■ Cambodia
Mine kills 10 villagers
At least 10 villagers were killed when their truck hit an anti-tank mine left over from the country's civil war, police said yesterday. The truck hit the mine on Friday in the northern province of Oddar Meanchey -- a former stronghold of Khmer Rouge guerrillas. "A lot of mines were planted in those former battlefields and no one knows where they are until they explode," provincial police official Theak Thea said. Last November, an anti-tank mine killed 14 villagers travelling in the same area. Cambodia's northern border regions are littered with millions of landmines, the legacy of nearly 30 years of fighting. Mine clearing teams have destroyed an estimated 1.6 million landmines in the last decade, but millions more remain and are responsible for hundreds of deaths and injuries every year. Of more than 4,000 mine-related casualties reported between 2000 and 2004, more than 1,000 were children.
■ India
Pipeline given green light
India, Pakistan and Iran have agreed to press ahead with negotiations to finalize a 2,100km gas pipeline deal in defiance of US opposition to the venture, the Qatari newspaper the Peninsula reported yesterday. "All three of us have agreed to go ahead with the pipeline proposal," India's Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora told the Peninsula after emerging from talks with his counterparts from Iran and Pakistan in Doha, Qatar. The ministers are attending the three-day International Energy Forum that began on Saturday. Asked what the next step would be, Deora said a meeting at the level of secretaries between the three countries was to be held shortly in Pakistan's port city of Karachi.
■ Sri Lanka
Violence leaves five dead
At least two soldiers and three suspected Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in fresh violence, officials said yesterday. Police opened fire and killed two suspected Tamil Tiger rebels who lobbed a grenade at a checkpoint in the eastern Trincomalee district early yesterday, a police official said. He said another Tiger rebel was killed in a separate incident when troops retaliated after coming under a grenade attack during a routine patrol. Two soldiers were killed and four others were injured in a landmine attack in the north of the island late on Saturday, a military official said.
■ Afghanistan
UK minister visits Kabul
Coalition troops must maintain the offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants to prevent their return to power, British Defense Secretary John Reid said on a trip to Kabul yesterday. Reid also said that the volatile Helmand Province, where British soldiers are based, was one of Afghanistan's most dangerous regions. Taliban militants have increased bombings and shootings across the country, particularly in southern provinces like Helmand and Kandahar.
■ Afghanistan
Taliban kill security guard
Taliban militants attacked a US-backed construction company yesterday, killing one security guard and wounding two more before torching 14 vehicles, the company's director said. The attack happened on the Uruzgan-Kandahar highway near a southern Kandahar provincial village where a day earlier four Canadian soldiers were killed in a suspected Taliban roadside bombing. A group of heavily armed militants launched a two-hour gun battle against the headquarters of the Thavazoo company in Shah Wali Kot district early yesterday, said Haji Mohammed Youssef, the company's director. It was unclear if yesterday's Taliban raid was linked to Saturday's killing of four Canadian soldiers, the deadliest attack on that nation's troops since they deployed in 2002.
■ Hong Kong
Tsang touts birdwatching
Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) is urging residents to take up bird watching, suggesting it can teach patience and help people achieve peace of mind. "From watching birds you can learn restraint, endurance and focus -- these are qualities a leader must have," Tsang said on Saturday on government-owned radio RTHK. "Whether it's watching birds or watching fish, observing their relaxed state, focusing on discovering the joys of nature, one can put down one's pressures unconsciously and reach a peaceful state," he said.
■ China
Hebei lacks drinking water
Hebei Province is suffering its worst drought in 55 years with hundreds of thousands of people lacking drinking water, a newspaper and a government Web site said on Saturday. Hebei's worst drought since 1951 had destroyed wheat crops covering about 1.6 million hectares, the 21st Century Herald said. "About 520,000 people will have seasonal difficulty accessing drinking water," the paper quoted Liu Weizhong, an official with Hebei's anti-drought office, as saying. "The number of people lacking drinking will greatly increase in the future." Underground water in the province had dropped by 2m compared with last year, it said. Chengde, a city in Hebei about 200km northeast of Beijing, had accumulated only 33mm of rain since the third quarter of last year, the newspaper said.
■ Iran
Tehran stands firm
The government will not abandon its work on uranium enrichment even if faced with threats, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said yesterday. "Iran's uranium enrichment and nuclear research and development activities are irreversible," he said. The International Atomic Energy Agency is due to submit a report by this Friday's deadline on whether Iran is complying with a UN demand that it halt enrichment. "If the report contains expert assessment, there will be nothing left to worry about," Asefi told a weekly news conference. "However, if the report comes out and somehow puts pressure on Iran or speaks with a language of threats, naturally Iran will not abandon its rights and it is prepared for all possible situations and has planned for it," he said.
