■ Thailand
Election legality on trial
The Constitutional Court, spurred by criticism from the king, deliberated yesterday whether to annul last month's election which critics claim was unconstitutional and undemocratic. The court said it would consider three complaints, starting with one lodged by university professors but it was not certain whether a ruling could be issued yesterday, said a court spokesman. The leader of the group of academics, Bancherd Singkanethi, argues that the April 2 election and an April 23 by-election were framed in the form of a referendum to endorse the regime of outgoing Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra rather than a true election as specified by the Constitution.
■ China
Revolutionary train tested
A locally made magnetic levitation (maglev) train has been successfully tested, the first time the country has achieved the feat without using foreign technology, the official Xinhua News Agency said yesterday. The train was tested on Sunday in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, Xinhua said. The test train can hold 60 people and travel at speeds of up to 160kph, Xinhua quoted Zhang Kunlun, deputy director of the School of Electrical Engineering at the Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, as saying. Maglev technology uses powerful magnets to suspend a train above a track and propel it at high speeds.
■ Japan
Babies wail for long life
Seventy-four babies born last year were made to cry yesterday at Asakusa in Tokyo while nearly 900 spectators cheered on. In the traditional ritual called Naki-zumo, or crying sumo in Japanese, two babies are held in the arms of university sumo club members and brought to a ring. The one that wails loudest is the winner and is also supposedly blessed with a long and healthy life, following the Japanese proverb "the more babies cry, the healthier they grow up." The presenters who hold the babies try their best to make them cry by pulling faces or wearing scary masks. Babies are crying less and less every year, and the presenters are finding it harder to make them wail, the Mainichi Shimbun said yesterday.
■ Hong Kong
Disney calls in bomb experts
Hong Kong Disneyland confirmed yesterday that it called in experts to advise on whether it should check for unexploded World War II munitions before letting children use a baseball pitch. The theme park was thoroughly checked before opening last September, but park executives have been considering an extra high-tech search. Security contractors have been asked to give an opinion on whether the operation is necessary at the pitch, due to open this summer, on top of the specialist searches conducted in 2002. Disney's concerns over the site, earmarked for future park expansion and given to the teams on a temporary basis, came amid major finds of wartime bombs in other parts of Hong Kong.
■ Philippines
Thousands protest Arroyo
Tens of thousands of protesters fanned out across the country yesterday, marking Labor Day with a series of demonstrations calling for the removal of President Gloria Arroyo. In Manila, some 5,000 anti-riot police backed by a 2,000-strong military force were on standby to avert any violence, amid reports that Arroyo's political foes could use the demonstrations to destabilize her government. Protests were also reported in the cities of Davao in the south and Baguio in the north.
■ Italy
Landslide kills father, girls
A man and his three daughters were killed on Sunday when a landslide on the tiny southern island of Ischia destroyed their hillside home, officials said. Two other people living in the house -- the man's 43-year-old wife and a three-year-old niece living with the couple -- were pulled out alive, said officials in Naples. The woman suffered minor injuries while the child was unhurt. The officials said the three girls killed were aged 12, 16, 18. The man was 53. Rescue efforts were complicated by heavy rain.
■ France
Probe scandal escalates
A political scandal over allegations that France's prime minister targeted the interior minister in a secret investigation heated up on Sunday with calls for President Jacques Chirac to intervene. There was speculation that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin would take the offensive this week, speaking out against allegations that he ordered the probe of Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and his rival within the party. With Villepin mired for months in crises, from suburban riots to student protests and now this, Sarkozy is seen as the governing party's likely choice as a presidential candidate. Newspapers have said the question of Villepin's resignation must now be put on the table.
■ Egypt
Murder suspect `sane'
Doctors have declared sane a man jailed in the killing and dismemberment of 10 people -- four of them children -- as they slept in their homes in the village of Shamseddin, 220km south of Cairo, last Dec. 29, the state daily Al-Gomhuria reported on Sunday. Two other suspects were released earlier for lack of evidence. The daily said that Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed made the determination after "several medical examinations ... [that] proved the suspect was not psychologically disturbed." Egyptian officials have disclosed no motive for the murders, nor did they explain the discrepancy in the latest sanity finding and an earlier statement that all three suspects had been treated for mental illness before the crime.
