■ Bangladesh
Shopping mall blast hurts 35
A suspected bomb attack on a shopping mall in the heart of the capital Dhaka Saturday left at least 35 people injured, many of them critically, police and hospital sources said. The bomb prompted a fire which burnt and destroyed more than scores of boutiques, footwear shops and fast food outlets in the city's Elephant Road business district. Witnesses said the blaze was preceded by a loud explosion which rocked the district and shattered the windows of buildings in the neighborhood. The blast prompted panic among the shoppers and pedestrians in the late afternoon rush hour, witnesses said. Firefighters and police officials suspect the blast was caused by a bomb planted at the scene, but investigators did not rule out that the fire was caused by exploding gas cylinders in old air conditioners.
■ Malaysia
Merchant ships to get escort
Marine police will provide security for international merchant ships sailing through routes that are prone to pirate attacks, news reports said yesterday. Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Musa Hassan said the plan would be implemented as soon as the police are able to increase their manpower and the number of boats to carry out such duties. "We are trying to enhance the duties of the marine police to include escorting merchant ships if they request for it," Musa was quoted as saying by The Sunday Star newspaper. Musa said Malaysia's marine police need to step up their responsibilities because of increasing hijackings and kidnappings in sea lanes bordering the nearby Philippines and Indonesia.
■ South Korea
North to get bird flu aid
The government said yesterday it would ship emergency medicine and quarantine equipment to North Korea to help the impoverished communist nation fight an outbreak of bird flu. The shipment will include testing kits, decontamination equipment and high-pressure pumps and sprayers for disinfecting areas affected by the disease, the unification ministry said. North Korea confirmed the outbreak in a message sent to the World Organization for Animal Health Thursday and called for help to fight it. More than 218,000 North Korean poultry had been culled in a bid to stem its spread but there had not been any human cases, the message said.
■ Hong Kong
Thief killed in booty dispute
Three thieves from China have been arrested in Hong Kong after a fourth crook was beaten to death with a rock in a row over stolen goods, police said yesterday. The men -- all illegal immigrants -- are believed to have had a bloody row as they squabbled over how to divide up the more than HK$4,600 (US$600) they stole from a temple in Hong Kong. One of the men was killed in an abandoned house, and police arrived at the scene after a tip-off. The thieves are believed to have told police about the killing.
■ Bangladesh
18 injured as storms strike
Two tropical storms leveled about 500 homes, mosques and schools in northern Bangladesh and injured at least 18 people, an official and a news report said yesterday. A storm hit late yesterday when most of the villagers were asleep at Khuniagachhi, Lalmonirhat district, 256km north of the capital, Dhaka, the area's chief administrator Babul Chandra Roy said. The storm injured at least six people in the district, he said. "We are assessing the damage to help the villagers," Roy said.
■ Moldova
Slave network uncovered
A slave trade network has been uncovered in Moldova, interior ministry officials said. The network's ringleaders, led by a 70-year-old woman, presented themselves as employees of Moldova's national gymnastics federation and offered help in crossing the border. The suspects, who face up to five years in jail if convicted, earned some US$3200 for each person they sent abroad. There are no official estimates on how many people left Moldova on fake documents to be sold into prostitution or slave labor abroad, but a UNICEF report said that Moldova was one of the leading exporters of the slave trade. So far over the past four years over 1,400 people were repatriated to Moldova, with 10 percent of that number under age.
■ South Africa
Apartheid's party disbands
The former apartheid party, the New National Party (NNP), agreed to disband on Saturday following a radical drop in popular support. In total 88 of those eligible to vote approved the motion to dissolve the party, while two disagreed and three abstained. The party's end had been widely expected after it lost substantially in last year's April parliamentary election. NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk, currently minister for the environment and tourism in the government of the African National Congress (ANC) of President Thabo Mbeki, has called on former NNP party members to join the ANC.
■ Czech Republic
PM plans to resign
Czech Prime Minister Stanislav Gross has said he plans on resigning to make way for a new coalition government and resolve a political crisis triggered by a scandal over the financing of his luxury apartment. The Prime Minister's Social Democrats approved a plan which would see him resign if talks to form a new government are successful. The proposal approved by a large majority of the party's central executive called for talks with the centrist Christian Democrats and rightist Freedom Union on re-forming a majority government but without any top party officials and under a new prime minister.
■ United States
Clancy donates US$2m
Author Tom Clancy, who reaped millions from blockbusters such as Patriot Games and The Hunt for Red October, has donated US$2 million to fund a professorship in ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The first doctor to hold the seat being funded by Clancy's donation, Dr. Terrence O'Brien, has treated the writer, who was diagnosed in 2001 with pathological myopia. Clancy has been a longtime supporter and has included the institute in his books.
■ Haiti
Violence mounting
Police on Saturday killed in a shootout Ravix Remissainthe, who had played a key role in the uprising that forced Jean Bertrand Aristide to hurriedly quit and flee the impoverished Caribbean state last year. Three of Remissanthe's fighters were also killed in the clash. The former soldiers have been seen as a mounting threat to Haiti's interim government and the UN peacekeepers in the country. Clashes also erupted in the capital after the deaths. In a bid to focus attention on Haiti's problems, the UN Security Council has announced it will hold a special meeting in Port-au-Prince to discuss the situation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited