■ China
Mine disaster covered up
An underground flood trapped 44 miners in a coal mine and nine mine managers were detained after apparently trying to conceal the scale of the disaster, the government said yesterday. State television said the flood on Thursday in the Xinjing Coal Mine in Shanxi Province was the biggest accident so far this year in the disaster-plagued mining industry, which suffers thousands of deaths annually. Mine managers failed to report the true size of the disaster, saying only five miners were missing, Xinhua news agency said.
■ China
Fishermen rescued
Beijing has rescued more than 300 Vietnamese fishermen missing after a typhoon swept through the South China Sea but also recovered 21 bodies, state television said yesterday. Rescuers found the survivors on 22 Vietnamese ships near the Pratas islands, off the southern coast of Guangdong Province, the report said, adding it was the largest international marine rescue operation ever mounted by the country. It was unclear where the 21 bodies were found. Typhoon Chanchu, the strongest on record to enter the South China Sea in May, the start of the storm season, left a trail of destruction in China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
■ Japan
PM won't promise pullout
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday refused to say when the country's troops would leave Iraq, saying the government was still discussing whether and when to pull out, despite a media reports suggesting a July withdrawal. Media reports said yesterday Koizumi planned to discuss Japan's troop withdrawal at a summit with US President George W. Bush next month.
■ Hong Kong
Push for traditional script
Campaigners have launched an online petition to encourage the UN to publish official documents in the ancient Chinese script used in the city, a report said yesterday. More than 150,000 people have signed the petition calling for the return of traditional Chinese characters in UN documents, after the organization switched to so-called simplified Chinese in the 1970s, the Sunday Morning Post reported. China devised the simplified system in the 1950s to boost literacy, but the then foreign-controlled southern territories of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Taiwan, retained the ancient traditional script. The UN began using the modernized Chinese after it switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Hong Kong has three official languages -- English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
■ Thailand
Cup prostitutes warned
Thai sex workers, eager to cash in on World Cup fever in Germany next month, have been warned that they will face many risks in pursuit of their goals, media reports said yesterday. Empower Foundation, a Thai sex workers' rights advocacy group, issued the warning to its members after learning that several working women from Chiang Mai were planning to visit Germany next month under the impression it would be easier for them to get tourist visas during the World Cup match from June 9 to July 9. "Although prostitution is legal in Germany, only Germans are allowed to work in the industry," Portip Pakwai, an Empower spokeswoman, told the Nation newspaper. She also warned members that Thai women often fall victim to local mafias when pursuing their trade in Germany, and advised them to always keep with them the telephone number of the Thai embassy and photocopies of their passports.
■ Cambodia
Fearing AIDS, boy suicides
A teenage boy hanged himself after complaining of itches, and then became hysterical and obsessed with the belief he had contracted HIV/AIDS, police said yesterday. Chok district police chief in southern Kampot province, Khieu Sokhon, said Seak Sith, 17, had pleaded with his father to take him to hospital, saying he could not live with the condition, but his father shrugged it off as part of growing up and refused the request. "It's a tragedy. All boys his age get itches and aches. But the boy did not have much education, and he was sure it was AIDS. He went to his brother and borrowed a cattle rope, and he was found hanged by it soon afterwards. There do not appear to be any suspicious circumstances," Sokhon said by telephone.
■ Malaysia
Reef damaged
The government has ordered an investigation into an incident in which coral reefs off the dive haven of Sipadan island were seriously damaged by a barge, leaving divers and environmentalists reeling. Chief Minister Musa Aman of Sabah state ordered the immediate investigation after the ship last week levelled reefs over an area reports described as at least the size of two tennis courts. WWF-Malaysia said the damage was a "terrible occurrence" that underscored the ongoing destruction of reefs in the Semporna coastal area of Sabah state, located on Borneo island. "Sipadan is considered to be a world treasure for its dramatic undersea landscapes, steep drop-offs and abundant wildlife," said WWF-Malaysia Marine Coordinator Ken Kassem in a statement released yesterday.
■ United States
Clinton warns on warming
Former president Bill Clinton said on Saturday that global warming is a greater threat to the future than terrorism and that the US and other countries must "get off our butts" and do something about it. Clinton, speaking to the graduating class at University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, said the US must pursue policies that make "more partners and fewer enemies" and use "institutionalized cooperation" before there is catastrophic damage from global warming. "Climate change is more remote than terror but a more profound threat to the future of the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren I hope all of you have," Clinton said.
