■ Japan
Iraq troops might stay on
Japan's defense chief signalled yesterday that the country's troops could extend their humanitarian mission to Iraq beyond an initial Dec. 14 deadline, possibly for another year. Yoshinori Ohno comments on NHK public television came amid a raging debate over whether Japan should withdraw its troops from Samawa in southern Iraq. Newspaper polls have shown that more than half the electorate opposes an extension. "Reconstruction is still under way, so we must continue the support," NHK quoted Ohno as saying. "As for making an exit, recon-struction in Iraq must be to some extent complete," Ohno said.
■ India
Russian visa for Dalai Lama
A spokesman for the Tibetan exile government in India said that Russia has issued the Dalai Lama a visa to visit Buddhists in its Kalmykia region and that he could make the trip as early today. However, a duty officer at the Russian Foreign Ministry did not confirm a visa was issued and said he did not know whether Moscow had agreed to a visit. The spokesman at the Tibetan spiritual leader's headquarters suggested it was still possible the visit would not take place. "We are trying to see if it is possible for the Dalai Lama to leave on Monday [today]," Tenzin Takla, information officer at the headquarters in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala, said in New Delhi. "He will spend a day or two in Kalmykia if he decides to go ahead with the visit," Takla said.
■ Indonesia
Mass rally against US
About 10,000 Indonesians demonstrated in Jakarta yesterday against the US-led offensive in Fallujah, in one of the biggest anti-Iraq war protests in the world's most populous Muslim nation. The demonstrators chanted, "Keep the spirit of jihad alive! We will fight back!" and carried banners reading, "How many more Muslims will die because of President George Bush?" Young men pasted stickers of Bush portrayed as a monkey and as Adolf Hitler on passing cars and buses in front of the US Embassy. Opinion polls have shown that many Indonesians have turned against the US because they see the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as anti-Muslim.
■ China
SARS-vaccine tests go well
Thirty-six Chinese volunteers participating in the world's first SARS human-vaccine tests are "in good condition," the official Xinhua News Agency said yesterday. The volunteers were injected between May and August as part of China's aggressive research aimed at preventing a new outbreak of SARS, which first emerged in 2002 in the southern province of Guangdong. The antibodies in the volunteers' blood have increased during the tests, but it is too soon to tell if the vaccine is effective, Xinhua said, citing Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a SARS expert. He said results of the tests will be released in January.
■ India
Cocktail against HIV
India, home to the world's second-largest HIV population, may have found a perfect cocktail for safe sex -- a free condom with every bottle of alcohol sold at liquor shops. The southern state of Andhra Pradesh has made it mandatory for liquor shops to hand out a free condom with every bottle of alcohol they sell from Dec. 1, the World AIDS Day. The state government would supply the condoms free to shops and distribution would be monitored. India has the second biggest HIV population after South Africa, with 5.1 million cases.
■ United Kingdom
Toad saved from extinction
One of the world's strangest animals, the Mallorcan midwife toad, has been rescued from the brink of extinction. The success provides conservationists with a rare boost to their hopes that amphibians -- whose numbers are declining alarmingly across the world -- can saved from oblivion. Researchers based at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, in Jersey announced last week that the toad had been removed from biologists' "critically endangered" category: it is now rated as merely "vulnerable." "This incredible little toad was once thought extinct. Today it's on the road to survival," said Quentin Bloxam, the trust's program director.
■ Sweden
`Cellphone archer' arrested
A man was arrested outside a Swedish high-security prison after shooting mobile phones into the prison yard with a bow and arrow, police said on Saturday. The 29-year-old man, who has a criminal record, is suspected of aiding and abetting a prison escape at the Norrtaelje penitentiary just north of Stockholm, police spokeswoman Susanne Abrahamsson told reporters. The incident, which occurred on Friday evening, comes on the heels of a series of high-profile jail breaks in Sweden. In two of those escapes, mobile phones had been smuggled into the prisons, enabling the convicts to organize their flight.
■ Iran
Tehran hopes to end dispute
The government said yesterday that a standoff with the UN's nuclear watchdog should be settled within the framework of the agency, but said being referred to the UN Security Council would not be "the end of the world." "We are not worried about going to the Security Council, because it is not the end of the world," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. "But we would prefer it be sorted out in the framework of the agency. There is no reason for it to go to the Security Council. We think the problems will be finally sorted out in the framework" of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Asefi added.
■ Burkina Faso
Ivory Coast condemned
A summit of French speaking countries condemned Ivory Coast's government on Saturday for bombing raids that shattered an 18-month old truce and killed nine French peace-keepers earlier this month. A resolution adopted at the end of a meeting, also attended by French President Jacques Chirac, underscored the increasing isolation of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo among his African peers, who are concerned that turmoil in the West African country threatens regional stability. Gbagbo did not take part in the summit of some 25 heads of state in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, and his delegation pulled out after a spat with local authorities.
■ Sudan
Restrictions on aid lifted
The governor of the troubled North Darfur state said Saturday his government has lifted local restrictions on humanitarian aid groups in a sign of goodwill, but an aid official said the move alone is not enough to allow his group to resume work. Barry Came, a World Food Program officer in Khartoum, said that as of Saturday night the UN security restrictions on the state still apply, adding that the easing of state govern-ment restrictions -- although a welcome attempt to "lessen tension" -- is not enough to allow resumption of assistance.
■ United States
Dad's lesson backfires
A father's attempt to teach his daughter a lesson about drinking backfired when the teen led police to a stash of drugs and weapons inside their home. Kevin Winston, 46, called police at 2:45am Friday after his 16-year-old daughter came home drunk and unruly. When police arrived, however, the girl told them she feared for her safety because her father stored drugs and weapons in the home. The girl led officers to a crawl space above the ceiling where they found four semiautomatic guns and more than 600 vials of cocaine. Winston was charged with numerous weapons and drug charges. His five daughters were placed in the custody of a relative.
■ United States
Toy store evacuated
The huge Toys "R" Us store in Times Square was hurriedly evacuated Saturday after about 20 people were overcome by pepper spray that had been dispensed amid the crowds of holiday shoppers. At least three people were taken to hospitals, the authorities said. The evacuation, about 3:25pm, came as customers packed the store, a six-level glass-shrouded building at 44th Street and Broadway - the largest operated by the toy store chain. About 3,000 people were evacuated swiftly, with little sense of panic, into the throngs filling Times Square's sidewalks, fire officials said.
■ Antarctica
Hillary blasts US over road
Famed New Zealand adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to conquer Mount Everest, has lashed out at the US for building a 1,600km road across Antarctica. Hillary, who was in Antarctica to deliver a reading at a memorial service yesterday on the 25th anniversary of the Erebus disaster, when an Air New Zealand jet crashed killing all 257 people on board, said the US should continue using aircraft as they have done for years. The 85-year-old Hillary, who drove 2,000km from Scott Base to the South Pole by tractor as part of the first trans-Antarctic crossing in 1957, described the US project as "terrible."
■ United States
Mourners bury slain hunters
Robert Crotteau and his son Joseph, who worked together and spent much of their free time enjoying the outdoors together, were mourned together Saturday, days after both were killed in a confrontation with a hunter trespassing on their land. Robert Crotteau, 42, and his 20-year-old son were among six hunters killed and two wounded in a bloody confrontation that shocked neighbors in Rice Lake, a northwestern Wisconsin town of 8,500 people. The funeral for another victim, Allan Laski, was held later Saturday.
■ United States
Oil spill creates 30km slick
A tanker spilled 115,000 liters of crude oil into the Delaware River between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, creating a 32km-long slick that threatened fish and birds, Coast Guard officials said Saturday. Private contractors were called in to skim oil from the surface of the water and place thousands of meters of boom to contain the floating slick. A stretch of the busy river was closed to commercial and recreational traffic while the spill was being cleaned up. The Coast Guard asked residents to call the US Fish and Wildlife Service if they see animals affected by the spill. Two tugboats were guiding the ship to a pier Friday night when a tugboat skipper noticed the spill, Coast Guard Captain Jonathan Sarubbi said.
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