■ Kyrgyzstan
Exiled president to quit post
The ousted President Askar Akayev has agreed to resign without returning to the country, the parliamentary speaker said yesterday. Omurbek Tekebayev said members of a commission seeking Akayev's formal surrender of power would travel to Moscow today. Members of the commission "have received a verbal agreement" from Akayev, who fled to Russia after his ouster March 24, that he will sign his resignation outside the country, Tekebayev said.
■ Nepal
Eight killed in clashes
Clashes left at least two soldiers and six communist guerrillas dead in Nepal, and suspected rebels bombed half a dozen targets, injuring 20 people ahead of an 11-day nationwide general strike that began yesterday, officials said. Businesses were closed in most areas of the Himalayan kingdom because of the strike, called by the communist rebels to protest King Gyanendra's takeover of the government on Feb. 1 and imposition of a state of emergency. Sporadic fighting across the country on Friday killed at least six rebels and two soldiers, police and army officials said on condition of anonymity. Rebels were blamed for a series of blasts at government buildings and a marketplace that left at least 20 people injured Friday in Nepalgunj, a town with a large guerrilla presence about 500km west of Katmandu.
■ Hong Kong
Pastor jailed for sex assault
A Hong Kong pastor has been jailed for beating and sexually assaulting a mentally retarded 23-year-old woman, a news report said yesterday. Lutheran Church pastor Cheung Wai-chung, 41, ordered the woman to go buy condoms so they could have sex in a church dormitory, then attacked her when she failed to do so, a court heard. He sexually assaulted the woman and beat her with a leather belt in the attack in 2003 which led to him being stripped of his position as pastor, the South China Morning Post reported. At a hearing on Friday, Cheung admitted charges of sexual assault and battery and was jailed for 21 months after magistrate Anthony Kwok said his actions had "destroyed the credibility of pastors."
■ Japan
Origami master dies
Akira Yoshizawa, a master paper folder widely acclaimed as the father of modern origami, died on March 14, his 94th birthday, at a hospital near his home in Ogikubo, a suburb of Tokyo. The cause was complications of pneumonia, said June Sakamoto, a board member of Origami USA, based in New York. Internationally recognized since the 1950s, Yoshizawa was credited with elevating a children's pastime into a serious form of figurative art. He was known both for his innovative folding techniques and for devising a notation system that made origami instructions universally accessible.
■ China
Poultry imports halted
Authorities it will halt poultry imports from North Korea in a move to prevent a deadly outbreak of bird flu from spilling over the border into its provinces. All poultry products from the North were barred from entering China, Xinhua news agency reported, quoting a statement issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. Any North Korean poultry products seized by Chinese customs officials would be destroyed, it said.
■ Canada
Taxpayers fooled
Canada's top tax collector had the citizens of Ottawa up in arms when he announced a plan to force them to file their taxes electronically if they wanted a refund before Christmas. Revenue Minister John McCallum said on a local CBC radio show he was launching a pilot project in Ottawa called "E-file or Else," with long delays and even a 5 percent surcharge for paper filers. This prompted calls voicing outrage because some people do not have computers and in any case some had already filed their tax returns. Before the early morning program went off the air, McCallum said: "To all the taxpayers of Ottawa, April Fools' Day."
■ MEXICO
Mayor faces criminal charge
Mexico City's mayor, Lopez Obrador, has a huge political following thanks to heavy spending on social programs and construction projects, and has consistently led public-opinion polls as a 2006 presidential candidate. But the Attorney General has asked Congress to strip the mayor of his immunity from prosecution so that he can face charges that he ignored a court order to stop construction of a hospital access road on private land. The mayor insists the case is a ploy by the administration to prevent him from entering the presidential race.
■ Brazil
Nun's murder probe widens
A Brazilian congressional panel investigating the murder of a revered American nun has found evidence that a broader conspiracy between loggers, ranchers and officials is behind a wave of violence against peasant farmers and environmental activists in the Amazon state of Para. "These are not isolated crimes. They form part of a much wider scheme where the price of an ordered killing is shared between farmers, land-grabbers and loggers," said Jose Batista Afonso, a coordinator for Pastoral Land Commission (CPT). The federal police have been drawn into the case, and are carrying out a parallel investigation into wider conspiracy claims thrown up by the panel.
■ United States
Tribe launches own smokes
A Native American tribe in Washington state is preparing to make and sell its own brand of cigarettes at a fraction of the cost of mainstream brands in an effort to diversify its income for tribal members. The Squaxin tribe, located on a small patch of land 50 miles southwest of Seattle, will begin selling its "Complete" brand of cigarettes made by its Skookum Creek Tobacco company for US$16 for a carton of 10 packs. The tribe's cigarettes can be sold cheaply because the tribe is not subject to most taxes paid by tobacco companies.
■ United States
Couple charged for cruelty
A husband and wife who forced their 13-year-old foster daughter to take her grandfather daily meals as he lay dead in an upstairs bedroom were each sentenced to nearly a year in prison. Kenneth and Donna Keaveney of Clark, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to charges of child cruelty and elder neglect after the police found the body of Donna Keaveney's father, Nicola Lombardi, 82, inside their home in August 2003, who had been dead for weeks. The parents did not admit knowing that Lombardi was dead, but said they made the girl tend to him because she had a good relationship with him and they did not. A prosecutor's office spokesman said, "They had to know, the house reeked of death." The girl and two other foster children were removed by the state protection services.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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