■ Malaysia
Entire state quarantined
Malaysia has declared an entire state to be under quarantine following the spread of the deadly bird flu virus at alarming rates, officials said yesterday. The quarantine, which is expected to last for 19 days, bans the movement of all poultry and birds across the borders of the northeastern Kelantan state, said Agriculture Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. Fears that the deadly avian influenza was spreading outside isolated quarantine areas in the state were sparked when three new outbreaks were detected over the weekend. One of the areas was located outside the quarantine zone of the first village hit by the virus.
■ Japan
Police pursue al-Qaeda links
A Bosnian man convicted on terrorism-related charges lived briefly in Japan between 1999 and 2000 with a Frenchman who had suspected links to al-Qaeda, police said yesterday. The discovery is the second time this year that Japanese authorities have found indications of suspected terrorists infiltrating Japan in recent years. The man, whom officials refused to identify, lived in Japan for 10 months before being expelled for overstaying his visa in Feb. 2000, a National Police Agency spokesman said on condition of anonymity.
■ Nepal
Firms reopen after threat
Nepal's top firms re-opened for business yesterday, some for the first time in more than a month, after a trade union linked to Maoist rebels withdrew threats against them. The All Nepal Federation of Trade Unions had demanded that 12 of the country's leading firms close down last month, accusing them of unfair labor practices, a threat that was extended to another 35 firms last week. The trade union withdrew the threat against the firms late on Wednesday after the government agreed to free two of its jailed leaders and provide information about 22 others it says are missing, a mediator said.
■ Hong Kong
Mercy killer gets two years
The Hong Kong son who admitted pushing his wheelchair-bound father into the sea to end his suffering was sentenced yesterday to two years in jail for manslaughter. Judge Clare-Marie Beeson said euthanasia was not acceptable and the courts had a duty to protect the elderly and feeble. Yam Yuen-ming, 47, took his 84-year-old father Yam Wong out of the elderly home where he was living last September and pushed him off a pier on the busy Victoria Harbor waterfront in Tsim Sha Shui. Before pushing him in, he strapped him down and used plastic cuffs and ribbons to tie his arms and legs to keep him in the wheelchair underwater.
■ China
Cat man's house raided
A thriving "rent-a-tiger" business has come to an abrupt end in China after officials raided a private home and discovered that the owner had secretly reared seven of them, state media said yesterday. Bo Baokun, a resident of a village near the northeastern city of Shenyang, bought two tigers in 1993 and soon saw his sharp-toothed pets multiply as the young couple had five cubs, the Beijing Morning Post reported. He rented out several of the tigers to local safari parks, but eventually allowed two of the tigers to return to live in metal cages at his home. Neighbors grew increasingly jittery about living at such proximity with potential man-eaters and asked Bo to get rid of the animals, it said. Bo refused, forcing the neighbors to alert the authorities.
■ United States
Bush, Kerry resort to science
The battle for the US presidency entered new territory yesterday with both candidates turning to scientific journals to set out their election promises. US President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry outline their positions in interviews in yesterday's issue of Nature and today's Science. Bush told Nature he is "committed to pursuing stem cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line," while Kerry said he would lift the "ideologically driven" limits. Kerry said he would "end the pursuit of a new generation of nuclear weapons," and Bush said "the evolving security environment requires a flexible and responsive weapons-complex infrastructure."
■ United States
`Goofy' worker suspended
A Walt Disney World worker who was acquitted of charges he fondled a 13-year-old girl while dressed as Tigger has been suspended again, accused of shoving two people while in a Goofy costume. His lawyer said the man was just "goofing around because he was Goofy." Two photographers at Disney's Animal Kingdom said Michael Chartrand, a native of England, came up to them in his Goofy costume and shoved each in the chest, Orange County Sheriff's Capt. Bernie Presha said Wednesday. The photographers, a male and a female whose names were not released, work for Kodak at the park.
■ Peru
Protesters block mine
Newmont Mining Corp curtailed mining at its Yanacocha Mine in Peru Wednesday after thousands of protesters blocked a road to the mine for two weeks, worried that new drilling operations could endanger water supplies. Blasting and hauling of ore stopped as some 10,000 workers protested in Cajamarca, Peru, about 350km north of Lima, company spokesman Doug Hock said. Residents began blocking the road Sept. 2 after the company started exploratory drilling on the Cerro Quilish gold deposit, which sits in the same watershed as the village.
■ Canada
Healthcare aid pledged
Canada's federal government has agreed to pump extra billions into the ailing public healthcare system in return for a commitment by the country's provinces to cut waiting times for treatment, federal and provincial officials said early yesterday. The development capped three days of sometimes acrimonious negotiations between the two sides on how to reform the medicare system, which is funded jointly by Ottawa and the provinces but run solely by the latter. Ottawa will invest an extra C$18 billion (US$14 billion) in the system over the next six years and a total of C$41.2 billion over the next 10 years. "Canada's first ministers have agreed and just signed on a 10-year plan," Prime Minister Paul Martin said.
■ United States
Twin dies in surgery
One of the year-old conjoined twin girls who underwent surgery to separate their heads died shortly after the procedure was completed, a spokeswoman for the Johns Hopkins Children's Center said early yesterday. Lea and Tabea Block, from Lemgo, Germany, were successfully separated at 12:15am Thursday, but Tabea died later "after an exhaustive resuscitative effort," hospital spokeswoman Staci Vernick Goldberg said. Lea was in critical but stable condition and "doing well" in the hospital's pediatric intensive care unit, Goldberg said. "We extend our deepest sympathy to the parents and family of Tabea Block," Goldberg said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of