■ AfghanistanChildren killed in explosion
At least seven children were killed and several injured in an explosion near a school in the southern Afghan province of Paktia, the Afghan Islamic Press agency said on Sunday. While the cause of Saturday's blast is still unknown, Taliban insurgents are fighting US-led troops and the Afghan National Army in Paktia and its neighboring provinces along the border with Pakistan. Lieutenant Colonel Sue Meisner, of the US military's press center in Kabul, said there were conflicting reports on the number of casualties. An initial report issued by the US military said 30 children and two adults were wounded, but Meisner said it now appeared some people were killed.
■ Japan
Ex-LDP leader arrested
A former treasurer of the Japanese ruling party's largest faction was arrested Sunday, media reports said, in a widening political donations scandal that forced ex-Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto to quit as the faction's head last month. Japanese media have reported that Hashimoto personally received a 100 million yen (US$909,000) check shortly before parliamentary elections in July 2001 from the then-head of the national dental association, but did not declare it as a political donation. On Sunday, prosecutors took into custody Toshiyuki Takigawa, 55, for his alleged involvement in the scandal, public broadcaster NHK reported.
■ Australia
Actor brawls with bodyguard
Gladiator star Russell Crowe on Sunday took the blame for his latest battle -- a fight with his own bodyguard -- saying it was sparked by a misunderstanding at a party for the cast and crew of a movie he was shooting. The Oscar-winning actor made headlines in Australia recently by scuffling with Mark "Spud" Carroll, a former rugby league star who now is his bodyguard, in Toronto where Crowe is shooting his latest movie, The Cinderella Man. Reports said New Zealand-born Crowe, who engaged in highly publicized brawls before he got married last year, even chomped on Carroll's ear during the fight.
■ Japan
Typhoon strikes islands
A powerful typhoon struck Japan yesterday, unleashing torrential rain, strong wind and high tides that pum-meled the southern islands of the archipelago. Chaba, one of this year's strongest, had sustained winds of 162kph, and was churning over the tiny southern islands of Amami Oshima and Tanegashima in Kagoshima prefecture, the Meteorological Agency said. The typhoon -- traveling slowly northwest at 15kph -- was expected to reach the southern-most main island of Kyushu later yesterday. The agency predicted it would churn along the length of Japan over the next three days.
■ Macau
Pro-Beijing chief re-elected
Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau-wah vowed on Sunday to raise the quality of life in the enclave after being elected for a second five-year term. Ho obtained 296 of the 299 votes cast in a secret ballot. One of the electors was absent while three others returned blank ballots. Macau's pro-democracy movement, which holds two of the local legislature's 27 seats, chose not to participate in the election, arguing that the process was "too conserva-tive and oligarchic."
■ FranceLeaders meet on kidnapping
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin called a meeting with three top ministers yesterday to discuss the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq. After the ministerial parley, Raffarin was to attend a meeting of the French Committee of the Muslim Faith. The government was anxious to obtain the release of the journalists taken hostage by Islamic militants demanding the rescinding of a ban on the Islamic headscarf in French schools. The kidnappers from the Islamic Army in Iraq, the same group which killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni after taking him hostage, gave Paris a 48-hour ultimatum on Saturday to meet its demands, Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television said.
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