■ India
Nude dancers spark row
India's northwestern state of Rajasthan has punished local officials after residents complained a group of Israeli women motorists had danced in the nude near a town revered by Hindus, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Indian Express said the incident took place during a party organized just outside the temple-studded town of Pushkar last month to celebrate the end of the Desert Queen rally in which 45 women rallyists from Israel took part. Local lawmakers and residents said the Israeli women "got drunk, threw their clothes on the stage and danced naked under the moonlight," the paper reported.
■ Australia
Man dies in Indian ritual
An Australian man died after taking part in an American Indian-style sauna-like purification ceremony in the Outback desert, another man who was hospitalized after the ritual said yesterday. The 37-year-old man died after the ceremony lasting several hours on Wednesday inside a small teepee, where hot rocks and water raised the temperature inside to 60?C, Adrian Asfar said. Asfar was in stable condition and being treated for dehydration at Port Augusta Hospital, 275km north of Adelaide. He said he couldn't recall details of the ceremony, involving 11 people from Melbourne.
■ Singapore
Woman in court over maid
A 43-year-old Canadian woman has been charged in a Singapore court with abusing her Indian maid by slashing and scalding her, as well as stuffing a vacuum cleaner in her mouth and turning it on, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. Seven charges of abuse were levied against Alka Mandloi on Tuesday, the Straits Times said. Mandloi is alleged to have abused Drona Rai, 25, over a three-month period from September 2001. Mandloi allegedly cut Drona's fingers with scissors and then slashed her hands and legs a kitchen knife, the paper said. The following day, she took a vacuum cleaner, allegedly stuffed it in Drona's mouth and switched it on. Mandloi also took an iron and allegedly scalded her maid's arm, the paper reported.
■ Hong Kong
Molesting priest loses case
A Catholic priest jailed for molesting an altar boy in the first case of its kind in Hong Kong lost his appeal yesterday to the territory's highest court. Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal threw out an attempt by Michael Lau, 43, to have his convictions for gross indecency and attempted buggery overturned. Lau was convicted in February last year of molesting a 15-year-old altar boy in 1991 and 1992. His offence came to light two years ago when the Catholic Church admitted it had dealt with three cases of child abuse by priests internally without referring them to police.
■ New Zealand
Four Japanese plead guilty
Four young Japanese men have pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the beating death of a fellow student at an academy for Japanese youths with behavior and learning problems, local media reported yesterday. Ryu Fukushima, 24, Ryuji Hiraki, 28, Nobu Oshima, 20, and Masato Fujita, 21, on Wednesday admitted to the manslaughter of Nozomu Shinozaki, 22, at the Columbus Academy in Auckland on Feb. 26 last year. The guilty pleas came after prosecutors reduced the charges from murder. The four will be sentenced on Dec. 3.
■ Honduras
Gangs threaten president
Authorities increased security around President Ricardo Maduro on Wednesday after learning of a plot by street gang members to kill him and key officials in his govern-ment, the government said. "Available sources of information indicate the gangs will try to kill the president," Honduran Security Minister Oscar Alvarez told a television station in Tegucigalpa, the capital. Alvarez, one of Honduras' most-popular figures because of his championing of a law that made membership in street gangs punishable by up to 12 years in prison, said he himself was also among those targeted by gang members. He said large numbers of leaders of the "Maras," Spanish slang for gangs, had gathered in the capital to plot a series of assassination attempts.
■ Iran
Americans to be tracked
Iran's conservative-dominated parliament has prepared a bill to make it compulsory for US citizens to be fingerprinted on arrival in the Islamic state, newspapers said on Wednesday. The reports said parliament's Foreign Affairs and National Security Commission approved the bill on Tuesday, in retaliation for a similar measure imposed on Iranian visitors to the US. "The purpose of the finger-printing is to make sure undesirable American elements will not enter Iran," commission member Kazem Jalali was quoted by Qods newspaper as saying. The bill will be put to a parliamentary vote in coming weeks.
■ France
Hunters kill last female bear
Hunters have shot dead the last female brown bear native to the Pyrenees, condemning the species to extinction and causing an "environmental catastrophe" for France, the government said. Animal protection groups on Wednesday concerned for the survival of the bear's 10-month-old orphaned cub which escaped unharmed, but which was barely weaned. Environ-ment Minister Serge Lepeltier was to visit the site of the killing to launch an investigation into how six experienced hunters had been allowed to organize a wild boar shoot in the area where the bear was living.
■ Belgium
EU seeks greater role in Iraq
EU leaders yesterday launched a two-day summit with hopes that they'll be able to forge a joint role for the 25-nation bloc in Iraq -- and by doing so bring a fresh start to strained relations with the re-elected US President George W. Bush. EU leaders are likely to push the second-term Bush administration to find a way out of the violence in Iraq and adopt a more multilateral approach that would involve Europe in consultations over the Iraq crisis. But in seeking to heal ties with Washington, the EU could also deepen its role in Iraq's reconstruction efforts despite reluctance -- particularly from France and Germany -- to get involved on the ground.
■ Canada
Nickname not racist: court
"Kemosabe," the name given to the Lone Ranger by his friend Tonto in the 1950s TV western, is not a racist term, a Canadian court has found. The ruling was delivered by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal last week in a case involving a native Canadian woman who complained that the manager of the store where she worked had created a poisoned environ-ment by calling her kemosabe. The court ruling confirmed a earlier decision by a Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission board of inquiry. That decision was made after the board spent a full shift watching "Lone Ranger" reruns.
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
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
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not