■ North Korea
US accused of spy flights
North Korea accused the US yesterday of sending 180 aerial spy missions over the country last month in preparation for "a surprise attack," official media said. US spy planes including U-2s, RC-135s, E-3s and EP-3s flew the missions, the Korean Central News Agency said, quoting military sources. The agency said the US reconnaissance flights "indicate that the US is always watching for a chance to make a surprise attack on [North Korea]." The US military authorities in South Korea have customarily declined to comment on North Korean claims of aerial espionage.
■ Indonesia
Quake hits
An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale shook eastern Indonesia yesterday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, officials said. An official at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in Manado in North Sulawesi province said the quake struck shortly after dawn with its epicenter in the ocean, 114km north of the coastal city. "We have not yet heard if there were any casualties or damage," the official said from Manado, 2,200km northeast of Jakarta. Officials said the quake was felt in Manado. Earthquakes often occur in Indonesia, where plate boundaries intersect and volcanoes regularly erupt.
■ New Zealand
Law bans mercenaries
New Zealand's parliament passed a law yesterday making it illegal for its citizens to become mercenaries. The law also makes it illegal to recruit, use, finance or train mercenaries, or for mercenary groups to use the country as a safe haven. Justice Minister Phil Goff said the measure, which comes into force in a few weeks, means that New Zealanders could be prosecuted here for any mercenary acts committed overseas. Offenders will face up to 14 years in prison. The law will enable New Zealand to accede to an international convention which has been in force since 2001.
■ China
Party hack freezes loot
Some hide it under their mattresses. But a senior Communist Party official in China used his fridge to freeze cash assets from millions of yuan in alleged bribe-taking before being busted by authorities. Xu Guojian, head of the party's organization department in eastern Jiangsu province, a post that put him in charge of appointments, allegedly took the money from officials seeking jobs and promotions. Investigators found 15 million yuan (US$1.8 million) in cash at his home, including stacks of bills that were hidden in his "enormous imported refrigerator," the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. It said that money was part of 100 million yuan Xu was suspected of taking from lower-ranking officials.
■ Australia
Thief programmed to fail
A novice thief entered his father's address into the global positioning system of a luxury BMW sedan he stole and then dumped after using it as a getaway car in a bank hold-up, a court in Australia was told yesterday. Sydney university student George Youssef, 21, pleaded guilty in a Brisbane court to a range of charges stemming from the incident in February last year. Youssef used a plastic pistol to carjack the BMW and then proceeded to hold up a bank, before dumping the car at a school. He gave himself up a few days later, having spent the A$10,000 (US$7,000) he stole at a casino.
■ Sierra Leone
Hezbollah exploiting traders
Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla movement is systematically siphoning profits from West Africa's multimillion-dollar diamond trade, in part by threatening the Lebanese merchants who long have handled much of the region's diamond business, US diplomats in West Africa charge. They claim Hezbollah profiteering from West Africa's diamond trade is more pervasive, organized and coercive than most US officials have previously acknowledged. "There's a lot of social pressure and extortionate pressure brought to bear: `You had better support our cause, or we'll visit your people back home,'" said Larry Andre, deputy chief of mission for the US Embassy in Sierra Leone.
■ Afghanistan
Death for minister's murder
An judge said yesterday that the getaway driver in the 2002 assassination of Afghan vice-president Haji Qadir has been sentenced to death and accused a rival warlord of orchestrating the shooting. Naqibullah, aged about 42, appealed Monday's ruling by a lower court in Kabul, said Fazel Ahmad Manawi, deputy supreme court justice. Qadir, who was also public works minister, was killed on July 6, 2002, when gunmen riddled his vehicle with bullets. Naqibullah, who goes by one name, drove the taxi from which two gunmen opened fire on Qadir and then sped from the scene.
■ Austria
Church selling confessional
Repenting sinners may find relief in an item being auctioned on the Internet by a Vienna church -- a cherry-wood confessional. The confessional is available to the highest bidder on eBay, the Internet auction service. "We thought we could try that before throwing it away," said Johann Ladstaetter, a member of the council of the Roman Catholic church in the suburban Penzing district. The small church has another confessional in use. The one on sale had been gathering dust for years in a storage room. Bids started at US$1.20 after the auction opened on Saturday, but on Wednesday the highest bid had risen to US$423.
