■ China
Tibet to get karaoke trains
Ticket to Tibet, sir? That'll be US$1,000 a day. But at least you'll be able to have a good sing on the way. China is planning to offer luxury trains to the roof of the world when it opens a long anticipated and highly controversial railway to Tibet in July, a state newspaper said on Thursday. The five-star trains, aimed mainly at foreigners, will have showers, on board folk dance shows and that staple of the Chinese holiday experience -- karaoke, the Beijing Times reported. So luxurious will the train be that it is only going to carry around 100 passengers, as it sweeps through the snowy mountains of mainly Buddhist Tibet.
■ Philippines
Spratly security tightened
China, the Philippines and Vietnam are to strengthen security cooperation in the Spratly islands after an apparent pirate attack left four Chinese dead there, the Philippine military chief said yesterday. "We have agreed that we will continue our direct communication in the area so that these problems ... piracy, smuggling, transnational crimes ... can be resolved," military chief General Generosa Senga said.
■ China
Annan arrives in Beijing
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived in Beijing yesterday for the third leg of his Asian tour, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Annan, who flew in from Japan, was due to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) later in the day to kick-start a five-day trip that is his seventh visit to China as UN chief. Aside from meeting with Hu on Friday afternoon, Annan is scheduled to hold talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) on Monday.
■ NEw Zealand
Sale of amputated leg foiled
A New Zealander's plan to sell his amputated leg has been tripped up by police and an auction Web site. Shane Torrance, 42, whose tattooed right leg was amputated 15 months ago, wanted to sell it to cover his debts and raise money for his daughter who has diabetes, the Nelson Mail reported on Thursday. He wanted to auction the limb, which he keeps in a freezer, on the Website Trade Me with a reserve of NZ$3,000 (US$1,860). But the leg was withdrawn from the Web site within hours of being listed. A shocked Trade Me business manager Mike O'Donnell said the sale of body parts was not allowed on the site, while Nelson Bays police area commander Inspector Brian McGurk said police would be looking at the legality of Torrance's actions.
■ Singapore
Macaque sent to India
A monkey smuggled into the city state and kept in a warehouse chained by its neck to a pole for a year was repatriated to India by an animal rights group yesterday. The fully grown monkey, a brownish female rhesus macaque with a reddish-pink face, was rescued by the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) in August 2004 from a warehouse where it was being kept as a pet. The monkey is most likely of Indian origin, said Louis Ng, the group's executive director, who said ACRES found the monkey after a tip-off.
■ India
Storms claim 28 lives
At least 28 people were killed as heavy rains and hailstorms lashed southern Andhra Pradesh state overnight, officials said yesterday. "Twenty-eight people died and 14 were injured in 10 districts of the state, with Nalgonda near the state capital Hyderabad and the northern Khamam district reporting six deaths each," said C. Nagaraju, a disaster management official. Nine people were killed in the Krishna, Chittoor and Guntur districts. Nagaraju said the fatalities were mainly due to houses collapsing and falling trees across the state. Though the rains have eased, the local weather office predicted that the inclement weather would persist for the next few days.
■ India
Three shot at Kashmir border
Indian troops shot dead three suspected Islamic militants along the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the army said yesterday. "The three were killed Thursday evening when they refused to surrender and opened fire after infiltrating into our territory," Colonel Vijay Kumar Batra said. He said the three, armed with assault rifles, entered the northern Kupwara district of Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani zone of the Himalayan region.
■ Germany
`Friendly' deposit backfires
A woman left her friend as a deposit at a gas station because she did not have enough cash to pay for her petrol, police said on Wednesday. "She didn't have enough money to pay the bill, so her friend stayed behind as a human deposit while she went to withdraw cash," said a spokesman for police in the town of Muenchberg. "Unfortunately, the woman did not return." Two hours later the gas station called the police, who interrogated the stranded "deposit" before releasing her. Police are investigating the driver on suspicion of fraud.
■ United Kingdom
Fat piranhas put on diet
A shoal of piranha fish on show at a British aquatic centre have had to be put on a diet after piling on the pounds in captivity, officials said on Thursday. Regular mealtimes mean the razor-toothed predators have become a bit podgy in the last month so they are now only being fed half-portions in a bid to shift the excess, Lynsey Thompson, from Birmingham's Sea Life Center said. "In the wild, species of piranha can go for days without any food. Here, all food is soaked in vitamins to make sure that they are getting the nutrients they need," she added.