■ Peru
Villagers evacuated
The government declared a state of emergency on Saturday in southern towns that have been showered by ash from the Ubinas volcano and asked the military to help evacuate poor farming families from the area. Ubinas, which had been inactive for almost 40 years, has been spitting out ash, smoke and toxic gases for most of the month, alarming thousands of people living in nearby rural areas, killing livestock and polluting water sources. The government recommended evacuation early in the week, but it was not until Friday that dozens of people began reluctantly to leave farming towns in the area covered in a thick carpet of ash. The 5,670m high Ubinas has erupted 23 times since 1550.
■ Russia
Putin praises church's work
President Vladimir Putin gave the Russian Orthodox Church credit yesterday for helping revive "family values" and maintain social order following the collapse of Soviet communism. "The fruitful actions of the Russian Orthodox Church ... in preserving civil peace and accord in the country and resolving pressing social problems cannot be overlooked on this day," Putin said in a message to mark Russian Orthodox Easter released by the Kremlin. In a separate message to Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Putin said he was pleased that Easter "has again truly become a popular holiday."
■ Mexico
Crash survivor goes home
An 8-year-old girl who survived the worst bus crash in the country's recent memory left the hospital on Saturday, saying she had been saved by her grandmother's embrace. Orfa Elisa Jimenez was one of only two people who survived after a packed bus plunged into a 200m ravine in eastern Mexico on April 18, killing 58 people. Her father, Jose Jimenez, said his daughter told relatives that her grandmother hugged her tightly as the bus tumbled down the ravine, shielding her. The only other survivor, Dulce Janeth Castillo, 15, remains in serious condition.
■ United States
Bear attacks hunter
A black bear attacked and seriously injured a hunter on a road just outside Olympic National Park in Washington state late on Saturday, authorities said. A second hunter shot and killed the bear before summoning help, said an officer at the Washington State Patrol's office in Bremerton. The injured hunter was rushed to a hospital with a compound fracture to the arm, a broken hand and several bite marks.
■ Romania
Flooding forces evacuation
More than 10,000 people faced evacuation from their homes on Saturday as workers struggled to prevent the swollen river Danube bursting its banks. In neighboring Hungary and Bulgaria, troops and emergency teams also fought flood waters, and southeast of Budapest 4,500 people were told to leave their homes when a dyke 150km southeast of the capital failed. Authorities in the southern Dolj region, where 12 areas have already been flooded, evacuated 5,400 people from villages near the river on Saturday morning. They said many others could be forced to leave if the Danube breached its dyke.
■ United States
Nagin vs Landrieu for mayor
Ray Nagin will defend his job as New Orleans' mayor against Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu in a runoff after residents and evacuees voted on Saturday in the ravaged city's first post-Katrina election. Nagin, who many pundits wrote off early due to a shaky initial response to Hurricane Katrina and some racially charged statements, was on top with 39 percent of the vote after 94 percent of precincts reported. Landrieu, son of New Orleans' last white mayor and brother of US Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, garnered 28 percent. The two will tout their visions for the massive job of rebuilding the birthplace of jazz.
■ United States
Child conceals cocaine
A 10-year-old girl has been charged with evidence tampering after authorities say she tossed small bags of crack cocaine out of a window during a drug raid. As detectives raided a Scranton, Pennsylvania, apartment on Friday, they saw the girl's arm extend from a second-floor window and drop several bags of crack, police said. The girl, whose name was withheld because of her age, is in the custody of Lackawanna County Children and Youth Services. A woman at the home, Lashawna Bennett, 30, was charged with drug possession, corruption of a minor, child endangerment and related crimes. Police said they confiscated more than US$7,000 in crack cocaine during the raid.
■ United States
School plotters arrested
Six students in a small Alaskan town were arrested on suspicion of plotting to bring guns and knives to school to kill their classmates and faculty. The students had planned to disable North Pole Middle School's power and telephone systems, allowing time to kill their victims and escape from North Pole, a town of 1,600 people about 23km southeast of Fairbanks, Police Chief Paul Lindhag said on Saturday. The students wanted to seek revenge for being picked on by other students.
■ United Kingdom
Bigley's body sought
The UK Foreign Office pledged on Saturday night to investigate a claim that the decapitated body of murdered hostage Ken Bigley is buried near Fallujah, Iraq. Osman Karahan, a lawyer acting for a suspected al-Qaeda militant, Loa'i Mohammed Haj Bakr al-Saqa, who is accused of ordering Bigley's death, has said his client knows where the British engineer's body is buried. Al-Saqa, 33, is being held by the authorities in Turkey, accused of bankrolling bomb attacks in Istanbul in November 2003. More than 600 were injured and 61 people died in the attacks. Turkish authorities discovered al-Saqa had slipped in and out of the country at least 55 times and say he may have had plastic surgery to change his appearance.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was