■ Greece
Illegal immigrants arrested
Police arrested 31 illegal immigrants on the eastern Aegean islands of Chios and Mytlini yesterday, authorities said. Arriving on board two boats from Turkey, the immigrants were from different Middle East nationalities, according to the coast guard. They claimed to have paid 500 euros (US$630) per head to the smugglers for the voyage. There was no trace of the smugglers.
■ Poland
Germany under fire
Poland accused Germany on Sunday of conspiring with Russia to threaten central Europe in a manner that recalled the deal between Hitler and Stalin to carve up Poland before the second world war. The target of the criticism was a deal between Berlin and Moscow last year to bypass eastern and central Europe with a new pipeline under the Baltic Sea linking Russia directly with Germany. Poland, dependent on Russian power supplies and at odds with its former overlord, fears the pact will let the Kremlin punish its former subjects in central Europe by turning off the energy taps without jeopardizing its lucrative and politically important energy supplies to western Europe.
■ United States
Woman dies in cemetery
A 76-year-old woman who drove to a cemetery to visit the grave of a loved one was killed when she stepped out of her car and it ran her over. Evangelista Vartholomeou of Queens, New York City, inadvertently left the car running and in gear when she stopped at the Maple Grove Cemetery late on Sunday afternoon, police said. She died at the scene. No criminality was suspected, police said.
■ Lebanon
Bush top terrorist: Hezbollah
Hezbollah said US President George W. Bush should be named the world's top terrorist, responding to a US official report that did not remove the group from a list of terrorist organizations. The State Department's 2005 Country Reports on Terrorism, released on Friday, also kept Syria and Iran, Hezbollah's main backers, on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. "The person who deserves to be on top of the terrorists' list is the US President George W. Bush and his aides who filled the world with prisons," Hezbollah said in a statement on Saturday. "Hezbollah considers being on the US terrorism list as a medal for its fighters and a confirmation that its stance and policies against the Zionist aggression and American hegemony are correct," it said.
■ Mexico
Laxer drug law worrisome
Police and business owners from the beaches to border cities say they are worried a measure passed by Congress that decriminalizes possession of cocaine, heroin and other drugs could attract droves of tourists solely looking to get high. Mexican and US officials insist that the bill eliminates legal hurdles to prosecuting drug crimes large and small. But it also lays out specific amounts of drugs -- including marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy -- that can be possessed for personal use. President Vicente Fox has yet to sign the bill, but his office praised it shortly after Congress passed it on Friday.
■ Mexico
Drug gang kills five men
Gunmen bound and blindfolded five men in a quiet Mexican coastal village before shooting them dead early on Sunday, police said, in the midst of an escalating struggle for territory between drug gangs. The victims were found naked and surrounded by spent bullet casings from high-powered automatic weapons in the center of tiny Coyuquilla Norte, a local police chief said. "At about 5am residents said they heard a shoot-out," he said. "The bodies were found surrounded by about 30 bullet casings." The police chief, who asked not to be named, said attacks of this kind were a new phenomenon in the area, on Mexico's Pacific coast between the beach resorts of Acapulco and Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo.
■ Brazil
Party endorses Lula's bid
The ruling Workers' Party endorsed President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the weekend to run for a second term and said it would seek the broad-based alliances he wants to forge before October's general elections. In the wake of a damaging scandal last year, in which the party admitted using illicit funds to finance election campaigns of its own and allied candidates, part of the party had suggested abandoning centrist and right-wing allies and returning to its left-wing origins. But at the weekend national convention, the Workers' Party agreed it would not only maintain but broaden its scope of potential coalition partners to include new parties. Broad alliances could help Lula build the solid majority in Congress that he currently lacks.
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