■ India
First execution for 9 years
A man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl was hanged at dawn Saturday in India's first execution in nine years, as dozens of anti-death penalty protesters held a vigil outside the prison. Dhananjay Chatterjee, 39, was executed in the courtyard of Alipora Correctional Home, where he has spent the last 13 years in solitary confinement. Chatterjee was convicted of raping and suffocating Hetal Parekh, 14, who lived in a Calcutta apartment building where he worked as a security guard. He was arrested in 1990 and transferred to solitary confinement on Death Row after his conviction in 1991.
■ Thailand
Hidden apes found
Thai police have found dozens of rare orangutans that a scandal-hit private zoo claimed had been cremated after dying from pneumonia, according to reports yesterday. The 36 animals were found alive in small cages at Bangkok's Safari World during a police probe into claims they had been smuggled from Borneo or the Indonesian island of Sumatra for staged kick-boxing bouts at the zoo. The fights -- which saw the animals dressed in boxing gloves and Thai boxing shorts -- have been stopped and zoo owner Pin Kiewkacha has been charged for illegally importing the animals. A police swoop last week uncovered only 69 of the 110 suspected smuggled animals. Zoo officials claimed the 41 missing animals were cremated after they died of pneumonia but Pin later led police to 36 orangutans kept at a special quarantine section at the zoo.
■ Hong Kong
Tea-time shocker
Two knife-wielding men chopped off an insurance agent's right hand in front of other diners in a Hong Kong restaurant, police and newspapers said yesterday. The man was having afternoon tea with a female friend on Friday when two men in their 30s, wearing surgical masks, calmly walked up to him and one of them chopped off his hand with a large knife, said police spokeswoman Suzanne Lee. Local newspapers identified the victim as insurance agent Lee Kwok-sum, and said more than 20 stunned diners and employees fled the restaurant at the time of the attack. Lee remained hospitalized in serious condition yesterday. The two attackers later escaped in a car, Lee said. Police were still investigating possible motives, but the mass-circulation tabloid Oriental Daily News, reported on its front page that the attack was suspected to have been carried out by triad gang members after Lee offended the gang's crime boss by courting his girlfriend.
■ Australia
Cheater comes clean
A family-values campaigner in Australia's ruling conservative coalition shocked parliamentary colleagues Saturday by wondering aloud why cheating on his wife hadn't already ended his 10- year marriage. The Liberal Party's Ross Cameron, a parliamentary secretary, urged voters to pass judgement on him at an election Prime Minister John Howard is expected to call in a few weeks. "If my constituents want to vote for a great family man, they should probably vote for the other guy," Cameron said. "I feel in my case I ought to specifically disabuse people of a perception that I'm as good as my family photo looks. ... My wife has had some pretty good reasons to walk away and it's frankly pretty amazing that she hasn't already," the 39-year-old said.
■ Burundi
153 refugees slain in camp
Armed attackers killed at least 153 people on Friday night in a UNHCR refugee camp for Tutsi Congolese refugees in western Burundi, the army said yesterday. Gatumba camp is near Uvira in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and shelters between 2,500 and 3,000 mostly Tutsi Congolese refugees. "Armed men coming from the east of (Congo) on Friday night attacked the refugee camp of Banyamulenge in Gatumba. We have a temporary toll of 153 refugees killed. Refugees' houses were also burnt," army spokesman Adolphe Manirakiza told
■ Spain
ETA back in bomb business
The Interior Ministry said Friday that four bombings in northern Spain in the last week showed that ETA, the Basque separatist group, had resumed attacks after keeping a low profile since the March 11 terror attacks here. Antonio Camacho, the ministry's secretary for state security, said Friday that the bombings had dashed hopes that ETA would turn away from violence after the March bombings, which killed 191 people. Two bombs exploded on Thursday in Santander and Gijon, injuring one person, an Interior Ministry official said. Camacho said the attackers appeared to be the same as those who carried out two bombings last Saturday. ETA claimed responsibility for those attacks, the official said.
