■ China
So how about `Dotcom'?
Officials in central China have refused a father permission to name his son "@" a news report said yesterday. The father from Zhengzhou, Henan Province, wanted to name his son after the computer keyboard character used in every e-mail address, arguing that the symbol was now in common usage. However, the police station where names are registered refused to allow it, saying all names must by law be capable of being translated into Chinese, the South China Morning Post reported.
■ Pakistan
Nuke-capable missile tested
Pakistan said yesterday it successfully test-fired a medium-range, nuclear-capable missile that could hit most cities in neighboring India, but defense officials said the exercise was not intended as a message to the South Asian rival. "The new version of the Ghauri V missile, which was test-fired today, has a range of 1,500km, and can hit most cities in India," a senior defense official told reporters. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Pakistani authorities had informed India and other neighboring countries beforehand about the test, and that it was not aimed at inflaming tensions in South Asia.
■ Philippines
Prison raid nets TVs, guns
It looks like prison life wasn't too tough for some of the Philippines' most notorious inmates. Authorities said Monday they had seized late-model flat-screen TVs, DVD players and stereos, assorted firearms and mobile phones from jail cells in the national penitentiary compound in the Manila suburb of Muntinlupa. Bureau of Corrections Director Vicente Vinarao said he ordered the swoop after an upsurge in the electricity bill, and in line with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's order for all government offices to save on energy. More than 900 assorted weapons -- swords, knives, live ammunition, improvised guns and machetes -- also were confiscated, Vinarao said.
■ Pakistan
Hostages' release sought
A tribal delegation sought yesterday to secure the release of two Chinese engineers taken hostage by al-Qaeda-linked militants near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. The engineers, who were working on a dam project, have been held since Saturday in the remote South Waziristan tribal region where hundreds have died in battles between security forces and al-Qaeda-linked militants since March. Abdullah Mehsud, the leader of the kidnappers, threatened on Monday to kill one of the hostages unless they and the kidnappers were allowed to join him in a nearby area. But Pakistani officials said negotiations for the release of the two men had continued beyond deadlines set by the kidnappers on Monday.
■ Pitcairn Island
Defendants to challenge UK
Seven Pitcairn Island men being tried for rape and underage sex have been granted the right to challenge Britain's jurisdiction over their remote South Pacific island, a British official said. The trial of the descendants of 18th century Bounty mutineers has been underway for almost two weeks before a makeshift British court inside the remote island's community hall. A spokesman for the British High Commission in Wellington, which administers Pitcairn, the last British territory in the South Pacific, said he had been told by defense lawyers that leave to appeal to the Privy Council had been granted.
■ United Kingdom
Spiders top list of fears
Spiders are more scary than terrorists and even death, according to a survey of a thousand Britons released on Monday. Terrorism came second on the list of respondents' top ten fears, according to the survey conducted for Universal Pictures UK. Snakes were ranked third, followed by a fear of heights. Death came in a surprising fifth place. Dentists came in sixth place, followed by needles and injections, and fear of public speaking. Fear of debt came in ninth position, beating concerns over flying. Universal's Aileen Coulson said the findings were "great ammunition for Halloween," and suggested prank spiders to ``put the `willies' up a friend, colleague or family member.''
■ The netherlands
Dutch name heroes
Teenage diarist Anne Frank, soccer player Johan Cruyff and painter Vincent van Gogh all made the top 10 list in the Netherlands' search for the "greatest" Dutch person in history. Following a similar contest in Britain, around 40,000 people voted to create the list announced on television on Monday night. The winner will be selected in a second round of voting next month. Also on the list were painter Rembrandt van Rijn and philosopher Desiderius Erasmus, who translated the New Testament and wrote In Praise of Folly. Also included were 16th-century ruler William of Orange and Pim Fortuyn, a rightist politician who was assassinated in 2001.
