■ China
Bus driver attacks children
A Chinese bus driver stabbed 25 primary school children, wounding them in their arms and faces, in the third attack of its kind in less than two months, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The 37-year-old man stabbed the children with a kitchen knife and kidnapped a nine-year-old girl at the No. 1 Experimental Primary School in Juxian county, Shandong Province, on Monday, Xinhua said, quoting police. He was later arrested and the hostage freed. "According to a preliminary interrogation, [the attacker] fought with a resident and was seeking revenge."
■ Malaysia
Thieving `monkey' shot
A Malaysian man trying to steal fruits from his neighbor's orchard was shot in the stomach after he was mistaken for a monkey, local reports said yesterday. The 48-year-old man had climbed up one of the fruit trees and was collecting the duku fruit -- a tropical fruit slightly larger than the size of grapes -- when the owner mistook him for a thieving monkey. The orchard owner fired a shot which hit the suspect in the stomach, causing him to fall off the tree and injure his legs and face, the New Straits Times daily reported. The suspect was rushed to a nearby hospital, and police have said he will be charged with trespassing once he recovers.
■ India
Concessions ruled out
India has ruled out any territorial concessions to Pakistan in disputed Kashmir in a statement issued ahead of a meeting in New York between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The foreign ministry statement followed a Time magazine article quoting an unnamed Indian official as saying India was willing to "adjust" the so-called Line of Control in Kashmir, a military ceasefire boundary, "by a matter of miles" to "help defuse the situation in Kashmir." "This is completely and wholly inaccurate. Any suggestion the prime minister will make such an offer is factually wrong," foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said in the statement.
■ Nepal
Rally against violence held
Thousands rallied for peace in the heart of Nepal's capital yesterday, pleading for an end to the Maoist insurgency that has killed more than 10,000 people in this Himalayan kingdom. Buddhist monks and Hindu priests chanted religious songs while schoolchildren joined artists, teachers, lawyers, doctors, journalists, human rights activists and business executives at the Katmandu rally. The demonstrators urged both the government and Maoist guerrillas -- who've been fighting for eight years to set up a communist state -- to resolve the conflict through dialogue.
■ Malaysia
Backing Anwar discouraged
The ruling party leadership warned rank-and-file members still loyal to former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim against trying to stir up support for him as the annual party congress opened yesterday. The message bolstered a decision to bar Anwar -- recently released from six years in prison -- from rejoining the United Malays National Organization, where he could stage a political comeback. "There may be some stragglers who are devotees of Anwar," Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz, chief of the UMNO women's wing, told reporters. "We would just like to remind them, do not because of your devotion to one person do things that jeopardize the party," Rafidah said.
■ Greece
Military exercises canceled
Greece, Turkey and Cyprus yesterday decided to cancel their traditional October military maneuvers on Cyprus and in the Aegean Sea in a bid to further the peace process between Ankara and Athens. The decision was a result of improved relations between the Greece and Turkey, said Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis. "We are on a good path. The cancellation of the maneuvers in agreement with the Cypriot government is proof of this," he said on Greek television from New York yesterday.
■ United Kingdom
Envoy's remarks cause stir
The UK foreign office was thrown into turmoil Monday after the British ambassador to Rome, Sir Ivor Roberts, described US President George W. Bush as "the best recruiting sergeant ever for al-Qaeda." His comment, made at a closed conference of about 100 British and Italian diplomats, politicians and journalists in Tuscany, was leaked to an Italian newspaper, provoking embarrassment in London. According to one of those present, Sir Ivor had been taking part in a discussion on who Europeans would back if they had a vote in the US election. He said they would vote for Kerry but some people would want Bush, not least al-Qaeda.
■ Israel
General strike halts travel
Israeli unions began a nationwide strike yesterday expected to affect about 400,000 public sector workers and severely hamper international travel. The general strike was called by Israel's Histadrut labor federation and applied to government offices, banks, public hospitals, ports, postal services, trains, courts and financial markets. The strike was over a municipal workers' pay dispute. The Histadrut wants the government to pay salaries to municipal workers who have not been paid in many months due to a lack of funding and large debts. Government offices closed and hospitals were operating on an emergency basis only.