■ Saudi Arabia
Gitmo men released
Fifteen detainees from the US Guantanamo Bay naval base arrived home yesterday after being freed, the kingdom's Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said. He said in comments carried by the official press agency that the 15 named men "will be made subject to the country's laws." Prince Nayef said the kingdom was trying to secure the release and return of the remaining Saudi detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Last Wednesday, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said 16 men would be released from Cuba then jailed and put on trial at home, if a review showed a trial was justified.
■ United Kingdom
Naturist arrested on plane
Britain's "naked rambler," who has had numerous brushes with the law for nudity on land, was arrested on Thursday after shedding his clothes aboard an aircraft. Stephen Gough, 47, was on his way to Edinburgh for a hearing at the Appeal Court, where he was challenging four contempt of court citations for nudity in Scotland. Police arrested the former marine at Edinburgh Airport. Lord Johnston urged Gough's lawyers to persuade their client that he was "doing himself no good" by continuing to go naked. Gough has completed two naked walks the length of Britain, with interruptions for arrests and court appearances, in 2004 and 2007. "There is no law saying `Thou shalt not go naked,'" Gough said at one of his court appearances in 2004.
■ Israel
Secret meetings continue
Secret, informal contacts are being held with high-ranking Palestinian officials close to President Mahmoud Abbas, the Israeli Ma'ariv daily reported yesterday. Among others, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon have been participating in the talks, the daily said. The sides were looking to find common ground for a meeting between Abbas and Olmert, which would bypass the new Palestinian government led by the Islamic militant Hamas movement. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, meanwhile, has requested to meet Abbas on the sidelines of the three-day World Economic Forum -- which starts in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh today.
■ United States
Bones likely not hobbit's
The surprising discovery of bones heralded as a new, hobbit-like human species may turn out to have simply been the remains of a human suffering from a genetic illness. The illness causes the body and brain to shrink, according to an article by Robert Martin in the journal Science. The bones were discovered in 2003 on the Indonesian island of Flores and caused a stir in the scientific community when researchers declared they represented a new, dwarf, species which they named Homo floresiensis. Because of its tiny stature it was quickly dubbed the "Hobbit," from the creature in the books by J.R.R. Tolkien.
■ United States
Mayor named in sex scandal
A 72-year-old mayor was arrested on charges he sought sex from two women in exchange for preventing their water from being turned off. One of the women told investigators she had been having sex with Troy Anderson of Waldron for money for eight to 10 years, according to an affidavit. She said this week Anderson paid her US$25 per encounter and $60 for a late water deposit. He also allowed her to change the name on her overdue water bill to keep the service running, the affidavit said. In February, the woman wore a recording device when Anderson picked her up for a sexual encounter.
■ United States
Executive guilty of conspiracy
A Singapore businessman was convicted in New York on Thursday for illegally exporting million of dollars worth of civilian and military aircraft parts for use in Iran, federal authorities said. Ernest Koh Chong Tek was found guilty by a jury in Brooklyn federal court on conspiracy, illegal export and money laundering charges for shipping $2.6 million of aircraft parts between 2001 and 2004 to Iran via Malaysia, the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn said in a statement. According to authorities, Koh Chong Tek purchased aircraft parts, including parts designed for Chinook 53 military helicopters, from an unnamed co-conspirator in the US.
■ Argentina
Graves unearthed
Argentine rights groups said 44 unmarked graves found in a cemetery in a northern province are likely the remains of people who disappeared during the 1976-83 military dictatorship. The graves were unearthed in the locality of Quimili, in the province of Santiago del Estero, some 1,360km north of the capital. "Forty-four tombs without names or dates were found in the cemetery, and it's likely that these people disappeared during the dictatorship," said Anibal Ponti, a rights activist. Some 30,000 people disappeared in the country under the dictatorship, according to rights groups.
■ Venezuela
Ambassador bites back
The Venezuelan government rejects the notion of Cuba and Iran as terrorist states, the South American country's ambassador to the US said Thursday. "We don't consider Cuba as a terrorist state. We don't consider Iran as terrorist state," the Venezuelan diplomat, Bernardo Alvarez said at a media luncheon in response to a question about a recently announced US arms sale. The US on Monday banned arms sales to Venezuela, accusing Caracas of failing to provide assistance in the "war on terror." The US administration highlighted Venezuela's ties with Iran and communist-led Cuba in justifying its move.
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