■ Thailand
Treason charged
A ruling party lawmaker surrendered to police yesterday to face treason charges in connection with a deadly raid on a military arsenal in January that marked a resurgence of separatist violence in Thailand's Muslim south. The charges against Muslim lawmaker Najamudeen Umar, which he denies, have deeply embarrassed the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin has not defended the lawmaker. Najamudeen went by car yesterday to a Bangkok police facility along with four parliamentary colleagues from his Thai Rak Thai party and presented himself for arrest to the deputy national police chief, Lieutenant General Kovit Wattana.
■ Nepal
Deuba seeks alliances
A new prime minister was sworn in and began wooing political parties yesterday to form a multi-party government. Sher Bahadur Deuba, fired by King Gyanendra two years ago, was reappointed Wednesday as Nepal's 14th prime minister in as many years, replacing royalist Surya Bahadur Thapa, who quit last month after weeks of protests. Homnath Dahal, a spokesman for Deuba's Nepali Congress (Democratic) party, said the new leader wanted to "bring the Maoists into the political mainstream." Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepali Congress Party chief, said: "Deuba must revive the dissolved parliament to get our support."
■ Vietnam
Crime boss executed
Vietnam executed notorious crime boss Nam Cam by firing squad yesterday after convicting him last year in a major crackdown on his empire of vice, bribery and murder that tainted the ruling Communist Party. Truong Van Cam, known as Nam Cam, was shot at dawn yesterday along with four other convicted members of his gang at the Long Binh firing range in Ho Chi Minh City, a city court official said on condition of anonymity. Nam Cam's nephew Nguyen Huu Thinh and three others -- Nguyen Viet Hung, Chau Phat Lai Em and Pham Van Minh -- were also executed.
■ Afghanistan
Taliban claims killings
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for killing three foreign aid workers and two Afghans in northwestern Afghanistan, the deadliest assault on international relief agencies since the radical Islamic militia was ousted from power in late 2001. The foreigners were hired by the Dutch office of the medical relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres and were identified as a Dutch man, a Norwegian man and a Belgian woman, spokesperson Marjon van der Pas said in Amsterdam. The dead Afghans were their translator and driver.
■ Hong Kong
Tycoon's child makes a fuss
Accused of crashing her Porsche then leaving the scene, Hong Kong gambling tycoon Stanley Ho's (何鴻燊) eldest daughter created another scene in court by interrupting the judge to ask for a delay, a prosecutor said yesterday. Ho Chiu-ying pleaded innocent on Wednesday to charges of careless driving and failing to notify police immediately about the wreck in October, but she started complaining out loud before her hearing began, government lawyer Albert Luk said. The 56-year-old woman, also known as Jane Ho, interrupted Magistrate Bina Chainrai during another case, saying she paid heavy taxes to Hong Kong and asking Chainrai to delay her appearance because she felt dizzy, the Ming Pao daily reported.
■ Venezuela
Agents found in vote vault
Two election council directors gave conflicting accounts about the presence of at least 10 federal agents in a vault where petitions for a recall vote against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were being stored. Sobella Mejias, a director consid-ered to be sympathetic to the opposition, said on Wednesday that at least 10 federal agents were found sifting through voter registries in the council's headquarters in Caracas. National Guard troops detained the men. However, Jorge Rodriguez, a director whom opposition leaders label as government-friendly, said the agents were investigating allegations that ID cards belonging to dead people had been used to verify signatures on petitions.
■ Zimbabwe
New controls for e-mail
President Robert Mugabe was accused on Wednesday of attempting to censor Zimbabwe's e-mail traffic after his government ordered service providers to stop any correspondence that the regime deemed "malicious." A new contract that must be signed for the companies to have access to telephone lines, states that the "use of the network for anti-national activities" will be regarded as "an offence punishable under Zimbabwe law." The service providers have been told to report the senders of offensive messages to the govern-ment. The firms regard this as an impossible task.
