■ China
Beijing protests acquittal
The Chinese consulate in New York has voiced dismay over the acquittal of a US border officer accused of beating a Chinese tourist and said it would closely monitor the progress of her civil lawsuit. Homeland Security officer Robert Rhodes was found not guilty on Thursday of using excessive force against Zhao Yan, 38 who was touring Niagara Falls in July last year. Rhodes was accused of spraying Zhao with pepper spray, throwing her against a wall, kneeing her in the head and striking her head on the ground. Rhodes was charged with violating Zhao's civil rights. He told a court in upstate New York that he had followed proper procedures in subduing Zhao and denied beating her. Zhao is pursuing a US$10 million lawsuit against the US government.
■ Thailand
Carcinogenic pigs found
Agriculture officials have seized 10,000 pigs after finding their feed was mixed with illegal drugs that can cause cancer, the government said yesterday. The agriculture ministry inspected 400 farms and some 200,000 pigs in Prachuab Khiri Khan Province and found that eight farms had used banned chemicals, according to a news release posted on its Web site. "Most of the animal feed was made with carbadox, which is a dysentery medication for pigs, but it can cause cancer in people who eat this pork," the release quoted Agriculture Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan as saying. Four farms were found to use carbadox -- which has been shown in some studies to cause cancer -- while four others employed antibiotics that are potential carcinogens, the release said.
■ Singapore
Filipino eyed for murder
Police said they had arrested a Filipino maid in a murder investigation yesterday, a day after the dismembered parts of a woman were discovered in bags at the city-state's main shopping center and a park. On Friday afternoon, a woman's head and severed limbs were found in a sports bag near the entrance of a subway station at Orchard Road, home to luxury boutiques and large department stores. A few hours later, a female torso was found in a trolley bag on a path at one of the state's best-known parks. "Based on investigation, we believe that the victim is a 26-year-old Filipina domestic worker. Extensive groundwork and enquiries have established that the suspect is a fellow Filipina maid, believed to be known to the victim," the police said in a statement.
■ Malaysia
Civil servants get warning
Civil servants have been warned that ogling or hugging a colleague without first getting his or her consent will be treated as sexual harassment, a news report said yesterday. The new guidelines apply to the country's nearly 1 million public servants and also include a prohibition against lewd gestures, such as sticking out one's tongue, or lascivious phone text messages, the New Straits Times reported. But it's all right to shake hands or have a public discussion on sex, the newspaper said.
■ Vietnam
Floods kill five
Seasonal floods have killed at least five people in southern Vietnam's Mekong Delta where 28,000 people have been evacuated to higher ground, state-run media reported yesterday. Four people, three of them children, drowned in Dong Thap province where nearly 1,500 houses were submerged and another 136 homes collapsed, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said, quoting a report by the province's disaster management committee. Floodwaters from Cambodia pouring into the fertile southern delta, which produces around half of Vietnam's grain, have forced 5,600 families -- 28,000 people -- to higher ground in Dong Thap, the report said.
■ China
Notorious killer gets death
A court has sentenced Beijing's notorious "kindergarten killer" to death for murdering a teacher, a student and three others in a years-long crime spree, state media said yesterday. Fu Hegong, 31, was convicted on Friday of murder, stealing, rape and molestation, by Beijing's No. 2 Intermediate Court, the city's newspapers said in front-page coverage of the case. Fu, who had served two jail terms for stealing, sneaked into a kindergarten on Oct. 21 last year to rob it, the Beijing Youth Daily said, citing the court. When he was discovered, he killed a teacher by smothering her with a quilt and killed a 5-year-old boy by hitting him with a fire extinguisher, the court found.
■ China
12-year fireworks ban lifted
Next year residents of Beijing will be able to again enjoy their centuries-old custom of setting off fireworks during the Lunar New Year, a news report said. Beijing's municipal legislature on Friday lifted a 12-year ban on fireworks during the Lunar New Year in the Chinese capital, Xinhua reported. The new regulation will take effect Dec. 1. The revised rules replace a prohibition implemented in 1993 for security and environmental protection reasons, but the new rules include partial restrictions.
■ Colombia
Rebels apply for benefits
Nearly 40 Colombian rebels on Friday became the first Marxist guerrillas to apply for benefits under a new law offering reduced jail terms to those willing to lay down their arms. The law, passed in June with input from paramilitary leaders, offers a maximum penalty of eight years for crimes such as massacre and kidnapping committed by members of Colombia's illegal armed groups involved in a 41-year-old guerrilla war. Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo appeared at a ceremony on Friday with 38 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who approached the government asking to disband under the law.
