■ Hong Kong
Pet lovers seethe over kitten
The government has promised to take tougher action on animal abusers after pet lovers took to the street following a vicious attack on a kitten, a news report said yesterday. The protesters were demanding a review of penalties following the attack in which a kitten died after its legs were ripped off by an attacker. They carried pictures of the kitten and their own pets in the protest which took place on Sunday. Animal cruelty carries a maximum fine of US$640 or six months in jail, but protesters want to see it increased to a US$6,400 fine and five years in jail.
■ Japan
Prince urges female reign
Japan's Prince Tomohito urged a government panel to reconsider its proposal to resolve an imperial succession crisis by letting females reign, months after he suggested employing concubines to produce a male heir, a news report said yesterday. Tomohito, a cousin of Emperor Akihito and fifth in the line of succession, said the panel should look into options such as reinstating former imperial branch family members who lost their royal status after World War II, Kyodo News Agency reported. There was "no need to immediately" reach a decision, the report quoted the prince as saying.
■ India
Police nab decapitator
Police have arrested an Indian real-estate agent over the killing of an elderly German woman who had been living in the western Indian city of Pune for decades, an officer said. Police found the beheaded body of Gudarun Corvinus, 72, on Saturday in her apartment in Pune, 200km south of Bombay, police said. Her severed head was found on a nearby river bank. Corvinus, a historian, lived alone in the apartment. The Press Trust of India news agency said the suspect, 26-year-old Fakir Mohammed Sheikh, allegedly killed Corvinus because he had wanted her apartment.
■ Malaysia
Snooker ban lifted
Malaysia's only Islamic opposition-ruled state has lifted a 15-year-old ban on snooker parlors as its government moves to shed its hardline, fundamentalist image, an official said yesterday. The opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic party that rules the northeastern Kelantan state announced on Sunday that snooker parlors can operate as long as they close early, keep men and women patrons separate and do not permit gambling. In the announcement, Chief Minister Nik Aziz Nik Mat said state legislation was being amended to categorize snooker and billiards as "sport" instead of entertainment to simplify licensing procedures by local authorities.
■ India
Millions of females aborted
An estimated 10 million female foetuses have been aborted in India over the last two decades, according to a study of birth rates to be published online yesterday by the British medical journal Lancet. A team of researchers from Canada and India analyzed information from 133,738 births in 1997 across India, and determined that fewer females are born as second or third children to families who do not yet have a boy, compared with those who already have a boy. The statistics according to birth order were striking. The sex ratio for the second birth when the preceding child was a girl was 759 girls per 1,000 males, and for the third child was 719 girls if the previous two children were girls.
■ United Kingdom
Car kills four cyclists
A group of cyclists were killed on Sunday and eight were injured after they collided with a car on a country road. The four, part of a group of 12 cyclists from a local club out on a practice session, were killed after a driver lost control of his car on an icy north Wales road, police said. Scott Eccles, secretary of the Rhyl Cycling Club, said those killed were a 14-year-old boy, two men aged 42 and 49, and a third man in his 60s. Police did not confirm the identities.
■ Egypt
Sexual nudity sparks spat
An Egyptian cleric's controversial fatwa claiming that nudity during sex invalidates a marriage has uncovered a rift among Islamic scholars. According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University's faculty of Shariah (or Islamic law), "being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage." The religious decree sparked a hot debate on the private satellite network Dream's popular religious talk show. During the live televised debate, Islamic scholar Abdel Muti dismissed the fatwa: "Nothing is prohibited during marital sex, except of course sodomy."
■ United Kingdom
Prince William joins army
Prince William joined the army on Sunday when he began his officer training at Sandhurst. He started a 44-week course at the elite academy, where his brother, Prince Harry, has already completed two terms. Like all new officer cadets, he is banned from leaving the site for the first five weeks of training, meaning he will miss his girlfriend Kate Middleton's 24th birthday. He has insisted he wants to be treated like everyone else and be able to fight in war zones. Before that possibility he will have to face another ordeal -- having to salute to Prince Harry when the younger man graduates ahead of him later this year.