■ Brazil
Sao Paulo death toll raised
Police raised the death toll to 109 suspected criminals killed in confrontations with police since a wave of gang attacks rocked Sao Paulo, while lawyers and rights defenders pressured the government to release the names of the dead. The state security secretariat raised the number of suspected criminals killed by two in a statement issued on Saturday but declined to explain the new figure. The total number of people killed since violence began on May 12 is 172. Sao Paulo state Governor Claudio Lembo has balked at identifying those killed during the weeklong series of attacks on police and counterattacks against suspected gang members.
■ United States
Five killed in mine blast
A coal-mine explosion in southeastern Kentucky early on Saturday killed five people, authorities said, making this the deadliest year for US coal country since 2001. The explosion happened at about 1am at the Darby Mine No. 1 operated by Kentucky Darby LLC, federal Mine Safety and Health Administration administrator Ray McKinney said. Four of the dead miners were found 1,000m underground in a mine that was 3,400m deep, McKinney said. The fifth body was retrieved near an exit. There was one survivor, miner Paul Ledford. "One walked out on his own," MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere said.
■ United Kingdom
Asylum-for-sex case probed
A British immigration officer was suspended from his job on Saturday after a newspaper alleged he offered to help an 18-year-old Zimbabwean woman with her asylum application in exchange for sex, the Home Office said. "A Home Office official has been suspended pending a full investigation," a spokesman for the ministry said. "The Immigration and Nationality Directorate [IND] expects the highest levels of integrity from its staff and any suspicions of corruption are investigated." The Observer newspaper said the 53-year-old man, based at the IND's Croydon office, had offered to coach the teenager before her asylum interview so she could give the right answers.
■ Colombia
Mines kill four soldiers
Four soldiers were killed by rebel land mines on Saturday and the country's main port city was left without electricity after the guerrillas bombed power installations, authorities said. The attacks came a little more than a week before President Alvaro Uribe, popular for his US-backed military crackdown on Marxist rebels, is expected to win reelection next Sunday. The mining attack occurred in Antioquia Province where the army is combating guerrillas.
■ Cyprus
Cypriots go to the polls
Greek Cypriots voted to elect a new parliament yesterday. It is the first election since Greek Cypriots rejected a UN peace plan in 2004 to reunify the island. Cyprus has been divided into a Greek-Cypriot controlled south and a Turkish occupied north since Turkey's invasion in 1974 in response to an abortive coup by supporters of union with Greece. Polls have suggested the election could see gains for the center Democratic Party headed by President Tassos Papadopoulos, who is widely blamed by the international community for the rejection of the peace plan.
■ Gaza Strip
Assassination attempt foiled
Palestinian security forces said yesterday they had foiled an attempt to kill a top commander loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, a day after another of his allies was wounded in a suspected assassination bid. A bomb was found outside the Gaza Strip home of Rashid Abu Shbak and defused, a Palestinian Preventive Security Service officer said. "We believe the device was meant to be detonated when the chief left his house for work," the officer said. "We believe this was an assassination attempt." He did not name suspects. Shbak is a member of Fatah, the long-dominant Palestinian faction ousted by Islamist Hamas militants in a January vote.
■ Ireland
Hunger strikers ejected
Police safely removed Afghan hunger-strikers on Saturday night from a Dublin cathedral, where they had spent a week demanding asylum -- and warning they would kill themselves if officers came near. The threats proved groundless as police swept into St. Patrick's Cathedral and hauled out approximately 40 protesters -- all males aged 17 to 45 -- without a struggle. Justice Minister Michael McDowell defended his government's refusal to negotiate with the Afghans calling it blackmail that no democracy could tolerate. Police surrounded the cathedral after McDowell authorized them to end the protest.
■ Italy
Craftsmen lacking guts
Craftsmen who make strings for violins, cellos and other musical instruments are challenging an EU ban on the use of animal gut because of fears of BSE. The Aquila company, the leading producer of strings in Italy, says it is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough raw material to make its products since the EU outlawed the use of sheep and cow intestines to halt the spread of mad cow disease. "This ban makes no sense. You can't eat a violin string -- you wouldn't want to," said Aquila's Mimmo Peruffo. The company has been forced to turn to a gut supplier in Argentina, a country the EU rates as risk-free, to continue production.
■ France
Elton John loses it again
British pop star Elton John launched an expletive-laden tirade against the press in Cannes late on Saturday while presenting an award to an actor during the annual film festival. As John presented the Chopard Trophy to Canadian actor Kevin Zegers, who co-starred in the film Transamerica with Felicity Huffman. "I sincerely believe he will be a huge star and a great actor for many, many years to come." Then, as photographers called out during his address, he added: "If you saw Transamerica ... I'm talking ... you fuckwit, fucking photographers you should be shot, you should be all shot. Thank you." After handing the award to a smiling Zegers, he added: "They are a nightmare."
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