■ Nepal
Government using vigilantes
Nepal's royal government is using vigilante groups to fight communist rebels, increasing civilian casualties in this Himalayan nation in the grip of nine years of insurgency, Amnesty International said yesterday. Clashes between the rebels and the so-called village defense forces, which began operating early this year, have killed 31 civilians and destroyed more than 700 homes in the southwestern district of Kapilvastu, the London-based human rights group said.
■ Hong Kong
More children get burned
Young children in high-rise Hong Kong are three times more likely to be taken to hospital with severe burns than children in Singapore, a survey published yesterday has found. Medical researchers blame the trend on Hong Kong people's cramped living conditions and liking for instant noodles combined with a frightening ignorance about how to treat burns. Many Hong Kong parents still believe in applying tooth paste or soy sauce to burns wounds rather than using first aid on their children, doctors at the Chinese University found.
■ Vietnam
Ducks to be vaccinated
The day before the trial vaccination of chickens against the deadly bird flu begins in northern Vietnam, agricultural officials announced yesterday that they planned to vaccinate 42 million ducks nationwide. "Recent tests showed that 70 percent of the waterfowl in the Mekong Delta carried bird flu virus," said Nguyen Van Thong, of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's veterinary health department. "It is much higher than it was last year. That is why we came to this decision."
■ China
Mine gas kills 24
A gas leak at a coal mine in central China has killed 24 miners and left two missing, state media reported on Wednesday, in the latest accident to strike the world's deadliest mining industry. More than 40 workers were underground in the Xinfa coal mine in Yuzhou, Henan province, when gas began filling the shafts on Tuesday night, Xinhua news agency said. Seventeen miners managed to escape, but 24 suffocated to death, it said. More than 6,000 miners were killed in explosions, gas leaks, floods and other accidents in the country's safety-poor mines in 2004. The government has launched a campaign to clean up the industry and pledged to spend more than 50 billion yuan (US$6 billion) to improve safety, but it has had little effect so far in halting a rising number of deaths.
■ Thailand
452 fake passports found
Thai immigration police arrested a British national with 452 fake passports early yesterday as he was about to board a flight to the Netherlands. Mahieddine Daikh, 35, a British citizen who had migrated from Algeria, was arrested at Bangkok's Don Muang International Airport before he was to board a China Airlines flight for the Netherlands, Police Major General Suwat Thamrongsrisakul said. Daikh had arrived on a flight from Samui Island in southern Thailand and had not left the airport before his scheduled China Airlines flight. "The suspect confessed he bought all the passports from a Pakistani for ?3,000 (US$5,475) on Koh Samui," Major General Suwat Thamrongsrisakul said.
■ Australia
Citizenship reinstated
Australia's immigration department has been forced to reinstate the citizenship of one of the nation's most celebrated architects, after it was made public it had revoked his citizenship 19 years ago but didn't tell him. Harry Seidler, designer of Sydney landmarks like Australia Square and awarded the Order of Australia for his services to architecture, fled Nazi-occupied Austria during World War Two and migrated to Australia. He became an Australian citizen almost 50 years ago, but after applying to change his address on the electoral roll recently he was told his citizenship had been revoked in 1986. Apparently, unbeknownst to Seidler, Austria had reinstated his Austrian citizenship in 1985 and under Australian law he could not hold citizenship to both countries.
■ Australia
Mountain gets toilet
Australia's highest mountain can't compete with the stature of Everest, K2 and Kilimanjaro. But Mount Kosciuszko in the New South Wales Snowy Mountains will soon boast something few others can: a state-of-the-art loo. A toilet resembling a hobbit hole is to be built on the freezing rooftop of Australia, 2,108m above sea level. "It's been pretty obvious on the main walks from Thredbo and Charlotte Pass that people need to go," said Andrew Harrigan, the alpine area manager with the NPWS. "They were ducking behind the rocks in various places." The new facility, which will include three urinals and three unisex stalls, will be built 7m into the side of the mountain. So that it does not impact on the aesthetics of the alpine region, it will be camouflaged with trees and shrubs. "It will be built like a hidden bunker, not your typical brick shithouse," Harrigan said.
■ Zimbabwe
Treason charges dropped
The Zimbabwe government Tuesday dropped all treason charges against the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a surprise move that may open the way for negotiations between the two sides. "The state is withdrawing charges before plea," said public prosecutor Florence Ziyambi at a hearing in Harare magistrate's court. Ziyambi did not give any reason for the decision to drop the case, which accused Tsvangirai of seeking to topple the Mugabe government through organizing street protests in June 2003. Conviction of a treason charge could have brought the death penalty. Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had already been acquitted last October of charges that he plotted to assassinate Mugabe before the 2002 presidential elections.
