■ China
Peacekeepers to go to Haiti
China is sending 125 riot police on a UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti, the Caribbean nation which has full diplomatic ties with Beijing's rival Taiwan, state media reported yesterday. Xinhua news agency said this will be the first time China has ever sent riot police abroad to take part in a UN peacekeeping mission. The 125 policemen and women from forces in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chonqing will leave in two groups on Sept. 12 and 27, it said. Haiti is among 27 countries resisting pressure to abandon Taiwan and to forge ties with China.
■ China
19 die in flash flooding
At least 19 people died and 21 were missing after rainstorms brought flash floods and landslides to parts of southwestern China's Sichuan province, state media said yesterday. Mountain torrents, landslides, and mud and rock flows hit Sichuan during continuous rain since Thursday, Xinhua news agency said. Total rainfall reached 25cm in 24 hours in Sichuan's Quxian county on Friday and Saturday. In the whole province, at least 19 people died, 21 were reported missing and 40 were seriously injured, the officials said. Severe summer weather has caused floods and landslides that have killed more than 800 people in China this year..
■ bangladesh
Bomb near cinema kills 2
Two people were killed and 10 wounded in a bomb blast in northeastern Sylhet town yesterday, police said. The blast occurred outside a cinema hall. Police had no immediate clue who might be involved. Doctors at Sylhet Medical College Hospital said they admitted seven blast victims, with a few in critical condition. Sylhet has been the scene of several bombings since May in which at least seven people have been killed and over 250 wounded, including British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury. US terrorism expert J. Cofer Black arrived in Dhaka yesterday to help investigate a grenade attack at an opposition rally last month that killed 19 people and wounded 150.
■ Malaysia
Anwar arrives in Germany
Former Malaysian deputy leader Anwar Ibrahim arrived in Germany yesterday for back surgery, days after being released from six years in prison. A Malaysian Airlines flight brought Ibrahim and his family to Frankfurt, his aide Azmin Ali said. Anwar is scheduled to undergo endoscopic surgery today at a private clinic for an injury he suffered partly during a police beating six years ago. At Anwar's departure, several thousand supporters brought Malaysia's main airport terminal to a standstill in a potent reminder of the charismatic sway he holds over the country. The crowds overwhelmed Kuala Lumpur airport security as they surged toward Anwar's car when he arrived.
■ Indonesia
Mutiny claims 7 Thai sailors
Myanmarese crewmen threw seven Thai sailors into the sea during a mutiny aboard an Indonesian-operated fishing vessel, the navy said yesterday. Navy personnel who boarded the Chum Pol Naval-30 south of Ambon island in eastern Indonesia found seven Thai crewmen missing, said a navy spokesman. The 26 Myanmarese crew members were questioned by the navy and told them that they had thrown seven Thai sailors, including the captain, overboard. The ship and its crew were taken to the navy base in Ambon.
■ Pakistan
Lethal home brew kills 31
A toxic batch of home-brewed alcohol has killed 31 people in several towns in central Pakistan, police and hospital officials said yesterday. Most of the deaths occurred in the city of Multan where unconscious patients were admitted to hospital early Saturday, district police chief Hamid Mukhtar Gondal said. Doctor Imran Rafiq said yesterday all 17 people brought to one Multan hospital in the past 24 hours had died within hours. "It was an extremely poisonous alcohol, which affected their lungs and kidneys," he said. Alcohol is officially banned for Muslims in Pakistan but those determined to drink can purchase locally made spirits or black-market imports.
■ United States
Diver sets scuba record
An American man beat his own record for staying underwater with scuba gear after five days in a lake -- complete with recliner, a checkerboard, music and good friends to keep him company. Then Jerry Hall cheerfully signed a pledge to his wife never to do it again. "I had the easy job," Hall said. "It was my dive team that did all the work. I kept them hopping all the time, and they never once complained. Whatever I wanted or needed, they were there for me." Hall, 39, of Bluff City, Tennessee, already is in the current edition of the Guinness World Book of Records for staying underwater with scuba gear for 71 hours, 39 minutes and 40 seconds. He surpassed that at 9:56am Wednesday and didn't leave Tennessee's Watauga Lake until Friday with a time of 120 hours, 1 minute and 25 seconds.
■ Germany
Opposition win likely
Voters went to the polls yesterday in regional elections in Saar state which are expected to result in a heavy defeat for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD). Some 818,000 electors were eligible to vote for a new state assembly in the first of four local elections in Germany this month which could see a voter backlash against the SPD amid anger over the government's welfare reforms.
■ Gaza
Militants seize office
Palestinian gunmen yesterday seized the local government offices in a southern city, demanding that the Palestinian Authority do more to assist families left homeless by an Israeli military operation last week, witnesses said. It was the latest case of violence directed toward Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which has been widely accused of corruption and ineffectiveness. About 15 gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with loose ties to Arafat's Fatah movement, seized the governor's office in Khan Younis early yesterday and expelled most of the 22 workers in the building, witnesses said.
■ Iraq
Fighting kills 2
Two Iraqis were killed and nine wounded yesterday as US troops and insurgents battled in the northern Iraqi town of Tall Afar for a second straight day. Fighting erupted after gunmen fired on a US Army convoy outside the town, 60km west of Mosul, said police lieutenant Ghaith Mohammed al-Obeidi. US soldiers and Iraqi national guardsmen then poured into Tall Afar and clashes broke out in the town center, lasting for about two hours before the US and Iraqi forces withdrew, he said, adding that US helicopters opened fire on insurgents.
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