■ Indonesia
Six polio cases found
Six more polio cases have been confirmed, bringing to 14 the number of infections in the country's first bout with the disease in a decade. All of the new cases are in West Java, with three of them in the same district where the outbreak's first case was detected last month and three others in two neighboring districts. "This is something that has been expected since we had a case in an area where there was low immunization," said Dr. Bardan Rana, a WHO medical officer. A 20-month-old girl was diagnosed with polio on April 21, becoming the country's first case since 1995.
■ Pakistan
Bomb in village kills six
Six people, all of them women and children, were killed in a bomb blast in a remote tribal region near the Afghan border where al-Qaeda militants have been taking refuge, witnesses said. The bomb, planted near the outer wall of the house of a tribal family, exploded late on Tuesday. The incident took place in Makeen, a market town 400km southwest of the capital Islamabad, where a large number of al-Qaeda-linked militants are believed to be hiding. Local officials and residents said the blast appeared to be the result of tribal rivalry rather than militant related. Pakistan's tribal belt is awash with weapons and munitions smuggled during decades of war in neighboring Afghanistan that are often used by ethnic Pashtun tribesmen to settle scores.
■ China
The PLA sues toymaker
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) sued a toy company for 2.5 million yuan (US$300,000) after photos of an honor guard appeared in an advertisement for a toy saber and rifle. Use of the photos "infringes personal rights and damages the regiment's reputation," the China Daily said. In the past, the politically influential military could simply have told a government company to stop doing anything it didn't like. The PLA has fought the Shenzhen Xinhe Handicraft Co over the photos for four years, and filed the lawsuit after the company failed to act on appeals to stop using them. "Consumers misunderstood that the Guard of Honor made the advertisement. Our reputation has been violated," the lawsuit said. A Beijing court has accepted the lawsuit but hasn't set a date for a hearing.
■ Hong Kong
Kissel murder trial begins
A murder trial began yesterday for an American woman accused of beating to death her husband, a senior executive at the Wall Street investment bank Merrill Lynch. Nancy Ann Kissel, 40, a Minnesota native who has pleaded innocent, looked calm as she appeared in High Court on a charge of murdering Robert Kissel, the Asia-Pacific managing director of debt markets at Merrill Lynch's Hong Kong office. Defense attorney Gary Plowman sought permission from the judge to continue the hearing behind closed doors, arguing that media reports might jeopardize a fair jury trial. Kissel was arrested in November 2003 shortly after police found her husband's body wrapped in plastic sheets and a carpet in an underground storeroom the couple had rented near their luxury apartment. The victim had died of head injuries.
■ China
Boy falls off plane
A boy was killed in Gansu Province yesterday when he fell out of the wheel well of a China Eastern flight. The boy, estimated to be about 10 years old, fell on to the tarmac at the Dunhuang Airport shortly after the plane took off at 7:50am. An investigation was underway.
■ Russia
Lights go out in Moscow
Electricity was suddenly cut off to swathes of Russia's capital yesterday bringing large sections of the public transport system, including underground trains, to a halt. Some offices in the center of Moscow still had power but districts across the city were blacked out and water supplies were also affected. Most of the nearby Tula region was also without power. Trams and trolleybuses ground to a standstill and many traffic lights stopped working, causing a spate of road traffic accidents.
■ United Kingdom
`Star Wars' fans injured
Two Star Wars fans were critically injured when they tried to replicate the light sabers used in the movie by filling glass fluorescent light tubes with fuel. The pair, Mark Webb, 20, and an unidentified 17-year-old girl, were planning to make a video recording of a duel like those in the just-released blockbuster film Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. They were injured when one of the makeshift sabers exploded Sunday evening in the woods in Hemel Hempstead, north of London. The two were injured and in critical condition at a burns unit.
■ N Ireland
Sinn Fein auctions MI5 bug
A bugging device planted by Britain's secret service in the headquarters of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), was put up for sale on Tuesday on the Internet auction site eBay. The battery-powered contraption, which no longer works, was found in the offices of Ireland's main Catholic party in September last year. A letter from Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams about the discovery is also part of the auction offer, which by early evening was fetching bids of more than US$1,000. "In January 2005, Eliza Manningham-Butler, head of MI5, admitted that MI5 bugged Connolly house," Adams said in the note. Sinn Fein, which is auctioning the bugging device, said it hoped to use the money raised to help fund its political activities.
