■ Japan
Housewife loses appeal
The Osaka High Court yesterday upheld a death sentence against a 43-year-old Masumi Hayashi for murdering four people and poisoning 63 others with arsenic-laced curry served at a summer festival. The court rejected an appeal by Hayashi, a mother of four, who was sentenced to death in 2002 for killing two children and two adults and poisoning 63 other people in 1998 in Sonobe. Hayashi was also found guilty of three counts of attempted murder, including giving her husband arsenic-laced food in February 1997.
■ India
Raped woman must divorce
A powerful Muslim body on Monday ordered a woman allegedly raped by her father-in-law to separate from her husband, but said she was free to remarry if she wished. Imrana Ilahi, 28, was allegedly raped by Ali Mohammed about two weeks ago. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board said the marriage would have to end. "Had she been raped by anyone other than a blood relation, she could have stayed with her husband ... but here a sacred relationship had been violated, the consequences of which have to be borne by Imrana and her husband Noor Ilahi," a board member said. Earlier a group of local Muslim clerics had ordered Imrana to marry her rapist and treat her husband as her son.
■ China
Police assault petitioners
Shanghai police assaulted about 30 people who were trying to petition the central government over the loss of homes and other complaints, Human Rights in China (HRIC) said yesterday. The attack allegedly occurred Friday evening as the group was trying to board a train to Beijing, HRIC said.
■ China
Accident triggers riot
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) yesterday confirmed that a riot erupted in Chizhou City, Anhui Province, after a traffic accident on Sunday. The Chizhou Daily said on a Web site on Monday that rioters set off firecrackers in a police station and hit officers with rocks. A car hit a pedestrian and the driver of the car then beat up the pedestrian who had to be taken to hospital. The driver and his car were taken to a police station, where an angry crowd gathered and grew to number 10,000. Some people smashed the car and set it on fire. They threw rocks at the police officers at the scene, injuring six of them.
■ Pakistan
Rape suspects face arrest
The Supreme Court yesterday ordered the arrest of five suspects who were earlier acquitted of gang raping a woman on the orders of a village council. "Non-bailable warrants of arrest of the respondents ... are issued," Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said. The victim, Mukhtaran Mai, launched an appeal on Monday against the acquittals of the five men, who had been sentenced to death for the June 2002 attack. The men's convictions were overturned in March but they were rearrested on the orders of the government. They were then freed again earlier this month by the Lahore High Court.
■ South Korea
Chung hopes to meet Cheney
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young will try to convince US Vice President Dick Cheney to soften his stance toward North Korea, a newspaper said yesterday. Chung, who had a five-hour meeting with the North's leader Kim Jong-il on June 17, will start a four-day visit Washington today, trying to soften up Cheney, the Chosun Ilbo reported. The paper cited sources as saying a few kind words from Cheney could help convince the North to return to stalled six-party talks to end its nuclear weapons programs.
■ The Philippines
Family feud kills 15
At least 15 people, including women and children, were killed in a gunbattle between feuding Muslim families on Mindanao and about 25 others wounded, army and police officials said yesterday. A spokesman said soldiers had been sent to a coastal village in Zamboanga Sibugay province to defuse tensions after two families exchanged automatic gunfire on Monday night. "Most of the fatalities were children and women caught in the crossfire," a police officer said. He said the clan war over control of a seaweed farm had killed nearly 40 people since last month.
■ India
Strippers deter police
Women in an eastern forest are stripping naked to distract police and to help a criminal gang avoid arrest while illegally chopping down trees, the Hindustan Times reported yesterday. Some of the women belong to a timber mafia in the heavily-forested state of Jharkhand while others are paid to strip in front of the police, who are too embarrassed to arrest them or too distracted to hunt the gang down, the daily said.
■ Thailand
Serial killer hunted
Police have launched a manhunt for a suspected serial killer who has already murdered at least five prostitutes in three different provinces, police said yesterday. The suspect was identified as Somkid Phumpuang, 41. Police files described Somkid as mentally disturbed with a "rampant libido."
■ Italy
Shooter arrested after raid
An Italian man who shot three people dead and injured eight others was arrested after a police raid on his home early yesterday, following a siege in the northern town of Bogogno, carabinieri paramilitary police said. The man, a former soldier and a keen hunter, started his shooting spree after bailiffs came to repossess his home."They wanted to take my house" he said as he was being taken away. The nine-hour stand-off was ended after six elite carabinieri officers stormed the house. The drama began mid-afternoon Monday in the town of Bogogno, near Novara, after a bailiff accompanied by police officers arrived at the home of Angelo Sacco, 51, with orders to seize his property and evict him, police said.
