■ Afghanistan
Election staff kidnapped
International aid workers were in a virtual lockdown yesterday after a brazen daylight kidnapping of three foreign UN election staff in Kabul that heightened fears of Iraq-style threats to outsiders helping to rebuild this
war-shattered nation. Investigators reported no progress in the hunt for the three foreigners, abducted from a marked UN vehicle around midday on Thursday, and no demands for their release were made public. Two of the victims were women: one with joint British-Irish nationality and another from Kosovo. The third was
a male diplomat from the Philippines. All work for a joint UN-Afghan commission overseeing landmark presidential elections.
■ East Timor
Robbers kill eight people
Masked robbers with machetes stormed a packed minibus in East Timor early yesterday, fatally stabbing
the driver and causing
an accident that killed an additional seven people, police said. Police arrested one of the attackers hours after the 2am robbery in Baucau about 120km east of the capital Dili, police said. Police were searching for at least six others who took part. The detained suspect said the group's motive was robbery. The group had blocked the road with tree branches to stop the bus, and stabbed the driver to death as he tried
to speed away. The bus then crashed into a ravine, killing seven passengers including four women and a boy, police said.
■ China
A big dose of bad medicine
Some 190,000 people are killed annually and 2.5 million are hospitalized from the improper use of medicine in China where the market is plagued by bad regulation
and fake and poor quality products, state press said yesterday. The high number
of fatalities is partially a result
of the sophistication of new drugs and a tradition in China for consumers to administer them themselves, the China Youth Daily said. According to the Straits Consumer News, prescription drugs are available without prescription in many pharmacies.
■ India
Muslim woman gang-raped
Two Indian soldiers, a policeman and three civilians have been arrested over the alleged gang-rape of a Muslim woman in Indian Kashmir, police said yesterday. The
six were arrested from a
guest house guarded by paramilitary personnel in the Raj Bagh locality of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, a police officer
said. He said police had
found the 20-year-old
woman unconscious in the guesthouse on Thursday after being alerted by security guards. She was taken
to hospital, where staff confirmed the woman was raped by more than one person and that her body bore signs of torture.
■ Norway
Bill settled after 24 years
A man has finally settled a hotel bill he skipped out on in 1980. The Clarion Hotel Ernst in Kristiansand received a handwritten anonymous letter of apology with a 500 kroner note (US$80) hotel director Kay Johnsen said on Thursday. The note said the sender had stayed at the hotel in the autumn of 1980, had some sandwiches and drinks on his room bill, and then left without paying for anything. "I have thought a lot about this incident afterward,'' the writer said, adding that he wanted to apologize as well as settle up. Johnsen said the hotel will give the cash to the Salvation Army.
■ Ukraine
Bridge theft strands villages
Thieves have stolen a 12m steel pontoon bridge leaving hundreds of villagers without means to cross the Mayachka River, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday .The floating span connected the villages of Sofievka and Yasna Poliana. Emergency workers built the bridge last spring after heavy flooding. Work on a permanent bridge was scheduled to begin later this year. Police apprehended six men in a truck loaded with portions of the bridge and welding equip-ment. The suspects had intended to sell the span as scrap metal, an official said. The remainder of the bridge is still missing.
■ Italy
Pope intervenes in EU row
Pope John Paul intervened on Thursday in the EU's institutional impasse caused by the opposition of mem-bers of the European Parliament (MEPs) to his close friend and confidant Rocco Buttiglione, an out-spoken critic of gay and women's rights, becoming the EU's justice commis-sioner. The Pope called for a resolution of the crisis by "reciprocal respect in a spirit of goodwill." His intervention came at an audience with outgoing EU commission president Romano Prodi. The Pope told Prodi that the EU was wrong to leave Europe's centuries-old Christian heri-tage out of its Constitution.
■ Italy
German faces charges
A prominent left-wing German politician faces charges of mass murder for his alleged role in one of Italy's most gruesome wartime atrocities. Military prosecutors in La Spezia, have sent a formal caution to 89-year-old Klaus Konrad, a former Social Democrat member of the German parliament. Prosecutors accuse him of taking part in a string of massacres in 1944 near Arezzo in which some of the victims were buried alive and others were blown apart with explo-sives. Many were tortured before they were killed. In an interview by the German public broadcast system ARD on Thursday, Konrad admitted to having been present when the civilians were tortured. He expressed regret for the killings but said he had done so "only since the Italians have got me by the scruff of the neck."
■ South Africa
Crime barriers approved
Wealthy Johannesburg suburbs won the right to seal themselves off against crime on Thursday, despite claims that this marks a return to the no-go areas of the apartheid era. The city council approved requests from dozens of commun-ities to close their roads with barriers staffed by private guards to monitor and control access. Advo-cates defended the measure by pointing out that many residents of gated commun-ities are black.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the