■ United Kingdom
Burglar in police ranks
London's Metropolitan Police have for three years employed a serial burglar as a police constable, after the man simply lied about his past, the Daily Telegraph reported on Friday. The 34-year-old officer, who was patrolling the streets of Belgravia, one of the British capital's most exclusive areas, has been suspended while investigations continue. Senior officers at Scotland Yard were reported to be embarrassed at the security lapse. A senior police officer said: "He has form as long as your arm with some fairly serious convictions. There are big questions being asked about who did which checks, if anyone did them at all."
■ France
Pontiff appears at Lourdes
Frail Pope John Paul was to join fellow sufferers at the Roman Catholic "miracle shrine" of Lourdes yesterday for a pilgrimage to honor the Virgin Mary and preach the message of world peace. The pontiff, 84, whose Parkinson's disease and arthritis have made him weaker than many ailing pilgrims, has no plans to pray for one of the miracles that have made this town famous, his aides say. About 2,700 police were on hand for the visit, backed up by helicopters and a battery of anti-aircraft missiles.
■ Ireland
Atlantis theory advanced
A geographer has claimed that Atlantis, first described by the Greek philosopher Plato as sinking under a tidal wave 12,000 years ago, was actually Ireland. Ulf Erlingsson, from Uppsala University in Sweden, arrived in Ireland this week to face a tidal wave of criticism from local academics who said his theory was bizarre. "I expect to have my knockers," said Erlingsson. "But we must assume that I am right until others can prove I am wrong." In a book to be published next month, Erlingsson claims Plato's descriptions of Atlantis match Ireland exactly.
■ United States
Aide accuses NJ governor
A day after New Jersey Governor James McGreevey said he would resign over a homosexual affair, the state's former top Homeland Security official accused him on Friday of sexually harassing him and trying to buy his silence. "While employed by one of the most powerful politicians in the country, New Jersey Governor McGreevey, I was a victim of repeated sexual advances by him," former aide Golan Cipel said in a statement. "I was a victim whose oppressor ... made sure to let me know my future was in his hands," it said. A spokesman for McGreevey said: "These are completely and totally false allegations from a person trying to exploit his relationship with the governor."
■ United States
Limbless passenger sues
A woman sued Air France in federal court on Friday, saying an employee told her she could not board a flight because she had no limbs. Adele Price, 42, who was born with birth defects caused by the leprosy-treatment drug thalidomide, said at a news conference the employee told her that "one head, one bottom and one torso cannot and will not be allowed to fly on Air France" without help. Price claims she suffered emotional and psychological damage and endured large expenses to complete a trip from Manchester in England to New York on Aug. 19, 2000.
■ United States
Star's son's mom eyes cash
The mother of late musician Ray Charles's 16-year-old son has asked a court to increase child support for the teenager from US$3,000 a month to at least US$60,000. Mary Anne den Bok filed a petition last Tuesday in which she says additional money from Charles' estate would provide Corey Robinson den Bok with "the lifestyle he enjoyed" before his father's death on June 10. Her petition seeks a minimum figure of $60,000 a month but suggests the appropriate support should be $240,800 per month. The famed singer and musician left 12 children and, according to the petition, a US$100 million estate.
■ United States
Pakistani suspect deported
A Pakistani immigrant detained on suspicion of terrorism in the fall of 2001 after he took a photograph near a water-treatment plant near Hudson, New York, has been deported, officials said on Friday. Ansar Mahmood, 27, was escorted on Thursday from the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York, to Kennedy International Airport, where he was put on a flight to Pakistan, officials said. Mahmood's deportation ended a three-year legal battle during which he gained the support of peace advocates and several US senators who said he had been the victim of unnecessarily rigid immigration laws.
■ United States
Journalist hit with subpoena
A journalist from the New York Times has been drawn into an official inquiry set up to establish the source of an illegal leak from the White House, raising fears that the investigation is becoming an attack on the right of reporters to protect their sources. Judith Miller has received a grand jury subpoena, joining other journalists facing the threat of jail in a politically sensitive investigation into the leaking of an undercover CIA operative's name to a columnist in July last year. This week, Matthew Cooper, a journalist for Time magazine, was found in contempt of court and ordered to be jailed and fined US$1,000 a day until he agrees to testify to the investigation, though a judge suspended the sentenced.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not