■ United Kingdom
Bookies bet on Prince
Prince William, second in line to the British throne, may be headed for a US investment bank when he works for a City financial house for a month late this year, according to bookmakers on Monday. Betting firm Cantor Index has opened a market on the likely destination of the 23-year-old prince, with Merrill Lynch and the investment arm of JP Morgan Chase emerging among the favorites along with blue-blooded UK institutions including Barclays Capital.
■ New Zealand
US girl reunited with mother
A four-year-old US girl was reunited with her mother after three years, officials said yesterday, closing the book on an international abduction case that had spanned several continents. Four-year old Taylor Ann Hill, allegedly kidnapped by her father in the US state of Missouri in 2002, was found by police in New Zealand's northern city of Auckland last week. She was reunited with her mother, Julie Coleman at the weekend, US Embassy officials said yesterday, after Coleman flew to New Zealand from her home in the US. The father, US national Arlen Hill II, 33, has been on the run around the world since he allegedly took his daughter.
■ United States
Shark attack injures boy
For a second time in three days, vacationers on Florida Panhandle beaches heard screams for help and saw a bloody pool of water as rescuers tried to fight off an attacking shark. This time the victim, Craig Adam Hutto, 16, of Lebanon, Tennessee, survived the attack but his leg was amputated and he remained in critical condition late Monday. Doctors said he was expected to survive. Three days earlier and about 130km, 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle died from her injuries after her leg was mutilated by a bull shark.
■ United States
Tabloid makes amends
A tabloid promised to give money to an organization for burn victims after labeling as "ugly" a police officer who suffered disfiguring burns in a crash while on duty. American Media Inc, owner of the Weekly World News, which ran a list of the "top 10 ugliest people" in its Feb. 7 issue, agreed Monday to make a donation to the Foundation for Burns and Trauma. The tabloid also ran a post-surgery photo of the officer and his wife with the article. The amount of the donation to the foundation, which provides care to burn victims in Arizona, was not disclosed but those involved called it "significant." Officer Jason Schechterle suffered fourth-degree burns to his hands and face when his patrol car was hit from behind by a taxi and exploded in flames in 2001.
■ Lebanon
Parliament chooses speaker
Lebanon's newly-elected parliament re-elected a pro-Syrian, Nabih Berri, as speaker yesterday in a move seen as a political compromise by the anti-Syrian coalition which won the recent elections, the first conducted without Syrian influence in 30 years. The parliament voted 90 in favor of Berri in a secret ballot. Another 37 lawmakers in the 128-member legislature cast blank votes in what was seen as a protest against Berri. One vote went to Bassem Sabei, an anti-Syrian lawmaker.
■ United States
Mistake ends in terror alert
A mistaken CIA analysis of an Arabic-language television broadcast triggered a major terror alert in US in 2003 and the cancelation of nearly 30 international flights, NBC News said. The color-coded terror alert system went from yellow to orange after CIA agents thought they saw secret numbers encoded in the moving text at the bottom of the screen of an Al-Jazeera broadcast, NBC said late Monday. The "scrawl" was thought to contain attack dates, flight numbers and geographic coordinates for targets, which included the White House, Seattle's tallest structure, the Space Needle, and even the small town of Tappahanock in Virginia.
■ United States
Reagan named No. 1
The US now regards the late president Ronald Reagan as the greatest American ever. Edging out by a nose Abraham Lincoln -- the man who abolished slavery and guided the country through civil war -- Reagan, the B-movie star whose presidency is commonly regarded as having brought down the Soviet bloc, won the popular vote to be crowned the greatest American ever. While assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr came third, just ahead of George Washington, the country's first president and the man considered father of the nation, some of the most notable names in US history -- the Nobel prize-winning scientist Albert Einstein; the inventors of the aeroplane, Orville and Wilbur Wright; and the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong -- did not make it into the top 10.
■ Israel
Sharon warns settlers
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent a stern warning to Jewish settlers opposed to the Gaza pullout plan yesterday, telling them that the use of violence against security forces threatens the existence of Israel. Sharon said settlers who use violence -- like the ones who pushed, shoved and cursed soldiers who demolished 11 abandoned homes in a seaside Gaza settlement earlier this week -- were a minority among the 9,000 slated for evacuation this summer. He also condemned calls for soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate settlers under a plan to withdraw from Gaza and four West Bank settlements.
■ United States
Gold Star moms change rule
A group for mothers whose children died in war voted to allow non-US citizens to join, after coming under criticism for denying membership to a Filipina mother whose son was killed in Afghanistan. The 1929 charter of American Gold Star Mothers had prevented foreign citizens from joining. Earlier this year, the organization's 12-member executive board voted against changing the rule. That prevented Ligaya Lagman, of Yonkers, New York, from joining, although she is a legal resident and her son, 27-year-old Army Staff Sergeant Anthony Lagman, was a US citizen. After hearing about her interest in joining, New York Governor George Pataki and other lawmakers urged the group to change its rules.
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