■ India
Police protect tourist spots
Police deployed yesterday around top attractions in Indian Kashmir after an attack on a popular hotel left four people dead and raised fears for the tourist industry, which had rebounded amid a peace process. Police armed with automatic rifles patrolled the shores of Lake Dal in the summer capital, Srinagar, to protect tourists staying in houseboats set under the Himalayas. "The deployment was made overnight at all the favorite tourist spots," said Salim Beigh, the head of Kashmir's tourism department. Islamic rebels on Saturday hurled a grenade that exploded in the dining hall of the Purnima Hotel in Pahalgam, killing four Indian tourists and wounding 28 other people, according to police.
■ India
History re-examined
India's new left-leaning government said yesterday it has appointed a panel of experts to examine history textbooks which the previous administration was accused of distorting to vilify religious minorities. Three "top-level academics" will study the textbooks, said Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh, who oversees education policy. "We hope they will give us their report in 15 days," Singh said. Singh's predecessor, Murli Manohar Joshi, a hardliner in the Hindu nationalist government which lost April-May elections, began a program of rewriting history textbooks in 2001. Joshi said the revisions were needed to instil national pride and portray "equality" among religions.
■ China
Whistleblower's trip nixed
A Chinese military surgeon who petitioned the government to admit it made mistakes in crushing the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 has been refused permission to leave the country to visit his daughter, a human rights group said. Dr. Jiang Yanyong and his wife Hua Zhongwei have been forced to cancel their yearly visit to their daughter in the US, the US-based group Human Rights in China said in a statement dated Friday. The couple disappeared earlier this month, in the days leading up the 15th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and their children suspect they have been unlawfully detained, the group said.
■ China
Mine owners arrested
Chinese police have arrested two mine owners on charges of covering up a deadly accident by sending bodies for secret cremations and paying victims' families to keep quiet, the government said yesterday. The accident on June 3 in northern China's Hebei province killed at least 12 coal miners, but the mine's owners only reported one death, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The owners, Ma Xuelin and Ma Dengfeng, have been arrested on charges of being responsible for the accident, in which miners died from a build-up of poisonous gas, the agency said.
■ Australia
'Roo goes swimming
A small kangaroo jumped more than 2m over a backyard fence in suburban Sydney and landed in a swimming pool, a newspaper reported Sunday. David Punton discovered the wallaroo -- a short, stocky variety of kangaroo found in the wild across Australia -- in his pool after his two barking dogs woke him at dawn, The Sunday Telegraph said. The report didn't mention the size of the animal, but an adult wallaroo can grow up to 2m long from head to tail. The wallaroo was rescued, the newspaper reported.
■ United Kingdom
Servant says charges false
A former servant to Britain's royal family who said he witnessed heir to the throne Prince Charles engaged in a sexual act with another male staff member has admitted he made the allegation up, a report said late Saturday. George Smith, a former valet whose lurid allegations last year threatened to severely damage the British monarchy, told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that the story was a complete fabrication. He sold his story to another British newspaper last November, but a court injunction banned the British media from printing details of the allegation. This left Charles' household in the curious position of issuing a formal statement denying the incident took place, yet not being able to say what exactly was being denied.
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