■ Philippines
Arroyo wiretap a big hit
The allegedly wiretapped voice of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo discussing vote-rigging has become a hugely popular ring tone, but justice officials are not amused. "They are liable under the law," Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales said of those who download the 17-second ring tone from the Internet, or buy it on CDs being sold by street vendors and opposition activists, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper reported yesterday. The government says the recording was obtained illegally and was doctored. Authorities have barred the media from broadcasting any part of it amid opposition calls for Arroyo to step down.
■ Indonesia
Election official indicted
An election commission official was indicted yesterday, the first in a series of graft trials of members of the body that is seen as signalling President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's commitment to tackling rampant corruption. Mulyana Kusumah, a prominent academic, is accused of attempting to give an auditor 300 million rupiah (US$31,280) to overlook irregularities in the election commission's finances in last year's polls.
■ Japan
Trafficking penalties raised
The government yesterday toughened penalties for human trafficking and agreed to protect victims from deportation after international criticism that it has done too little to stop the sex trade. The lower house of parliament voted to make human trafficking a specific offense that carries up to 10 years in prison for selling another person for sex, to take their organs or other commercial purposes. A buyer will face up to five years in prison.
■ Hong Kong
Woman survives suicide pact
A woman woke up next to her dead lover three days after the pair poisoned themselves in a suicide pact. The 47-year-old woman and her 55-year-old lover took sleeping pills and burned charcoal in their sealed flat after deciding to commit suicide because of financial difficulties. However, the woman regained consciousness Wednesday morning and found her lover dead beside her. She phoned police and ambulancemen who certified her lover dead at the scene and took her to the hospital where she was in a stable condition and recovering from her ordeal. The pair had not closed all the windows in the flat.
■ Japan
Prison warden investigated
One month after Japan vowed to improve treatment of inmates, prison wardens are being investigated for allegedly giving cigarettes, alcohol and mobile telephones to jailed gangsters. The probe was launched at Miyagi Prison after media reports said wardens at the prison had fulfilled the requests of detained gangsters who fancied tobacco, telephones and select brands of alcohol. The conditions of Japanese prisons have come under fire, with record overcrowding amid a push to tougher sentences. On May 18, the parliament updated prison law for the first time in nearly a century to safeguard the rights of inmates after criticism from international groups including Amnesty International.
■ China
Man kills long-time girlfriend
A man killed his girlfriend, dismembered the body then transported the remains by bus more than 1,000km to his home town. Song Jianhua smashed his girlfriend's head with a rubber mallet before chopping her up on Jan. 6 in Beijing. Song, 49, was hired by his girlfriend to work in her clothes shop but she sacked him, sparking the grisly killing. Song said he had helped his girlfriend whenever she was in financial hardship during their 10-year relationship and resented the way he was treated. He transported her body parts in cardboard boxes to his home city Harbin because he was not familiar with Beijing and did not know what to do with the remains. His girlfriend's family reported her disappearance to police.
■ Singapore
Body parts found in boxes
Two boxes containing body parts believed to be from a woman were found by a cleaner in the Kallang River yesterday. The first cardboard box opened contained the lower abdomen of a female wrapped in a translucent plastic bag. Another box was found a few meters from the first. It contained the upper torso without the head and legs. The boxes were found in the morning during low tide, police said. The Police Coast Guard is conducting a search to locate the remaining parts.
■ Indonesia
New polio cases found
Seven new polio cases have brought the number of children infected in the country's first outbreak of the virus in a decade to 46. The WHO said that seven new cases had been confirmed on Java island in the same region as an initial diagnosis in late April that prompted the campaign to vaccinate 6.4 million children. The number of infected children was continuing to rise despite a government immunization drive to halt the virus ast month. A health official said that the victims had contracted the disease before the immunization drive but were not detected by health authorities. The government will start the next phase of immunization on June 28.
■ Russia
Animals return fom space
Russia's Foton M-2 mini-laboratory landed on earth yesterday with a "crew" of lizards, scorpions, snails and other fauna after a 16-day trip in orbit to help develop medicines against a range of diseases. The satellite, which was launched on a Russian rocket on May 31, touched down by parachute in Kazakhstan in Central Asia, although it was not immediately clear how its live contents fared on the journey. The subjects underwent numerous Russian and European experiments in orbit in the search of cures for immuno-deficient conditions, viral diseases and cancer.
■ United Kingdom
Rare `Mein Kampf' sold
An anonymous buyer paid ?28,000 (US$51,000) Wednesday at a London auction for a rare signed first edition of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. The book is thought to have been found in one of the Nazi leader's offices after the end of World War II. Published in 1923 it is a blend of autobiography and political tract. At the time of writing it Hitler was in jail for mounting an unsuccessful coup. About 500 copies of the first edition were printed. In the book Hitler elaborates his views on Aryan racial purity, hatred of Jews and rejection of communism.
