■ The PhilippinesRebel leader assassinated
A leader of a breakaway communist rebel group in the Philippines has been assassinated apparently by his estranged comrades, police said yesterday. Arturo Tabara, a former member of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) central committee, was shot dead late Sunday at a parking lot of a shopping mall in Manila. Deputy Director Avelino Razon, Manila police chief, said Tabara was accompanied by his daughter's boyfriend, who was also killed in the attack. CPP spokesman Gregorio Rosal said it was possible that the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the mainstream communist party, was behind the killing.
■ Hong Kong
Big Brother is watching
Anybody answering the call of nature in Hong Kong's back alleys should be on alert: Big Brother may be watching. Authorities have installed closed-circuit TV cameras in five locations, and Home Affairs Department spokeswoman Cindy Yu said yesterday the surveillance has led to the prosecution of 29 people over the past two months for hygiene offenses. They included six men caught relieving themselves and other people apprehended washing dishes and dumping trash in areas that are off limits, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday.
■ Malaysia
Children were pushed
A Malaysian woman facing financial problems backed off from a suicide bid after pushing her two children off the 17th floor of an apartment building, reports said yesterday. The 34-year-old divorcee had brought her two children to the apartment block where she pushed them off the edge after saying she could no longer care for them due to financial setbacks. However, her two children -- a 12-year old girl and 11-year old boy -- survived the fall when they landed on the hood of a car parked below, the New Straits Times daily reported. The woman told police she had planned to jump after pushing her children off, but had cold feet and ran away instead. The suspect will be charged with causing grievous harm.
■ China
No SMS contests on TV
China has ordered TV networks not to run unauthorized contests using mobile phone text messaging, after a state-run station held a lottery to guess the death toll from the school siege tragedy in Beslan, Russia. Official media yesterday carried a notice from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, ordering broadcasters to get permission to run games soliciting listener participation through SMS, or short-message service. News programs are banned from such activities, and other programs may not use them with "political or sensitive topics," it said.
■ China
Beijing drops begging ban
The nation's capital has abandoned plans to set up special "no-begging zones" after it found out there was no legal basis for such a move, state media reported yesterday. "There are no laws banning begging in China. Marking no-begging zones is not in accordance with Chinese law," said Li Wei, deputy secretary-general of the local government. Beijing officials for months had toyed with the idea of creating designated beggar-free zones, such as Tiananmen Square or near hospitals and military barracks. Proponents argued the beggars "pollutes the urban environment," gives Beijing a bad image and blocks traffic, official news agency Xinhua said.
■ CanadaProblems found in subs
Four second-hand submarines bought from Britain by the Canadian navy in 1998 were found to have serious problems that have delayed their going into service, including leaks in their exhaust valves, The Times reported yesterday. One of the vessels even had "a dent the size of a large pizza," the daily said, and the on-board temperature soared to 65?C during tests in the Panama Canal, arousing fears about her capacity to cruise in the warm waters of the Middle East. A spokesman for BAE Systems, the British company that supervised the overhaul of the submarines, said major work on them was inevitable.
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