■ Indonesia
No pardon for bombers
Three Islamic militants on death row for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings will not request a presidential pardon, a prosecutor said yesterday, as public calls mounted for their rapid execution. Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron turned down the chance to ask for a pardon when they met with prosecutors and judges on Wednesday in their cells on Indonesia's prison island of Nusakambangan, said a prosecutor who took part. The three have said they carried out the attacks on two nightclubs packed with foreign tourists to avenge the deaths of Muslims in Israel and Afghanistan. The attacks killed 202 people.
■ China
Babies for sale on the Web
Shanghai police are investigating advertisements offering babies for sale on a Chinese Web site, state media said yesterday. The ads, which appeared on Oct. 16, promised babies under 100 days old from the impoverished Henan Province at prices of 28,000 yuan (US$3,500) for boys and 13,000 yuan for girls, the China Daily said. More than 50 people browsed the posting before it was quickly removed. The sale of children and women is a nationwide problem in China., the poster claimed to be offering the infants to help millions of couples unable to have children. "Whoever is behind the post could face years in prison or even the death sentence," the newspaper said.
■ Malaysia
PM's wife dies
Malaysia went into mourning yesterday for Endon Mahmood, the well-liked wife of the prime minister, who died after a long battle with breast cancer. Endon was a well of inspiration for Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, but friends dispelled any notion that he might now lose his appetite for power. Parliament was adjourned until Monday as a mark of respect and all local TV stations broadcast prayers. The death came in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, during which devout Muslims believe the departed receive special blessings. The soft-spoken Endon was diagnosed with cancer in 2002.
■ Vietnam
`Billionaire' monk caught
Police are to prosecute a self-proclaimed monk and medicine man who claimed he had US$2.5 billion in cash, gold and diamonds stolen from his house, state media reported yesterday. The 46-year-old showed reporters US$400,000 in cash as proof of his claims that thieves had broken into his Hanoi home and made off with the loot, which would amount to more than 5 percent of the nation's economy. According to the Lao Dong daily, police were not taken in and, on probing his past to unearth the source on his extraordinary wealth, discovered he had been illegally operating as a doctor.
■ New Zealand
Rat breaks swiming record
A rat has made a record ocean swim of 400m between two islands, University of Auckland scientists reported yesterday. The rat was released onto one of a cluster of small islands in the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland in an experiment aimed at improving ways of keeping offshore bird sanctuaries free of rodents. The scientists were puzzled when they could not find it again, said researcher James Russell. Signs of the rodent, including fecal DNA that matched samples taken before its release, then appeared on an island, 400m away.
■ United Kingdom
Let there be light
How many men does it take to change a light bulb in a British church? Thanks to the EU's "Working at Heights Directive" the answer is four -- over three days at a cost of more than
£1,300 (US$2,291). Preaching at St Benet's Church in Beccles, Suffolk, in gathering gloom, Father Anthony Sutch had to call in electricians to change light bulbs that are 12 meters above the congregation. Because safety regulations deemed the church ceiling too high for a ladder, scaffolding had to be erected for a lengthy and costly replacement operation.
■ Canada
War criminal charged
A Rwandan man was arrested on Wednesday in Toronto and charged on seven counts for allegedly committing crimes against humanity in the African country in 1994, the federal police said. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement that Desire Munyaneza, 39, was accused of committing crimes against humanity in the prefecture of Butare. Currently a resident of Toronto, he was arrested after a five-year investigation by the Canadian federal police in Canada, Rwanda and Europe, the statement said. Munyaneza is the first person to be charged in Canada under a federal law on crimes against humanity and war crimes enacted in October 2000.
■ Iran
Government ready to talk
The government will put the issue of uranium enrichment on the agenda of future nuclear talks, Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said on Wednesday. "The uranium enrichment in the Natanz plant [central Iran] must start and will therefore be on the agenda of any future nuclear talks," Mottaki told state news television IRIB. He stressed that there would be no concessions over Iran's nuclear activities which he said were the irrevocable will of the Iranian nation. "We will however simultaneously remain committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and consider the NPT as a suitable mechanism for controlling nuclear activities," he said.
■ United States
Sex no longer subsidized
It took a hurricane to do it, but the US Congress has finally ended federal subsidies for users of Viagra and other sexual performance drugs. The Senate on Wednesday passed without debate and sent to the president legislation that ends Medicare and Medicaid payments for erectile dysfunction drugs as part of a package that extends medical help for the poor and provides unemployment benefit aid to states hit by Hurricane Katrina.
■ Spain
US soldiers to stand trial
A judge issued an international arrest order for three US soldiers on Wednesday in connection with the killing of a Spanish journalist in Baghdad during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Judge Santiago Pedraz Gomez of the National Court in Madrid, said the three might have committed murder and a "crime against the international community" on Apr. 8, 2003 when a US tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, where more than 100 journalists were staying. Jose Manuel Couso Permuy, a cameraman with the Spanish TV station Telecinco, and Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian-born cameraman with Reuters, were fatally wounded in the blast.
■ Colombia
Uribe allowed second term
The Constitutional Court on Wednesday upheld a constitutional amendment allowing President Alvaro Uribe to seek a second term in next year's elections, ending the country's one-term limit. While the opposition expressed disappointment over the ruling, Uribe said it "deepens democracy." With polls showing that Uribe enjoying a 70 percent approval rating, the opposition described next year's election as a battle between "David and Goliath," pointing out that he himself had pushed the bill through congress. Uribe's allies applauded the ruling, saying it would allow him to continue his crackdown on leftist guerrillas locked in a 41-year-old conflict with the government.
■ Chile
Immunity stripped, again
The Supreme Court on Wednesday stripped former dictator General Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution for corruption charges related to his multimillion-dollar bank accounts overseas. Pinochet, 89, has been stripped of his presidential immunity at least four times before, but in cases stemming from the massive human rights abuses during his 1973-1990 dictatorship. This time, the court decided that Pinochet can be tried on charges related to his bank accounts in the US. The charges include tax evasion, filing a false tax return and using false passports to open bank accounts abroad.
■ United States
Warrant issued for DeLay
An arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday and bail set at US$10,000 for former US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ahead of his first appearance in court on money laundering and conspiracy charges. The warrant called upon any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest DeLay, but he was expected to turn himself in voluntarily. DeLay is scheduled to make his first court appearance today, and is charged with conspiracy and money laundering in a campaign finance scheme tied to his political action committee, and could face up to life in prison if convicted.
■ United States
Spelling a campaign issue
The campaign of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg misspelled the name of one of the mayor's most important supporters, his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, in an invitation to a kosher breakfast next week with Bloomberg, Giuliani and former mayor Edward Koch, who has also endorsed the mayor. The campaign, which has spent at least US$47 million already, added an extra "i" to Giuliani's name, spelling it "G-i-u-i-l-i-a-n-i" in the invitation. The campaign of Bloomberg's Democratic opponent, Fernando Ferrer, sent a copy of the invitation to reporters by e-mail with the subject heading that said "how quickly we forget" and a quick note that read "Rudy who?" "At least we got `Bloomberg' right," a spokesman for Bloomberg's campaign, Stu Loeser, said.
■ United States
Travel rules `hurt families'
Travel restrictions imposed by the US and Cuba show complete disregard for families by tearing children away from parents and preventing adults from caring for ailing parents, a major report on travel by Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. US and Cuban policies forcibly separate families and infringe on internationally recognized rights to freedom of movement. As a result, marriages dissolve, children are unable to reconnect with parents following long separations and the elderly die without seeing their offspring for a last time.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of