in 1987 and 1997 due to emergencies during their transportation by helicopters, lawmakers told reporters. One unit now rests off Sakhalin island's eastern Nizky cape, while another lies only 300m away from the island's northern Maria cape. "In case their shell is destroyed by seawater, the released strontium-90 would contaminate all regions near the Okhotsky Sea," and the fish harvested here by fishing crews from many countries, the regional parliament's deputy Viktor Sereda said. "All of Russia's Far East would be in danger due to migration of sea animals," Sereda added.
■ Nigeria
Church-burnings stall talks
Christian leaders in northern Nigeria said Thursday they were abandoning peace talks with Muslims following a series of church burnings and other attacks in the heavily Islamic north. Saidu Dogo, an official of the Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella body representing Nigeria's 60 million Christians, claimed that religious violence had killed more than 1,000 Christians and animists in the northern states of Plateau, Kaduna and Jigawa since Jan. 1. The violence has entailed persistent back-and-forth Christian-Muslim attacks in the north, as rival mobs attack communities _ burning homes, razing places of worship, and killing people. Police have refused to release an overall death toll in the latest northern violence. Authorities in Nigeria customarily play down Muslim-Christian violence in a bid to ease tensions.
■ United Kingdom
Jagger eyes famed pub
A Welsh pub once frequented by famously heavy-drinking Welsh poet Dylan Thomas might be bought up by a more modern hellraiser, Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, a report said yesterday. Brown's Hotel in Laugharne -- reputedly the place where Thomas gained the inspiration for his most famous work, the play for voices Under Milk Wood -- is up for sale later this month. According to the Independent newspaper, the estate agent handling the sale has confirmed that a series of celebrities, including Jagger, have expressed interest in the building. The hotel remains largely as it did when the poet -- who drank himself to death in 1953 -- frequented it, with his favorite table and chair still in the same place.
■ Australia
Botox helps incontinence
It has been blamed for everything from food poisoning to John Kerry's wrinkle-free face, but Australian researchers say botox could now be a cure for incontinence. A three-year study at Queensland's James Cook University found the toxin could reduce the bladder activity of test patients fivefold. Three women with multiple sclerosis and overactive bladder condition (OAB) had botox injections every eight to 12 weeks to reduce the activity of the detrusor muscle. This normally forces out urine only when the bladder is full, but becomes overactive in people suffering from OAB. "They became totally continent. They have tremendous improvement in their quality of life and only go to the toilet five or six times a day," said Ajay Rane, obstetrics and gynaecology professor at James Cook University.
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
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing