■ India
South tip swallowed by sea
The southernmost tip of India, called Indira Point, has been swallowed by the sea after giant waves struck, the coastguard and police said yesterday. "A coastguard helicopter made a sortie to Indira Point and it has reported it is under the sea," said Milind Patil, coastguard commander of Car Nicobar island. Andamans police chief Sansher Deol added: "Yes, it is under water, the fire station, the wireless station and the main bazaar are all under water. "The lighthouse is in the middle of the sea." The officials said the fate of four international scientists and 16 lighthouse workers who were at Indira Point, named after later prime minister Indira Gandhi, was unclear. However local people on the islet of Campbell Bay which stretched down to the point said they had been swept away to their deaths.
■ Hong Kong
Rally turns into charity
A massive pro-democracy rally planned for Saturday in Hong Kong was cancelled Thursday. Thousands of protesters instead decided to use the opportunity to raise money for Asian tidal wave victims. Lee Wing-tat, a march ordganizer, said that activists would instead take the streets to raise money for victims of Sunday's tsunami. A program of fundraising events is being organized for Jan. 1, expected to include collections at railway stations and prayers for victims in Victoria Park.
■ Vietnam
Rally planners arrested
Vietnam has arrested seven ethnic minority people in the past week for attempts to organize unrest in the restive Central Highlands, state-run media said yesterday. The People's Army daily identified seven men and said they had been apprehended in the highland province of Gia Lai. "They planned a demonstration on Christmas night and would have then instigated people in 49 villages to come to Pleiku to slander the authorities about repressing religion," said newspaper said, referring to the provincial capital. Early Christmas morning, they threw stones and used a knife to oppose a police patrol, and they also cut the telephone line of a People's Committee office in a district, the newspaper said.
■ Japan
Royal engagement official
After years of disappointing speculation about suitors, the engagement of Princess Sayako to a Tokyo city bureaucrat, a commoner, became official yesterday with an announcement by Japan's Imperial Household Agency. Japan had eagerly awaited word of the engagement between Sayako, 35, the only daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, and Yoshiki Kuroda, 39. The wedding will probably occur late next year.
■ Vietnam
Bird flu strain reappears
A 16-year-old girl from southern Vietnam has become infected with the bird flu strain that killed 32 people earlier this year and devastated the poultry industry across Asia. The girl, from the southern Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap, is in critical condition in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam's 29th person confirmed with the disease, the girl had slaughtered a chicken she brought with her from Dong Thap province to southern Tay Ninh province, where she was visiting her uncle. None of the eight family members have developed bird flu symptoms, and the house has been disinfected. Health officials earlier this month warned that the world's next pandemic was likely to be a potent mix of avian influenza and a human flu virus -- and that it was likely to emerge from Asia.
■ United Kingdom
Dead woman hid lotto win
After the unmarried Gail German recently died at age 53, relatives and friends were astonished to learn that she had won almost a million pounds (US$1.9 million) on the lottery three years before, but not told a soul. Then came another shock -- all the money was being donated to charity. German, who lived near Newport, in Wales, opted to keep it a secret when she scooped the prize on the national lottery in 2001, the Times reported yesterday. She had adjusted her will to decree that family members should be told of the windfall at her graveside, and then be informed that they would not be seeing any of the money.
■ United Kingdom
Round roads rile women
If men are from Mars, women are from a planet where they don't have roundabouts, according to new research into the way the different sexes bump their cars. Women drivers may not deserve most of the criticism that comes their way, almost invariably from men, but they do have problems when it comes to navigating the circular junction. Data from 125,000 road accidents in Britain last year shows that a disproportionate number of women come to grief while trying to enter or leave roundabouts. Hovering or finally going at the wrong moment because of an impatient tailgater is thought to account for much of the difference.
■ Egypt
Car bomb detonates
Militants detonated a car bomb near the Saudi Interior Ministry in downtown Riyadh on Wednesday and attempted to ram a car laden with explosives into a building housing special emergency forces, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Saudi Arabian police responded by raiding a village in northern Riyadh, killing seven militants, the Interior Ministry said. The statement said 12 people suffered minor injuries caused by broken glass at the building, which houses special emergency forces. Civilians who were close to the scene of the explosion were also injured and sent to hospital for treatment.
■ UAE
Snow stuns emirate
Snow has fallen over the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the first time ever, leaving a white blanket over the mountains of Ras al-Khaimah as the desert country experienced a cold spell and above-average rainfall. Dubai airport's meteorology department said yesterday that snow fell over the al-Jees mountain range in Ras al-Khaimah, which is the most northerly member of the UAE federation. The Gulf News reported that the mountain cluster, 1,737m above sea level, "had heavy night-time snowfall for the past two days as a result of temperatures dropping to as low as minus 5oC," stunning the emirate's residents.
■ Israel
Police indict forgers
The Israeli police filed criminal indictments on Wednesday against four antiquities collectors, accusing them of forging biblical artifacts, many so skillfully that they fooled experts. Some were even celebrated briefly as being among the most significant Christian and Jewish relics ever unearthed. The police and the Israel Antiquities Authority said their investigation focused on several major forgeries, including a limestone burial box, or ossuary, bearing an inscription that suggested that it held the remains of Jesus' brother James. The Antiquities Authority declared it a forgery last year.
■ United States
Laser beam `tracks' airliner
Authorities are investigating a mysterious laser beam that was directed into the cockpit of a commercial jet traveling at more than 2,591 meters. The beam appeared Monday when the plane was 24.1km from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the FBI said. "It was in there for several seconds like [the plane] was being tracked," FBI agent Robert Hawk said. The pilot was able to land the plane, and air traffic controllers used radar to determine the laser came from a residential area in suburban Warrensville Heights. Hawk said the laser had to have been fairly sophisticated to track a plane traveling at that altitude. Authorities had no other leads. There have been several reports of lasers directed at commercial flights in the past year, the FBI said. The beams can distract or temporarily blind a pilot.
■ United States
Agencies still fighting
More than three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, infighting between federal agencies has so slowed efforts to unify the government's various fingerprint identification systems that most visitors to the US are still not fully screened, Justice Department investigators said in a report issued on Wednesday. Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general, warned in the 110-page report, his fourth report on the problem, that the bureaucratic disagreement "creates a risk that a terrorist could enter the country undetected." In addition, criminal aliens -- people who committed violent crimes in other countries -- are often not identified before they enter the US, the report said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
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
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