■ United States
Bush honors dead officers
US President George W. Bush on Friday honored the 442 public safety officers who died on Sep. 11, calling them "men and women of uncommon valor and decency and honor" and awarding each a Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor. The medals were presented to relatives. In his remarks at the White House, Bush cited four people by name, all of them New Yorkers -- Donny Regan, a firefighter from the Bronx; Ronnie Gies, a firefighter from Queens; Thomas Jurgens, a New York state court officer; and Moira Smith, a city police officer. "All the brave men and women we recognize today brought credit to the uniform and honor to the United States of America," Bush said before 1,200 friends and relatives of the dead.
■ United States
Gore helps with evacuation
Former US vice president Al Gore helped airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans, acting at the urging of his doctor. Gore criticized the Bush administration's slow response to Katrina in a speech on Friday in San Francisco. He refused to be interviewed about the mercy missions he financed and flew last Saturday and Sunday. However, Dr. Anderson Spickard, who is Gore's personal physician and accompanied him on the flights, said: "Gore told me he wanted to do this because like all of us he wanted to seize the opportunity to do what one guy can do, given the assets that he has."
■ Egypt
Gaza troops deployed
Egyptian forces started deploying along their border with the Gaza Strip yesterday, ahead of Israel's military pullout from the Palestinian territory, a senior security source said. "They received the green light and started deploying this morning," the official said, adding that the area had been sealed off. A senior security official on the Palestinian side of the Rafah border confirmed that the Egyptian forces had begun deploying along the 14km frontier.
■ United Nations
NITED NATIONS
Africa's crime slows growth
Africa has a serious crime problem, a key factor in its seeming inability to grow out of poverty and fully join in the global economy, a UN agency reported on Friday. Crime is "a dramatic impediment to growth" on the continent and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, said Antonio Maria-Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. African as well as foreign investors looking to put money into the developing world put their funds elsewhere, such as Asia, for fear of financial and property crime and corruption, undermining economic development. Investors also shun areas hit by violent crime, he said.
■ United Kingdom
Naked rambler jailed
A man attempting to walk the length of Britain in the nude was jailed on Friday for two weeks for his antics by an Edinburgh court. Stephen Gough, 46, was arrested south of Edinburgh on Sept. 1 during his second attempt to walk the length of Britain in the nude. Gough was naked in court as sheriff Kenneth MacIver found him guilty of a breach of the peace. He told Gough: "I have no doubt in my mind that walking naked through a Scottish town and along a busy road is not something which the Scottish public should be expected to deal with."
■ United Kingdom
Free food offer too good
London's mobile soup kitchens are attracting new customers -- those who are not poor and needy but just too lazy to cook. More than 80 percent of the people using the city's soup kitchens are in fact not homeless, the Times newspaper reported yesterday. Research by Westminster Council, whose remit covers much of the city center, said that the 65 mobile soup kitchens were increasingly being seen as a free, convenient catering service. "People come out of hostels and flats because it's free and it saves cooking," one user of a soup kitchen told the survey.
■ Congo
Plane crash kills 13
An Antonov plane crashed north of Brazzaville killing all 13 people on board, eye-witnesses said yesterday, in the second accident in less than a week involving the Russian-made aircraft. The Antonov 26 was flying a route in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo from Equateur in the northwest to the capital Kinshasa when it came down just across the border late on Friday. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. The flight was operated by Democratic Republic of Congo's Air Kasai.
■ United States
Year in jail for abuse charge
A California Army National Guard sergeant has been sentenced to a year in military prison for abusing detainees in Iraq, authorities said. Sergeant David Fimon, 26, pleaded guilty to multiple charges on Monday during a court-martial in Baghdad. He was sentenced on Friday. The hearing stemmed from allegations that 12 soldiers with the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment abused prisoners, a Task Force Baghdad spokesman said. Fimon will also lose a year's salary, be demoted to private and was given a bad-conduct discharge, meaning he will not be entitled to many veteran's benefits. He will serve his sentence in the US.
■ Iraq
Baghdad airport reopens
Baghdad International Airport reopened early yesterday after being closed for a day over a payments dispute between the government and a British company providing security at the facility. "We have reached agreement with the Global security firm, and the airport is open now for domestic and international flights," said Esmat Amer, acting Transportation Minister. Global Strategies Group suspended operations on Friday claiming the Ministry of Transportation was six months behind in payments.
■ Cyprus
Plane crash kills two
A Cypriot army plane crashed into a residential area near a British base on the island yesterday, narrowly missing a packed church and a 13th century Crusaders' castle, police and witnesses said. The two pilots were killed, police said. No other casualties were reported.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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