■ Hong Kong
Hammer suspect detained
Police in Hong Kong said yesterday they had arrested a man believed to be responsible for a series of brutal hammer attacks on old men. The arrest came one week after the latest attack in which a 76-year-old man was beaten to death with a hammer as he sat on a bench outside a shopping centre in the city's Chai Wan district. The attack was linked to two other apparently motiveless attacks on elderly men in the same area who had suffered serious injuries after being beaten with a hammer. Police announced after last week's fatal attack that they were seeking one suspect, possibly someone with a grudge against elderly men. Robbery did not appear to be a motive in any of the cases. No further information about the subject was released.
■ Hong Kong
Hog sickness causes death
A 78-year-old woman in Hong Kong has contracted a pig-borne disease that has killed 39 people in southwest China in recent weeks. The case is the third in Hong Kong since an outbreak of the disease, caused by the Streptococcus suis bacteria, began in China's Sichuan province around June. None of the three people had travelled recently outside Hong Kong. A government spokesman said the woman was in stable condition in hospital. She developed fever and pain in her left hip on Aug. 3 and was admitted to hospital on Aug. 8. "She said she did not consume any raw pork. We are investigating how she contracted the bacteria, if she has recently visited a wet market or if she was exposed to raw pork (during cooking)," the government spokesman said yesterday.
■ Afghanistan
Militants killed
Six militants were killed and three U.S. soldiers and an Afghan interpreter wounded in a clash in a complex of caves in the southeastern province of Paktika on Tuesday after Afghan and US troops encountered the militants during a patrol, a statement issued late on Wednesday said. "The enemy fled shortly afterwards toward a nearby cave complex," it said. "Afghan and U.S. forces pursued the enemy combatants toward the cave complex killing one," it said, adding that several hours later the same forces came into contact with additional militants and killed five more. In related news a munitions store belonging to the Afghan National Army inside a key airbase used by US-led forces in Afghanistan exploded yesterday, wounding at least three local soldiers, witnesses said.
■ India
46 die from bad water
Waterborne diseases killed at least 46 people in Bombay in the past four days following floods that crippled western India last month, officials said yesterday. Hospitals across the city were treating patients with high fevers, body aches and vomiting -- classic symptoms of leptospirosis, a potentially fatal disease that can be contracted from water contaminated with sewage, said Johnny Joseph, Bombay's civic commissioner. "We suspect that many deaths were due to leptospirosis," he said. Other civic officials said some of the deaths were caused by malaria, diarrhea and typhoid fever. Some 200 people remained hospitalized in Bombay, most of them suffering from fevers and vomiting.
■ India
Roaming cows given chips
Authorities in New Delhi have started inserting microchips into cows to tackle the decades-old problem of cattle roaming freely in the streets of the Indian capital, officials said yesterday. The move came after the Delhi High Court slammed civic authorities this month for failing to round up cows -- considered holy by Hindus -- and ordered officials to pay 2,000 rupees (US$46) to any one who brings in a stray. "We can now keep track of cows and see where they are and try to curb the problem of cows moving around in the streets," C.B. Singh, a veterinary officer with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, told Reuters. The microchips -- costing about 500 rupees each -- would be planted in the cow's digestive tract. There are an estimated 35,000 cows and buffalo in the capital and its surrounding areas.
■ New Zealand
Judge orders fair debate
A judge ordered a private television station yesterday to include the leaders of all eight political parties in parliament in a live pre-election debate, saying it would be an injustice for two to be left out. The decision was immediately criticized as judicial interference in the freedom of the media. Jim Anderton, leader of the Progressive Party in the Labour-ledcoalition government and the third-ranking cabinet minister, and Peter Dunne, leader of the United Future party, asked the High Court to make the TV3 channel include them in the debate scheduled for last night, ahead of next month's elections. TV3 had said it would only have the leaders of the six parties in parliament that attracted the most voter support in its latest opinion poll. Wellington High Court Judge Ron Young said TV3 had made an arbitrary decision on a single opinion poll that experts agreed had a bigger margin of error than that between the smaller parties.
■ Germany
Fugitive goes `undercover'
A detective inspector in Frankfurt was suspended from duty yesterday after undercover agents found an escaped criminal under the covers of her bed. Working on a tip-off, police officers raided the inspector's home and found the suspected rapist in bed, ending a massive manhunt. The suspect is accused of having raped and assaulted a 30-year-old woman. He was charged with statutory rape and attempted murder before escaping. From the outset, investigators thought he had inside help in eluding police. The 30-year-old inspector was stripped of her badge and her gun pending further investigation.