■ Mexico
Jail director killed
Unknown gunmen killed the director of a jail in the Mexican border city of Mexicali early on Tuesday, the latest in a wave of slayings to rock Mexico. Pistol-toting assailants fired five shots at Eduardo Villalobos as he left his home in the city, which lies south of the border from Calexico, California. Villalobos was formerly the head of the police organized crime task force in Mexicali, a notorious hub in the cross-border trade in cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines. No arrests have been made in the killing. President Vicente Fox on Monday blamed opposition leaders for the failure to halt the violence after a package of sweeping justice system reforms stalled in Congress.
■ United States
Greased woman gets away
A liberal slathering of suntan lotion gave one California woman more protection than she bargained for, allowing her to slip out of the grasp of a would-be rapist. The attack took place while the woman stopped off in a bathroom while jogging in the deserted park early Sunday. When she emerged from a stall, a man was lying in wait for her inside the ladies' loo. The man, who she said was poised to sexually assault her, tackled her to the ground, but her suntan protection allowed her to escape his grasp and make a dash for the door. Police are still hunting for the suspect who fled after the attack.
■ United States
Child support riles P. Diddy
P. Diddy likes to brag about having the biggest yacht, the most expensive parties, the grandest houses and more. Now he's been ordered to pay what could be the biggest child support order in New York state history, and he's not happy. Last month, the New York State Supreme Court's Appellate Division approved an increase from about US$5,000 to US$21,782 per month to P. Diddy's ex-girlfriend, Misa Hylton-Brim. Representatives of both P. Diddy and Hylton-Brim say it's the highest child support payment in state history. The hip-hop mogul vowed to appeal, saying the case was an attack on his character.
■ Spain
Madrid bomb injures one
A car bomb exploded in the Spanish capital yesterday, injuring one person, 45 minutes after a Basque newspaper received a warning in the name of Basque separatist group ETA, police said. Police sealed off the area of northeastern Madrid where the blast happened and eyewitnesses said a plume of smoke could be seen rising. The explosion appeared to be a defiant threat from ETA to a vote by the Spanish parliament last week which granted the government permission to open peace talks with the group if it laid down its arms. Basque newspaper Gara said that it had received an anonymous call yesterday warning that a car bomb would explode in Madrid in 45 minutes. The call was made in the name of ETA, it said.
■ United Kingdom
Lawyer's speech sets record
A top lawyer for the Bank of England yesterday was set to finish what is believed to be the longest speech in British legal history, which lasted 119 days, a newspaper said. Nicholas Stadlen is finally due to sit down after spending the past few months delivering his opening remarks from 125 files in the central bank's defense of a ?850 million (US$1.6 million) compensation claim by creditors to collapsed bank BCCI, the Guardian reported. The lawyer's speech breaks a record set last year by his rival in the same case, Gordon Pollock, who spent 73 days setting out his client's case in London's Royal Courts of Justice, the daily said.
■ Canada
More charges filed in killings
Prosecutors planned to file additional murder charges yesterday against an accused serial killer who may be linked to the disappearance of nearly 70 Vancouver women, local media reported. Police told relatives of the missing women that the additional charges would be filed during a scheduled pretrial hearing for Robert Pickton. Pickton, 55, is charged with 15 mur-ders and prosecutors had already said the indictment would be increased to 22 counts of first-degree murder before the trial begins late this year or early next year. The charges are based in part on evidence collected during an 18-month search of his pig farm in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam where police say the DNA of at least 31 of the nearly 70 missing women has been discovered.
■ C.a.r.
Bozize elected president
Two years after his fighters seized power in the Central African Republic, a nation plagued with political instabil-ity, military strongman Fran-cois Bozize won presidential elections, officials said. In a victory many hope will end cycles of army revolts, Bozize got 64.23 percent of the votes. His rival, former prime minister Martin Ziguele, received 35.77 percent, Jean Willibyro-Sacko, head of the national electoral commis-sion, announced on Tuesday at parliament.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number