■ Iran
Town inundated with oil
Crude oil stirred by geological rumblings has bubbled up into homes and alleyways in the southwest Iranian city of Masjed Soleiman, state television and officials said Monday. Masjed Soleiman was Iran's first oil town, lying in the arid oil heartlands on the Iraqi border. Iran holds the world's second biggest reserves of oil and natural gas. An oil official from the city said he had no details of the scale of this particular seepage but said two neighborhoods had been regularly blackened by treacly crude eruptions for the last 20 years.
■ United Kingdom
Kalashnikov vodka debuts
The creator of one of the world's most famous guns, the AK-47 assault rifle, launched another weapon in Britain Monday -- Kalashnikov vodka. Lieutenant General Mikhail Kalashnikov, who invented the AK-47 after being shot by German soldiers during World War II, said he wanted to continue "the good name" of his gun. "I've always wanted to improve and expand on the good name of my weapon by doing good things," he told Reuters Television. "So we decided to create a vodka under my name. And we wanted that vodka to be better than anything made, up until now, in both Russia and England." The Kalashnikov rifle has become the weapon of choice for guerrillas and gangsters across the world, and is considered one of the most reliable automatic weapons ever devised.
■ Israel
US to provide 5,000 bombs
The US will sell Israel nearly 5,000 smart bombs in one of the largest weapons deals between the allies in years, the Haaretz newspaper reported yesterday. The deal could face political controversy since Israel has used such bombs in fighting with the Palestinians, the daily said. In one such instance in July 2002, a 1-ton bomb meant for a senior Palestinian militant also killed 15 civilians in an attack in the Gaza Strip. The deal is worth US$319 million and was revealed in a Pentagon report made to the US Congress a few weeks ago, Haaretz said. Funding for the sale will come from the US military aid to Israel. The bombs include airborne versions, guidance units, training bombs and detonators.
■ Canada
Man gets time for pie stunt
A court sentenced a man who crammed a pie into the face of Alberta Premier Ralph Klein to 30 days in jail Monday. Christopher Geoghegan, a 25-year-old clerk at a second-hand clothing store, remained unrepentant about his right to use banana cream as a tool of political protest. He was protesting the province's welfare and environmental policies, which he believes are inadequate. "It's the harshest sentence that has ever been doled out in the justice system," Geoghegan told reporters outside court. "The case precedent is to give a noncustodial sentence, and they've broken that now and set a higher bar to make an example, to stop this form of dissent," he said. Geoghegan is to serve his sentence on weekends.
■ United States
Nader fights to get on ballots
Maryland allowed Ralph Nader on its presidential ballot, and Arkansas knocked him off, a decision that Nader will probably appeal. And he had a mixed result in Pennsylvania, where the state Supreme Court overturned a ruling that barred him from running. The Supreme Court ordered a lower court to review Nader's nominating petitions. Democratic-backed groups contend that two-thirds of the signatures are invalid. Nader is likely to be on the ballot in 34 states, said David Jones, president of TheNaderFactor.com, a group trying to persuade Nader supporters to vote Democratic.
■ United States
Bush ends Libya embargo
US President George W. Bush on Monday formally ended the US trade embargo on Libya to reward it for giving up weapons of mass destruction but left in place some US terrorism-related sanctions. The president's action is partly symbolic because it simply makes permanent his April decision to suspend most commercial sanctions and allow US firms to invest in Libya and buy its oil for the first time since 1986. But the moves, which take effect today, will also end remaining restrictions on US-Libyan aviation and the State Department said they will unblock about US$1.3 billion in frozen Libyan and other assets -- steps Bush did not take in April.
■ United States
Plutonium heads for France
A shipment of weapons-grade plutonium has left the US for processing at a nuclear reactor in France, drawing protests from activists who believe the shipment poses both an environmental and terrorist threat. Officials said the plutonium left aboard an armored ship escorted by a second ship, but they would not say when the shipment departed, citing security concerns. About 20 activists waved signs and banners along the Charleston, South Carolina, waterfront on Monday to protest the shipment.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in