■ United States
Peru could sue for artifacts
Peru's government has threatened to sue Yale University if it does not return artifacts US archaeologist Hiram Bingham took when he re-discovered Machu Picchu in 1911, Andina news agency reported Wednesday. "Talks are ongoing, and if we do not reach an agreement, Peru will take legal and diplomatic action to recover its archaeological cultural heritage," Peru's ambassador to Washington, Eduardo Ferrero, said, according to the official news agency. He said more than a hundred pieces could be at issue.
■ United States
Explosives truck vaporized
A tractor-trailer carrying 15,975kg of explosives overturned and exploded, injuring four people and leaving a huge crater in a Utah highway. The truck driver, a passenger in the cab, a motorist and a man on a motorcycle were hospitalized after the truck on Wednesday "pretty much vaporized," Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant Todd Royce said. The explosion left a crater in two-lane US 6 estimated to be between 6m and 10.5m deep, Utah Department of Transportation spokesman Tom Hudachko said. Witnesses said the truck's driver appeared to lose control of the vehicle after taking a curve at high speed, police said.
■ Dr Congo
Mystery illness kills 20
A mysterious illness sweeping through a remote town at the center of a diamond rush in Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 20 miners and infected nearly 1,000, a UN aid worker said on Wednesday. UN agencies, aid workers and government health officials are making their way to Libayakuyasuka, some 84km northeast of Punia, a town in the north of Maniema province, where 10,000 miners are digging in a new mine. "There have been 21 deaths and there are over 970 cases amongst the miners," Gerson Brandao Azevedo, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told reporters by phone from Kindu, the capital of Maniema.
■ Canada
Government to slash jobs
The Canadian government is considering cutting some 41,000 jobs to save up to C$4 billion (US$3.3 billion) per year in salaries, officials told reporters Wednesday. The aim is to reduce duplication in areas of human resources, financial services, computer support and managing office supplies in each government department, said Jim Alexander, the treasury board official who spearheaded a two-year study that culminated in this plan. The work would be transferred from all departments to a new central agency, which would then offer its services to each department, he said.
■ United Kindom
Islamic Reformation urged
British novelist Salman Rushdie, sentenced to death in 1989 by a Muslim edict for The Satanic Verses, yesterday called for an Islamic Reformation to update the religion and broaden its appeal to the young. Writing in the Times newspaper, Rushdie said that in cities such as Leeds -- home to three of the four bombers who attacked London on July 7 -- Muslims were living in "near-segregation from the wider population." He said, "What is needed is a move beyond tradition -- nothing less than a reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age, a Muslim Reformation to combat not only the jihadi ideologues but also the dusty, stifling seminaries of the traditionalists, throwing open the windows of the closed communities to let in much-needed fresh air." He urged Muslims to read the Koran as a historical document and "a product of its place and time" rather than a book whose teachings are set in stone.
■ United States
Fugitive and wife arrested
A man and his wife, wanted for a brazen courthouse escape and shooting in Tennessee, were captured at an Ohio motel after a tip from a cab driver who dropped them off, police said. George Hyatte and Jennifer Hyatte were arrested in Columbus without a struggle on Wednesday night, police said. On Tuesday, Jennifer Hyatte, 31, ambushed two guards as they were leading her 34-year-old husband from a courthouse hearing. Guard Wayne Morgan was fatally shot in the escape.
■ United States
Man tries to fly with bomb
An Oklahoma man was taken into custody after he tried to carry a bomb on board an airplane on Wednesday in Oklahoma City, an FBI spokesman said. Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr, 24, was detained on Wednesday after a security screener using an X-ray machine saw the device in his luggage as he tried to board a flight to Philadelphia at Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. Dreyling was to be charged in federal court yesterday with possession of an explosive device at an airport.
■ Haiti
Shooting deaths soar
At least 35 people have been shot to death in the last four days, hospital officials said on Wednesday. At least 35 bodies riddled with bullets were processed at the morgue in Port-au-Prince's general hospital between Saturday and Wednesday, according to hospital sources. At least 23 bodies were taken there last week, sources said. Meanwhile, nine suspected criminals were killed in a police operation in the Port-au-Prince slum of Bel Air on Wednesday, officials said.
■ Chile
Pinochet relatives detained
The 82-year old wife and younger son of General Augusto Pinochet were in police custody in Santiago on Wednesday after a judge ordered them detained in connection with a tax fraud investigation of secret bank accounts that the former dictator opened in an US bank. Lucia Hiriart de Pinochet and Marco Antonio Pinochet are charged with being Pinochet's accomplices in a decade-long scheme to shift millions of dollars to safe havens abroad.
■ United Kingdom
Bikini timer hits the beach
A new bikini which bleeps every 15 minutes to prevent its wearer from falling asleep in the sun was to be launched on Brighton beach yesterday. The Tan-Timer Bikini will be sold by New Look, Britain's third-biggest women's clothes retailer.
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