■ Spain
Civil war veterans march
The government was to make a gesture of reconciliation yesterday by leading the national day parade with veterans from both sides of the country's civil war. The move has outraged left-wing politicians who feel Spain has not done enough to compensate victims of General Franco's dictatorship. Spain celebrates its national day each year with a military parade, during which King Juan Carlos lays a wreath in memory of those gave their lives for the country. This year, he will be accompanied by relatives of those killed by ETA, the Basque terror group, and victims of the Madrid bombing.
■ Saudi Arabia
Militants killed in raid
Three suspected militants armed with guns and hand grenades were killed in a clash with Saudi security forces, an Interior Ministry statement said yesterday. Seven police were wounded in the confrontation with the militants, who were hiding on the second floor of a house in eastern Riyadh, the statement said. The security forces evacuated seven women and a child whom the militants had placed at the first floor of the house "to use as shields and to mislead the security forces," the statement said. The confrontation is part of an ongoing crackdown on militants.
■ European union
Nominee under fire
Incoming European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso was under strong pressure on Monday night to dump Rocco Buttiglione, a professed opponent of women's and gay rights, as the next commissioner for justice and security, after the European parliament's civil liberties committee rejected his appointment. It is the first time members of the European Parliament have rejected a designated commissioner. So far Barroso has resolutely backed the Italian Roman Catholic, who is a close friend of the Pope.
■ United States
One in four Americans poor
More than a quarter of US working families -- or nearly 39 million people -- have trouble making ends meet and can be qualified as poor due to a fast shrinking pool of well-paying jobs, according to a new report due to be released yesterday. The study, coming on the eve of the third and final presidential debate between President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, was likely to add fuel to the already heated political campaign, during which Kerry has been accusing Bush of outsourcing good US jobs. Although the report, compiled jointly by the respected Annie E. Casey, Ford and Rockefeller foundations, refrained from direct partisan blame, it appeared to back Kerr by insisting that "our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families."
■ Colombia
Kidnap ringleader arrested
Colombian authorities late Monday announced the arrest of the alleged mastermind of the kidnapping in September last year of eight tourists from Britain, Israel, Spain and Germany in Colombia's remote snowy mountains. Jose Celestino Chamorro, better known as "Parmenio," is a regional leader of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the country's second largest leftist insurgency, police said. Chamorro was arrested along with three other suspects in the northern department of La Guajira, on the border with Venezuela, said Colonel Oscar Naranjo, head of the Judicial Police.
■ United States
Mobster cemetery found
After a week of tearing through concrete and sifting through dirt, FBI agents and police detectives unearthed several human bones and bone fragments on Monday, along with a wristwatch and pair of glasses, in what they believe is an old mob graveyard in a marshy vacant lot in Queens, New York, officials and investigators said. The authorities believe that as many as six gangland murder victims were buried in the lot in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including a Queens furniture store manager who they say was slain in 1980 because he accidentally ran over John Gotti's 12-year-old son, and two men who tried to take over the Bonanno crime family in 1981.
■ United States
Memo warned on rudder
An airplane manufacturer's memo written in June 1997 explicitly describes the hazards of the maneuver that caused the November 2001 crash of an American Airlines plane in Belle Harbor, New York City, but the memo was kept within the company, and the pilot was never warned about the procedure. American Airlines obtained the memo a few months ago from the manufacturer, Airbus, as part of its lawsuit over how the companies will share the payments to the families of the 265 people killed in the crash of Flight 587. The maneuver involved swinging the rudder from side to side.
■ United States
Searcher's dream finds girl
After eight days, Laura Hatch's family had given the 17-year-old up for dead, and Seattle police considered her a runaway. She was found on Sunday, badly hurt and severely dehydrated but conscious, in the back seat of a crumpled car, 60m down a ravine. Hatch, hospitalized in serious condition, was last seen at a party on Oct. 2. Sha Nohr, who found Hatch, is the mother of one of Hatch's friends and had dreams of a wooded area in which she heard the message, "Keep going, keep going."
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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