■ Brazil
Vampire bats massacre 11
Eleven people have died from rabies after being bitten by vampire bats in northern Brazil in the last two weeks, health authorities reported Wednesday. The latest victim was an 11-year-old girl in Augusto Correa town in Para state. Four others died in the city in the last five days, where more than 700 people have been treated for bites from vampire bats. Health officials have started a vaccination program and set up treatment posts around the remote Amazonian town. The thumb-sized bats normally only attack large birds and sleeping cattle. They pass on rabies to cattle and domestic animals, leading to death.
■ Saudi Arabia
Suspected killers arrested
Saudi security authorities have arrested five African al-Qaeda militants suspected of killing a French engineer in the kingdom last year, the Arab News daily reported yesterday. The gang members, all from Chad, confessed to killing Laurent Barbot, a French engineer who worked for a defense electronics company, the newspapers quoted the authorities as saying. Barbot was followed by three of the suspects, who shot him with a machine gun when he stopped his car in September 2004 after leaving a supermarket in the eastern port city of Jeddah, the report said.
■ Ukraine
`Witch' arrested, charged
A Ukrainian woman was arrested for using the blood of teenagers in occult rituals, Fakty newspaper reported Wednesday. The 29-year old suspect, identified in news reports as "Diana," was a resident of the Black Sea port city Odessa. She is believed to have obtained the blood from homeless children aged from 13 to 17. A police raid of the woman's home uncovered a room used for black magic ceremonies, and other rooms housing seven homeless children. The woman told police the children gave blood voluntarily in exchange for food, a place to sleep, and alcohol or glue for narcotic use. The woman will face narcotics possession and corruption of minors charges, but none for practicing black magic as its rituals do not break Ukrainian law, police said.
■ United States
Deep Throat sells life story
Former FBI agent Mark Felt, 91, who last month revealed he was Deep Throat, has sold the film and book rights to his life story for around US$1 million. Publisher Public Affairs said the book would combine Felt's recollections about his life and his relationship with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward with material written by John O'Connor, the lawyer who wrote the Vanity Fair article that revealed Felt's identity. Universal Pictures bought an option to produce a film based on Felt's memoir of his life in the FBI, sources said.
■ Russia
Chechen linked to killing
Russian prosecutors have determined that a Chechen man who was the subject of a book by Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov ordered his murder, a spokesman said yesterday. A spokesman for prosecutor general's office identified the man as Khozh-Zkhmed Nukhayev. He said a total of four people are suspected of involvement in the killing. Two are still at large, while two others are in custody. Klebnikov, a 41-year-old American, was editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition. He was gunned down last July outside Forbes' Moscow offices.
■ United Kingdom
Sandhurst's walls breached
Defense Secretary John Reid has requested an immediate investigation into a "serious security breach" after a tabloid reporter managed to enter Sandhurst military academy where Prince Harry is undergoing training. The Sun said yesterday that its reporter gained entry to the elite academy by applying to visit the library as a history student. He had walked around the grounds, built a fake bomb device and even shot video footage of the 20-year-old prince. The Sun said the reporter spent eight hours wandering the college.
■ United States
Ex-Bush aide gets new job
A former White House official accused of doctoring government reports on climate change to play down the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming has taken a job with Exxon Mobil. Philip Cooney, who resigned as chief of staff of the White House Council on Environment Quality last weekend, will begin work at Exxon in the fall. Politicians and environmental groups in Washington condemned the move on Wednesday. "At a minimum it creates a terrible appearance," Representative Henry Waxman said. "This is one of the fastest revolving doors I have seen."
■ Mexico
Trotsky ice-pick surfaces
One of the most notorious murder weapons in modern history, the ice-pick that killed Leon Trotsky, appears to have been found, 65 years after it was apparently stolen from the Mexican police. The daughter of a former secret service agent claims she has the steel mountaineering instrument, which is stained with the blood of the Russian revolutionary. Ana Alicia Salas says her father stole the pick because he wanted to preserve it for posterity.
■ Zimbabwe
Sandals foil smuggler
Police have arrested a Nigerian man for trying to smuggle a large amount of foreign currency out of the country hidden inside his sandals, the Herald daily reported yesterday. Anthony Chinedu Kelech Olua was arrested on Monday at Harare International Airport as he tried to board a flight to Dubai with more than US$26,000, ?220 and 720 euros, the paper said. A police spokesman said Olua was spotted because the sandals he was wearing had "bulges."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not