■ Hong Kong
Pedophile gets life sentence
A mentally disabled pedophile received a discretionary life sentence for sexually assaulting four children aged between 5 and 9, a newspaper reported yesterday. High Court Judge Maggie Poon imposed the sentence Friday after Chan Kwok-leung, 37, was convicted last month of indecent assault and buggery offenses committed between 2002 and 2004, the South China Morning Post reported. Chan, who has an IQ of 70, admitted in his psychological reports that he could not stop himself from carrying out what he knew were illegal acts.
■ India
Six activists killed
At least six opposition party political activists were killed and dozens injured when police opened fire Friday on a mob in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, police said. The incident took place in Ananthapur, 360km from the state capital Hyderabad, when members of the ruling Congress party clashed with rival Telugu Desam Party activists, police chief Swaranjit Sen told reporters. Sen said police were forced to open fire to disperse the unruly mob. He added that a police inspector also died in the incident which left two dozen policemen and political activists hurt.
■ China
One-child-policy kids `lonely'
An online survey of young Chinese found that most kids born after the one-child policy was introduced in the late 1970s consider themselves lonely, selfish and willful, state media said Saturday. Nearly half, or 46 percent, of the 7,000 surveyed also said they want at least two children of their own when they start a family, the official China Daily newspaper reported. The online survey asked for responses from Chinese aged between 15 to 25. The newspaper did not give details of how the survey was conducted or provide a margin of error. More than 58 percent of the respondents said they thought they were ``lonely, selfish and willful,'' it said. More than 66 percent said they were disappointed to have no siblings, it added.
■ Australia
Canberra won't use `piracy'
Australia strongly opposes Japanese plans to expand its whaling catch in Antarctic waters but will not try to board Japanese whaling ships there because it could be accused of piracy, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said yesterday. Ruddock said Australia was "vigorously opposed" to the Japanese proposals and would press its efforts to establish a South Pacific whale sanctuary. But the government opposes an application in Australia's Federal Court to prevent a Japanese whaling company entering the Australian-declared whale sanctuary in Antarctica, which Japan does not recognize. Ruddock told Sky News that Australian patrol boats could be accused of piracy if they boarded Japanese ships in the area, because of Australia's obligations under the Antarctic Treaty.
■ Pakistan
CIA attack questioned
Pakistan yesterday denied a media report that an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft had killed an al-Qaeda operative near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border earlier this week. ABC News in the US on Friday quoted intelligence sources as saying that senior al-Qaeda operative Haitham al-Yemeni was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft. The CIA has declined to comment on the report. But Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Amhed said that, "No such incident took place near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border."
■ Colombia
Tonnes of coke confiscated
Authorities announced the confiscation of 13.5 tonnes of cocaine in what they say is the country's biggest single narcotics haul. The cocaine, with a street value of about US$400 million, was found during a joint police-navy raid Thursday in a processing laboratory outside the Pacific port of Tumaco, near the border with Ecuador.The lab was destroyed following the raid. Five people were arrested, and officials confiscated eight vessels, nine rifles and 22,050 liters of chemicals used to extract cocaine from coca plant leaves.
■ Chile
Torturer confesses crimes
One of the top torturers during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet shocked Chile by breaking a long silence and revealing details of what happened to 580 disappeared political victims, whose crimes he blamed on Pinochet as head of the military junta. General Manuel Contreras, 76, who is serving a 12-year prison term for the disappearance of a leftist activist, sent a 30-page document to the Supreme Court, to the Prosecutor's Office and to the Justice Ministry. In the document, Contreras, who was head of the dreaded DINA secret police during the 1973-1990 dictatorship, insisted that orders for the crimes committed during the dictatorship came from the military junta, headed by Pinochet. Underlings, he said, simply followed orders.
■ Canada
Sudan rejects aid offer
Sudan has rejected a Canadian plan to send military advisors to the troubled Darfur region, saying Ottawa had not consulted Khartoum on its plan. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin announced on Thursday a C$170 million (US$136 million) aid package for Darfur, where thousands of people have been killed and two million displaced in a bloody civil war. Martin also said Canada would send up to 100 military experts to help a African Union force in the region. In a press release, the Sudanese embassy complained that Khartoum had not been consulted in advance about the plan. "[We] would like to affirm that the unwavering position of the Sudanese government ... is categorically rejecting [sic] any deployment of non-African military personnel in the Darfur region. Any logistical and financial support is most welcomed," said the release.
■ Canada
Parliament gridlocked
Lawmakers opposed to Prime Minister Paul Martin's beleaguered Liberal government paralyzed the parliament for a third consecutive day Friday by pushing through a motion adjourning any House business until next week. Conservatives and their allies, the separatist Bloc Quebecois, voted 138 to 57 in favor of the motion in protest as the government held off holding a confidence vote until May 19.
■ Germany
Deputy resigns after prank
The deputy leader of Bremen resigned after pouring sparkling wine over the head of a homeless man in an apparent joke that went wrong. Peter Gloystein of the center-right Christian Democrats was caught on camera pouring a magnum of the wine over the head of stunned Bremen local Udo Oelschlaeger at the launch of German wine week. Oelschlaeger was standing next to the podium. Gloystein said late Thursday he deeply regretted the incident and apologized to his victim. He said he had "misinterpreted" the situation but did not explain what he meant.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the