■ South Africa
Birth scam uncovered
Pregnant Zimbabwean women are fleeing their homeland to give birth in South Africa and avail of child support a police spokeswoman said on Sunday. Many of those arriving were crossing the border illegally, said the spokeswoman in the South African province of Limpopo. As soon as they had given birth, the women applied for child support grants of US$31 per month. A total of 2,300 Zimbabweans were arrested during weekend raids the spokeswoman said. "The women told us they came here to give birth so that their children can get South African birth certificates," she said, adding, "This in turn makes them qualify for child support grants."
■ Syria
Assad meets top Saudis
President Bashar Assad flew to Saudi Arabia on Sunday for a surprise meeting with Saudi leaders. The meeting occurred a day after he was quoted as saying that he would not cooperate with the UN investigation of the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. Assad met top members of the Saudi ruling family including King Abdullah the government run Saudi Press Agency reported. In wording clearly meant to encourage Assad to cooperate, the royal family released a statement saying that at the meeting, Abdullah "affirmed the kingdom's desire for stronger relations between Syria and Lebanon in all fields, so that the interests of both countries and security of the region are protected."
■ United States
Mouse sparks house fire
A New Mexico houseowner attempting to dispose of a mouse in a burning pile of leaves instead watched the flaming rodent run into his home, sparking a fire that burnt it down, said fire officials on Sunday. The 81-year-old owner was not injured when his house burnt down to its foundation, fire chief Juan Chavez told the Clovis News Journal. The now homeless man, had an ongoing mouse problem and had set up numerous traps in his home. "I've seen numerous house fires, but nothing as unique as this one," fire captain Jim Lyssy said.
■ United States
Two killed in skydive
A skydiving teacher and his Japanese student died after a botched tandem jump over Hawaii, the head of the parachuting school said on Saturday. Erich "Max" Mueller, an experienced, 69-year-old instructor from Germany, and his 33-year-old student missed the intended landing zone and came down in the sea, striking an underwater reef about 300m off shore, said Frank Hinshaw, president of Skydive Hawaii. Both the Japanese woman, a tourist, and the German teacher were flown in extremely critical condition to a hospital, where they died without regaining consciousness, Hinshaw said.
■ United States
Funerals for miners begin
Families on Sunday began burying the 12 coal miners who died underground after an explosion on Jan. 2 at the ill-fated Sago Mine in West Virginia. Up to six funerals were held on Sunday, with more church services scheduled yesterday and today. The men apparently were poisoned by carbon monoxide that filled their mine shaft after the still unexplained mishap trapped them underground. A sole survivor of the accident, 26-year-old Randal McCloy Jr., remained hospitalized in critical condition in Morgantown, West Virginia. He remains unconscious and under sedation as doctors continue to try to slowly restore his organ functions.
■ Mexico
Candidate softens tone
Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador strove to portray himself as a moderate as he formally registered his presidential candidacy on Sunday, promising to reduce immigration to the US and maintain a balanced foreign policy. Portrayed as a radical and a populist by detractors, the former Mexico City mayor has worked to move toward the political center as his once-commanding lead in public opinion polls shrank since late fall. Calling for "a broad, representative and inclusive citizen's movement," Lopez Obrador promised Mexicans "a new economy" but said it wouldn't be based on ideology. He said he would work to stem the flow of immigrants to the US in search of jobs by stimulating Mexico's economy.
■ Canada
Liberals slam rival's budget
The ruling Liberal Party branded its chief rival's economic promises on Sunday as budget busters that would plunge Ottawa into multibillion-dollar deficits, but the Conservatives said they have the figures to back up their plan. With two weeks until a nationwide parliamentary election, the Liberal Party estimated the Conservatives' promises to date would rack up C$12.4 billion (US$10.6 billion) in deficits in five years, a charge denied by the Conservatives. "As of today we've costed what's in the Conservative platform so far ... and there's a deficit every year," Finance Minister Ralph Goodale said in a phone interview. Canada has had a surplus in each of the past eight years.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the