■ India
Man makes tiny constitution
A villager in the Indian Himalayas has sought recognition from US President George W. Bush after copying by hand the US Constitution in a book only 2cm long. A.B. Rajbansh, an engineer in Ansoli village in Himachal Pradesh state, has a hobby of making miniatures of major works, and previously penned down the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad Gita. The 43-year-old said it took him 196 hours and 25 minutes to write down the US Constitution in the 124-page book that weighs 2.17g. The United News of India agency said Rajbansh has written to Bush, Indian President Abdul Kalam and the Guinness Book of World Records seeking recognition of his latest feat.
■ Germany
Tanker salvage under way
Work to salvage a tanker which capsized with a cargo of sulphuric acid began yesterday in the port of Hamburg, with authorities evacuating people in a 1km radius around the site as a safety precaution. City officials and members of the company involved got together to discuss the next moves in salvaging the ENA 2, which capsized with 500,000 liters of sulphuric acid after colliding with a container ship. Police meanwhile said blood tests proved the captain had been drunk at the time of the collision on Monday.
■ United States
Boy Scouts sued over fire
The US government and Utah are suing the Boy Scouts for almost US$14m damages for a troop's failure to put out a campfire. The mistake, the suit alleges, began a fire which spread across more than 5,600 hectares of forest in Utah, forced the evacuation of camp sites and holiday homes, and took more than 1,100 firefighters to bring under control. It says that 20 scouts aged between 11 and 14 were left under the supervision of two 15-year-olds in a forested area of the Uinta Mountains in June 2002 to earn survival badges.
■ Afghanistan
Taliban ambush goes awry
Four suspected Taliban insurgents were killed after they attacked a unit of Afghan commandos in southeastern Zabul province, a senior official said yesterday. Another six Taliban suspects were captured and an Afghan soldier was injured in the attack Wednesday, General Abdul Wasay told reporters. The Afghan commandos were carrying out an operation in a northern district of Zabul, some 300km south of Kabul, when they were ambushed by suspected Taliban guerrillas, Wasay said. "Our commandos were ambushed by Taliban in Arghandab district of Zabul province," he said. "Fortunately we didn't have anyone killed but instead four Taliban were killed in their own ambush."
■ Iraq
Insurgency `may never end'
American commanders will risk launching high-profile military actions at targets in Iraq even if they go directly against the wishes of the new Iraqi government, a senior US general said Wednesday. Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, the second most senior American officer in Iraq and the force's tactical operations commander, said the US military was prepared to risk provoking "friction" with the new government in strikes against "professional terrorists." He acknowledged that the Iraqi security forces, still under-equipped and undertrained 15 months after the war, were a long way from taking charge of policing their country. It would be autumn before they would be able to provide security in most areas of Iraq. He acknowledged that the violent insurgency was never likely to end, although he believed Iraqis would eventually be able to fight it alone.
■ United States
Whitehouse to focus on porn
The Whitehouse.com pornography Web site, which poked fun at its government namesake with parody sections about first ladies and interns, has been stripped of all political references. Its owner, Dan Parisi of New York, agreed to the changes to comply with a recent ruling by the US Patent and Trademark Office granting his Web site a potential trademark for "Whitehouse" -- but only if he took steps to make sure visitors to his pornography site don't believe it was associated with the president's site.
■ Iran
Uranium bill on the table
Iran's new conservative parliament is considering a bill that would force the Islamic regime to resume uranium enrichment, a senior deputy said yesterday. The bill would scrap a deal signed here last October with Britain, France and Germany under which Iran agreed to make several "confidence-building" gestures to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). After being slapped with criticism from the IAEA last month, Iran has already announced it will resume making centrifuges, sparking fresh alarm at the IAEA. Some conservative MPs have gone as far as calling for a pull-out from the nuclear NPT.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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