■ South Korea
Legislator asked to quit
Parliament voted on Thursday to ask one of its legislators to quit for grabbing a reporter's breasts, the first time it has ever taken such action. The national assembly voted 149 to 84 for a legally non-binding resolution calling for the resignation of Choi Yeon-Hee, former secretary general of the main opposition Grand National Party. Choi, 62, apologized for touching the local newspaper reporter's breasts during a drinks party in February but he has rejected calls from the public to give up his seat in parliament. "We urge Choi to resign as he cannot fulfill his duty because of sexual misconduct," read the resolution.
■ China
131 students poisoned
A group of 131 public school students suffered ricin poisoning after eating castor beans during a government-organized activity to plant the beans, a news report said yesterday. The incident occurred early on Thursday in Jingyang County in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It said the poisoned elementary and junior high school students were receiving medical attention but didn't give any details of their condition. Castor beans are cultivated to produce castor oil for laxatives, soaps and other products. But the ricin in the beans also is a deadly toxin.
■ China
Bomb detonated in court
A man detonated a homemade bomb in a court in southwestern China's Sichuan Province, killing himself and seriously wounding a judge, provincial authorities said yesterday. Xia Yukai detonated the bomb in the Guangyuan courthouse on Wednesday, apparently in revenge for a series of court rulings that did not go in his favor, according to a statement on the Sichuan government Web site. Xia, 59, had been involved in litigation over a mine operation that he once owned, but later contracted out to other companies, the statement said. The 55-year-old judge was seriously injured, but no other details about his condition were given.
■ India
Bus crashes into river
Two people were killed and at least 58 were feared dead after a bus swerved off a mountain road and hurtled into a fast-flowing river in Indian Kashmir yesterday, police said. Rescuers recovered two bodies from the accident site where only the top of the bus was visible in the icy waters of the Chenab River, police said. The bus traveling from the remote town of Gulab Ghar to Jammu, the winter capital of Indian Kashmir, was believed to be carrying at least 60 passengers, said police superintendent Gulbir Singh.
■ Sweden
Duck pond goes `Brokeback'
In the middle of mating season, a couple of male ducks returned to a park in southern Sweden, for the third consecutive year, ignoring the siren calls of all the lady ducks around them. Far from the torments of bird flu and temptations of the opposite sex, the two common shelducks appear only to have eyes for each other -- in a sort of ducky gay marriage. "We can state that they act exactly like a couple [composed] of a man and woman, the bigger one always defending the smaller duck," Lennarth Blomquist, in charge of bird management in the southern city of Malmo, told the TT news agency. "Shelducks mate for life," he said.
■ United States
Ring around Uranus is blue
The newly discovered outer ring of Uranus is bright blue, for the same reason the Earth's sky is blue -- it is made up of tiny particles, astronomers said on Thursday. It is "strikingly similar" to Saturn's outer ring, which astronomers last month confirmed was probably generated by one of the planet's moons, Enceladus.
■ United States
FEMA slots filled
The Bush administration moved on Thursday to fill four senior management slots at the troubled Federal Emergency Management Agency. R. David Paulison, who has been acting director since shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, was nominated for the top post. The nomination of Paulison, who must be confirmed by the Senate, came only after an extensive search for a successor to Michael Brown, who resigned in September after criticism of the agency's response to Katrina. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday that he is now convinced that Paulison, 59, is the right person to take over FEMA. Before joining FEMA in 2001 as the US fire administrator, Paulison had spent almost his entire career at the fire department in Miami-Dade, Florida, working his way up from rescue firefighter in 1971 to chief by 1992.
■ United states
Virus used for tiny machines
Researchers trying to make tiny machines have turned to the power of nature, engineering a virus to attract metals and then using it to build minute wires for microscopic batteries. The resulting nanowires can be used in minuscule lithium ion battery electrodes, which in turn would be used to power very small machines, the researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The international team of researchers, led by a group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used the M13 virus, a simple and easily manipulated virus.
■ Djibouti
Boat capsizes in harbor
A boat carrying passengers to a traditional festival capsized off the coast on Thursday killing at least 69 people, an adviser to the president said. Many more were missing and feared dead, Ismael Tani, an adviser to President Ismail Umar Guelleh, said. He said the boat overturned in a harbor at about midday and ``was probably overloaded.'' Tani said officials believed more than 200 people were on board the vessel. Djibouti, a Horn of Africa nation bordering Eritrea and Somalia, hosts the only US military base in sub-Saharan Africa. The US has offered Djibouti assistance, a US public affairs officer from the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa said on Thursday.
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