■ Japan
Nude motorist kills cyclist
A naked male motorist smashed into five people on bicycles Thursday morning, dragging one of them to his death in a usually quiet residential area in western Japan, press reports said. The naked man drove through narrow alleys for seven minutes in the suburbs of Osaka, knocking down the bicyclists one by one including a 61-year-old man who later died, the Asahi Shimbun website said. The hit-and-run spree finally ended when the naked man crashed into a house and was knocked unconscious. Police detained the man but did not know his motive or even his name, or why he wasn't wearing any clothes.
■ Thailand
UN probe request rejected
The government has told the UN it cannot yet investigate the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters last month as an independent inquiry was underway, a foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday. Most of the protesters died of suffocation in army custody after a protest in the southern Narathiwat province. "We are considering their request, but I don't think we are ready now," said foreign ministry spokesman Itti Ditbanjong. "Our independent comm-ission, which has been accepted by all sides, is doing its work and we should wait for them to finish first," he said of a request by a UN expert on human rights.
■ India
Failure to die sparks anger
A Hindu seer in eastern Orissa state was berated by angry crowds when he failed to die after declaring his soul would leave his body at an appointed time, a report said yesterday. The chief cleric of Sriguru Ashram at Kharagaon area of Konark district said he would die a natural death on Wednesday between 6:00am and noon, the Asian Age newspaper said, without naming him. Elaborate police arrangements were made as a crowd of 15,000 turned up to see the "death by will" miracle. On Wednesday morning, the seer prayed at the break of dawn and then sat down to meditate as the crowd watched him in awe. However when onlookers discovered that he was still alive at noon, they turned angry that hurled abuse at him and temple officials.
■ Australia
Poisonous toads invade park
Hundreds of thousands of poisonous baby cane toads invaded a national park yesterday, hopping around in such numbers that the ground seemed to move, an ecologist said. The ugly amphibians moved into the Arakwal National Park near one of the country's famous surfing meccas, Byron Bay, following an explosion in toad numbers after recent rains. "You should see the ground down there, it is just black and it is just moving, it is a seething mass of young cane toads, it looks like the ground is moving," local ecologist Steve Phillips told Australian radio.
■ South Africa
Child sex ring busted
South African authorities arrested 59 Nigerians on suspicion of operating a child-sex ring and freed more than a dozen young girls in Johannesburg and Durban, SABC radio news reported Thursday. Authorities later said the 13 freed girls represented only the tip of the iceberg of a nationwide problem involving youths between the ages of 10-15 held in captivity and forced into prostitution. Some girls were sold to the sex syndicate by poverty-stricken parents and some were kidnapped, authorities said. They were shifted between the cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Durban. The girls were given heroin to create addicts who could be more easily controlled.
■ Italy
Ex-neo-fascist appointed
Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, named Gianfranco Fini, the leader of Italy's former neo-fascists, as his new foreign minister on Thursday in a move that offered the heirs of Benito Mussolini's Blackshirts the prospect of new international political respectability. The appointment was the result of complicated manoeuvring within the prime minister's conservative coalition. It was also the reward for years of effort by Fini, 52, to drag his party, the National Alliance, into the mainstream.
■ Israel
TV show to select diplomat
A new TV series called "The Ambassador" features 14 Israelis trying to outdo each other battling Israel's global image problem in the face of a 4-year-old Palestinian uprising. Devised by an American-Jewish benefactor, the series begins airing next week with contestants in business suits plying their propaganda skills at various foreign locales, a Channel Two advertisement said on Thursday. In a format recalling the US reality show "The Apprentice," an Israeli panel including an ex-security chief and a former army spokesman will weed out the winner. The prize: an all-expenses-paid year working as an Israeli public relations liaison in New York.
■ Norway
54-year-old letter delivered
A Norwegian woman got a real surprise this week when she received a letter mailed 54 years ago, delivered by a mailman who brought along flowers for the occasion, a Norwegian paper reported on Thursday. "It was really funny. It's fantastic to get a letter after so many years," Brita Loevaas told the Halden Arbeiderblad daily after opening the letter dated Sept. 22, 1950. The letter brought no "news" of course: Brita Loevaas' parents-in-law inquired about the health of their grandson, who at the time was just two years old and is now nearing retirement. "It puts the time that has passed into perspective," Loevaas reflected.
■ Switerland
Man plans difficult trip
A 71-year-old Japanese resident of Switzerland plans to sail a small homemade boat from Europe to his Asian homeland. Seiko Nakajima will take to the water at Barcelona, Spain, at the end of November, the Lausanne daily Le Matin reported Thursday. He plans to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on his way to Nagoya, Japan. Nakajima, who lives in the Swiss mountain resort of Grindelwald, tested his 6m motor- and sail-driven craft on nearby Lake Thun. He designed and built the whale-shaped boat, which has an enclosed cabin, and named it Why Not?
■ Israel
Egyptians' death probed
The chief of Israel's army said yesterday that an inves-tigation had been opened into the accidental killing of three Egyptian police offi-cers, and conclusions would be issued next week. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had apologized on Thursday in a call to Egyptian Presi-dent Hosni Mubarak for the shooting of the officers as they patrolled along the border. The Israeli army chief said that the shooting early Thursday came after the commander in the field identified a group of Pales-tinian militants but soldiers operating a tank shot in a different direction, killing the Egyptians.
■ United Kingdom
MP wants Blair impeached
A parliamentary motion to impeach Prime Minister Tony Blair for "gross mis-conduct" over the war against Iraq will be published next Wednesday. It will be the first to be tabled in 198 years. Senior parliamentary officials approved the wording of the text on Wednesday night, allowing the motion to be tabled on the first day of the new parliamentary session. Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru member of parliament (MP) who launched the campaign for the motion, said: "This is
the only way left to MPs to call the prime minister to account over his conduct in the war against Iraq."
■ United States
SEAL faces abuse charges
A Navy SEAL lieutenant faces a hearing in California on Monday on allegations he assaulted an Iraqi detainee who died at the Abu Ghraib prison, the Navy said. An Article 32 hearing will be held at Naval Base San Diego for the unnamed officer. The lieutenant allegedly punched Manadel al-Jamadi in the torso, and allowed personnel under his command to abuse him, according to a charging document released by the Navy on Thursday. Al-Jamadi, a suspect in the bombing of a Red Cross facility, was captured by SEALs last November during a joint special forces-CIA mission, and died a short time later at Abu Ghraib prison. He died from blunt force trauma to the upper torso complicated by ham-pered breathing, according to a military pathologist.
■ Czech Republic
Court orders dog exhumed
The world's smallest dog is to be exhumed four years after its death for an autopsy to determine whether a vet was guilty of maltreatment, the Czech media reported on Thursday. Owner Miloslava Vasickova claims the tiny chihuahua died after being given a treatment for cats by vet Leos Vyhanek. She is seeking damages of 1 million koruna (US$41,560), daily newspaper Lidove Noviny wrote. Measuring just 15cm long and weighing less than 1kg, Ondra had been entered in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest dog. The court, which has been hearing the case for the last three years, has now ordered Ondra's body to be exhumed.
■ United States
Body found in freezer
A deathbed murder confes-sion from a woman led to the discovery of her husband's remains on Thursday inside a freezer at a Massachusetts storage facility, where his body has been for at least six years, officials said. Just before she died, the woman told one of her children that she killed her husband in California several years ago, officials said. The children informed police, who went to the Planet Self Storage facility in Somerville on Thursday and found the remains inside a freezer. The woman apparently put the body in a freezer and shipped it from California.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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
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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