■ PHILIPPINES
Ten hurt in drive-by attack
A man riding on a motorcycle opened fire on a crowded mosque on the southern island of Jolo, wounding at least 10 people as they took a break from nighttime prayers, police said yesterday. Investigators were trying to determine the man's identity and motive, a senior police officer said. The attacker was armed with a homemade rifle and fled aboard a motorcycle driven by a companion after the attack on Saturday, the officer said.
■ INDIA
Cabinet reshuffle underway
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh added several ministers to his government yesterday, mostly for new positions partly aimed at bolstering regional support ahead of elections in some states. President Abdul Kalam swore in 10 Cabinet ministers -- including three junior ministers being promoted -- and a dozen new junior ministers in a brief ceremony at the presidential palace. The new ministers include senior members of the ruling Congress party, as well as key regional politicians from the five states due to hold elections this year. The allocation of portfolios was due to be announced later. No major changes were expected.
■ AUSTRALIA
Bodies found in barrels
Firefighters made a grisly discovery yesterday when they discovered human body parts in two barrels burning in a forest south of Sydney, police said. The firefighters found the remains of a man and a woman after they went to deal with a small bush fire in a state forest at Tomerong, about 210km south of Sydney. New South Wales police superintendent Kyle Stewart said the discovery of the parts in 44-gallon drums was a "fairly horrific scene." Police were questioning a man and a woman over the find.
■ PHILIPPINES
Mass brush-off held
Nearly 11,000 schoolchildren brushed their teeth at a seaside Manila park yesterday in an attempt to break a world record for a simultaneous brush-off and to try and reverse the prevalence of tooth decay among Filipinos, organizers said. About 10,800 students from eight metropolitan Manila grade schools, guided by 187 dentists, used soft-bristle tooth brushes for nearly three minutes at the Rizal Park then tossed into the air red caps given by organizers. The mass brush-off was sponsored by a toothpaste company and health and education officials. Organizers hoped to break the Guinness World record set by 10,240 Chinese students on Sept. 20, 2003.
■ CAMBODIA
Stabbing suspects nabbed
Two men were arrested on Friday on suspicion of robbing and stabbing a Canadian tourist in the beach town of Sihanoukville, police said yesterday. Nhek Bunthol, 26, and Yav Phea, 24, approached the Canadian man and his British wife on Jan. 11 and asked if they wanted marijuana. When the couple refused, the two men allegedly stabbed the Canadian and took US$87 in cash. The victim was stabbed in the neck but recovered.
■ INDIA
Gurus asked to stop suicides
Maharashtra state has sought the help of holy men to contain the rash of suicides by poverty-stricken cotton farmers, a news report said yesterday. Authorities have approached gurus in the hope that the religious masters will motivate the farmers with hymns, invocations and discourses. At least 250 farmers have committed suicides since June last year.
■ BOLIVIA
Farmer named drug czar
President Evo Morales, who pledged as a candidate to roll back US efforts to curb coca growing in Bolivia, appointed a coca leaf grower as new drug czar on Saturday. During a trip to the heart of Bolivia's coca-growing region, Morales said he named Felipe Caceres, a co-founder of his Movement Toward Socialism party, to head his government's fight against drug trafficking. "A coca farmer is going to be in charge of the fight against drugs," Morales said, wearing a hat woven of coca leaves and drawing loud applause from hundreds of people, many of them coca farmers, gathered in this lush jungle swath.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Abortion limits supported
A majority of women in Britain want the law changed to make it harder for them to end a pregnancy, according to a poll in the Observer newspaper yesterday. The MORI poll found that 47 percent of women believe the legal limit for an abortion should be cut from its present 24 weeks while 10 percent thought abortion should be outlawed completely. Only 31 percent of women and 35 percent of men thought the current time limit is "about right." Just 2 percent of women and 5 percent of men thought the last possible date after which a woman can end a pregnancy should be increased from 24 weeks.
■ RUSSIA
Alleged UK spies arrested
Two spies in the pay of the British have been arrested, a former chief of Russia's FSB security services said in televised comments on the discovery of an alleged British spy operation in Moscow. Britain's Foreign Office said yesterday it was investigating the reports. "Two spies working for Britain were arrested," Nikolai Kovalev, now a lawmaker with the pro-Kremlin party United Russia, told the NTV channel on Saturday, without clarifying their nationality. "Certainly, they are not silent, they are speaking," added Kovalev, who headed the secret services from 1996-1998.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Hitler's art to be auctioned
Twenty-one watercolors and sketches by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler are to be auctioned in Britain after 70 years in a suitcase in a Belgian attic, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported. The collection was apparently produced between 1916 and 1918 when the young Hitler was a corporal during World War I. The works are to be auctioned at Jefferys in Lostwithiel, southwest England, and are expected to fetch up to ?100,000 (US$177,300), the British weekly reported. Among the watercolor landscapes are one of a church on the edge of town and another a hastily-erected barracks in pastel shades.
■ UNITED STATES
NASA scientist muzzled
NASA's top climate scientist has accused the Bush administration of trying to stop him from speaking out after called in a lecture for swift cuts in emissions of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, the New York Times reported yesterday. James Hansen, director of the US space agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his forthcoming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for media interviews, the Times reported. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," Hansen said.
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
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the