■ Sri LankaThree dead in-fighting
A camp held by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels was overrun by a breakaway faction, sparking a gunbattle that left at least three guerrillas dead and five wounded, military officials said yesterday. About 15 Tamil Tigers were at the camp in rebel-held Pillumalai village, 220km east of Colombo, when it was attacked late Tuesday by a faction that broke away in March, an official said on condition of anonymity. Three rebels from the main rebel group were killed and five wounded, two of them seriously.
■ Philippines
Guerrillas turn themselves in
Ninety guerrillas from the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have surrendered to the army in the southern Philippines before peace negotiations, the military said yesterday. The rebels turned themselves in on Monday and handed over a cache of weapons to the 602nd Infantry Brigade in the town of Carmen in the main southern island of Mindanao, the military said in a statement. "The rebels are presently undergoing custodial debriefing," it said. The MILF has been waging a rebellion for an Islamic state since 1978, when it broke off from the larger Moro National Liberation Front .
■ Singapore
Baby incentives lauded
The Singapore government is encouraged by the public's response to a multimillion-dollar package aimed at easing the country's shortage of babies, a statement said yesterday. Singaporeans have made more than 11,000 calls to a hotline to get more details about financial and other incentives contained in a S$300 million package announced Aug. 25. Public feedback "has been very positive on the whole, with many Singaporeans expressing strong support for the measures," the official Steering Group on Population said. A parenthood website registered almost 80,000 hits in the nine days since the new package was launched. Lifting Singapore's fertility rate has become an urgent national priority after it fell to an all-time low of 1.26 children per woman last year.
■ Japan
Fischer's deportation barred
A Japanese court granted an injunction yesterday barring the deportation of former chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted in the US for breaking sanctions, until it rules on his lawsuit seeking to cancel the deportation order entirely, Fischer's lawyer Masako Suzuki said. Fischer is wanted by Washington for breaking sanctions by playing a chess match in Yugoslavia in 1992. He has been in detention in Japan since July when he was stopped at an airport for traveling on a passport US officials had said was invalid. Japanese authorities ordered his deportation late last month, but his lawyers immediately appealed, filing with the Tokyo District Court for cancellation of the order. The lawyers had also asked the court to suspend the deportation until it decided whether to cancel the order.
■ Thailand
Movie poster strikes nerve
Thailand's Buddhist leaders have strongly denounced a US film producer, whose movie promotional poster shows him sitting on the head of a Buddha statue, officials said yesterday. The Bureau of National Buddhism said the poster of the film Hollywood Buddha, which opens Sept. 24 in the US, was deeply offensive to Thais and demanded it be changed. The bureau sent a protest letter to the Thai foreign ministry and demanded US authorities and religious organizations order the posters to be removed.
RSS