■ United Nations
Liberia force in place
The largest UN peace-keeping mission is nearing its full strength of 15,000 members in Liberia, but a fragile security is threat-ened by thousands of fighters who have not disarmed, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. His report said only 30,975 combatants have been disarmed, or 58 percent of the anticipated number, since December 2003. Annan appealed for support of the peace process, saying only about 30 percent of the $137 million requested this year for non-food human-itarian relief had been received, as had only $70 million of the $520 million pledged for reconstruction.
■ South Africa
Broke Aristide is `a guest'
Deposed Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide will stay in South Africa as a government guest because he left his homeland with nothing, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said on Wednesday. Aristide was given a red-carpet welcome on Monday amid protests that taxpayers should not be bankrolling his exile. "He is not a prisoner, he is not under house arrest, he is a free person and will remain so," Dlamini Zuma said in Pretoria. "He left without anything and ... if you under-stand that, then you under-stand that he is our guest."
■ United Nations
Turkish Cypriots praised
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday urged the world to stop isolating Turkish Cypriots as a reward for their support for a UN plan to reunify the island. Annan praised the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey for having supported it and accused Cyprus President Tassos Papado-poulos of having distorted it to bring about its defeat. Annan sought to renew for another six months the mandate of the 40-year-old UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus, which is set to expire in mid-June. The UN peacekeepers monitor a buffer zone between the Turkish Cypriot north and the Greek Cypriot south.
■ United States
Killer on trial after 22 years
A serial killer who has admitted slaying 13 women has been ordered to stand trial for murder in a case that could keep him from being set free in two years. Coral Eugene Watts, 50, confessed in 1982 to killing 12 women in Texas and one in Michigan, and is suspected in at least 26 other slayings. But under Wednesday's order, this is the first time he has been charged with murder because of a controversial plea bargain deal after he was arrested in 1982 for breaking into a Houston apartment and trying to drown a woman. Lacking evidence, authorities allowed Watts to plead guilty to burglary with intent to murder in exchange for confessions to the murders.
■ Mozambique
Africa has half world's poor
A report released on Wednesday by the World Economic Forum called Africa's stagnating growth the worst economic tragedy of the 20th century. According to the report, in 1970 Africa accounted for one in 10 of the world's poor, but by 2000 nearly half the world's poor were African. Economic growth has been so dismal that most sub-Saharan countries are worse off than they were at independence. The report linked the problem to military conflicts, corruption, absence of the rule of law, undisciplined fiscal policies, poor infrastructure and low investment.
■ Bosnia
Prosecutor visits Srebrenica
Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte on Wednesday paid an emotional visit to a memorial near Srebrenica, the site of Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. Del Ponte met with some 50 women from Srebrenica who survived the July 1995 massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces who overran the UN safe area at the time. She joined them in a visit to the graves of nearly 1,000 identified victims at the memorial cemetery in Potocari, just outside Srebrenica. As Del Ponte walked through the cemetery some of the women shouted: "Arrest them Carla."
■ United States
Ladies' nights ruled illegal
New Jersey's top civil rights official has ruled that taverns cannot offer discounts to women on ``ladies' nights,'' agreeing with a man who claimed such promotions discriminated against men. J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, director of the state Division on Civil Rights, rejected arguments by a nightclub that ladies' nights were a legitimate promotion. Commercial interests do not override the ``important social policy objective of eradicating discrimination,'' he ruled. The ruling carries the force of a court decision and applies throughout the state.
■ United States
T-shirt gay jibe ends in court
A school district was accused on Wednesday of violating the civil rights of a student who was suspended for wearing a T-shirt saying "Homosexuality is Shameful." The federal lawsuit against Poway Unified School District claims Tyler Chase Harper, 16, was suspended for expressing his religious beliefs during the "Day of Silence" on April 21. During the national event, high school and college students were urged to remain silent to show support for homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender students. "When are public school officials going to learn they are not allowed to silence constitutionally protected student speech just because they disagree with the student?" said Robert Tyler, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund.
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