■ Honduras
Kid wants to kill journalists
A 13-year-old boy accused of killing a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent said Tuesday he plans to escape from jail -- something he's done three times before -- and kill journalists. "I won't be here much longer," Erlan Colindres said in statements broadcast on HRN, Honduras' main radio station. "I will escape to kill all of the journalists." Colindres has escaped from a correctional facility three times since 2002 and been captured three times for murder. He was arrested Saturday in the fatal shooting of DEA agent Michael Timothy Markey, 44. Markey was killed Friday while visiting a religious temple. Colindres was jailed previously in the killings of rival youth gang members, but was able to escape within days from the same crumbling facility, where bricks can easily be chipped from the walls.
■ Israel
Penis center-stage
Challenged by female pride after the success of the Hebrew-language version of The Vagina Monologues, an Israeli playwright has put the penis center-stage. Rafael Milo-Amar said on Tuesday that his one-man show, The Holy Phallus, was inspired by a disparaging remark one of the Israeli actresses in the local production of Eve Ensler's celebrated play had made about the male member. "She said there was nothing to say about the penis. I told myself, 'I have something to tell her about the penis'," Milo-Amar told the Jerusalem Post. According to the newspaper, The Holy Phallus is an extended monologue. Reviews have been mixed and Milo-Amar reported casting problems before he settled on bald-headed actor Yuval Cohen. "At the end of shows people come and tell me, 'Wow what a great penis you are.' I take that as a compliment now," Cohen told the Jerusalem Post.
■ Russia
Locomotives stolen
Russian thieves have made off with two 40-tonne locomotives from a museum in the icy north of the country, its director said Tuesday. The locomotives have a particular historical interest because they were used to pull the trains that ferried the material to construct the prison camps in the Siberian Gulag that Stalin built. For 50 years they had been preserved at the Permafrost museum at the town of Igarka and had been on display since Stalin died in 1953 and Gulag-building came to an end. Clearly they "were stolen by small businessmen from a place nearby who could only sell them for scrap," Maria Mishechkina, the director, told the Ria-Novosti news agency.
■ Austria
Bandit's nose sticks out
It wasn't a big gun or knife that caught the eye of an armed thief's victim in Austria's capital. Instead, the bandit's protruding nose left its mark. Police issued an alert yesterday for Vienna's residents to be on the lookout for a man with a big nose in his mid-20s or early 30s after he held up a gas station. The cashier who was robbed told authorities the thief was rather nondescript with one notable exception: He had a giant nose. They offered only one more clue -- the man spoke heavily accented German. No one was injured in Tuesday night's holdup.
■ United States
Americans get warning
Americans around the world remain under threat of attack from al-Qaeda and groups associated with Osama bin Laden's terror network, the State Department said on Tuesday. Current information suggests attacks are being planned in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the department said in a statement designed to heighten vigilance. The bombings last month in London and in March last year in Madrid, Spain, are reminders that terrorists may strike at public transportation systems, the department said. It said extremists also might target aircraft or ships.
■ United States
`Fart science' accuses cows
Air quality officials in the San Joaquin Valley are blaming blasts of digestive gases from cows as the cause of the worst smog levels in the US, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday. The report quoted the officials as saying that the central California region's 2.5 million cows have a worse effect on smog than the cars, trucks and tractors that ply one of the most important farming regions in the country. The cows produce almost 10kg of gas each year and pollution-control officials are pushing the region's dairy farmers to install expensive pollution control technology in feedlots and waste lagoons, and to change the animals' diet so they produce less gas. Critics of the plan say it is based on "fart science" and are considering a lawsuit to block regulations based on the finding.
■ Ukraine
Revolution marketed
The symbols of Ukraine's orange revolution last year have been registered as profitable trademarks in the name of the oldest son of the revolution's leader, Viktor Yushchenko. Crowds protesting the fraudulent presidential elections were decorated with a series of opposition logos, including the Tak! logo (Yes! in Ukrainian) and a downward-facing horseshoe. The logos were predominantly on backgrounds of orange -- the color of the opposition. Mykola Katerinchuk, a former legal adviser to the Yushchenko campaign and now a senior tax official, said he had personally transferred the copyright to Andriy Yushchenko, the president's 19-year-old son, after the final round of elections.
■ United States
Search Arabs, officials say
Arabs should be targeted for searches on city subways, two New York elected officials said, contending that the police department has been wasting time with random checks in its effort to prevent a terrorist attack in the transit system. The city began random searches of passengers' bags after the second bomb attack in London on July 21. Over the weekend, state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said police should be focusing on those who fit the "terrorist profile." "They all look a certain way," said Hikind, a Democrat.
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