■ Australia
Brothels want to smoke
Brothels should be exempt from tough anti-smoking laws because its a tradition for prostitutes and their customers to enjoy a cigarette together after having sex, an industry lobby group said yesterday. The Australian Adult Entertainment Industry (AAEI) argues that sex workers and their clients shouldn't have to leave the brothel to light up. "These smoking laws are going to drive women back onto the streets courtesy of the health minister," the AAEI's William Albon told Melbourne's Sun Herald. "People smoke when they drink, and people smoke when they fornicate." The sex industry is unique and should be treated differently, she said.
■ Japan
Joint exercise begins
An Asian marine security drill has begun without China or South Korea, which had been scheduled to play key roles in the exercise, the coast guard said yesterday, after an apparent misunderstanding over its purpose. The drill scenario is based on a simulation of a suspicious ship being refused entry to the port of Shanghai and then being tracked by Chinese and other coast guard vessels in turn as it heads away from the port. The US, Canada, Japan and Russia are taking part in the exercise. It would have been the first time that China had been involved in such a joint drill.
■ South Korea
Lee returns home
The remains of World Health Organization (WHO) chief Lee Jong-wook, who died in Geneva last week following emergency brain surgery, arrived in Seoul yesterday for burial. His encased remains, draped in the South Korean national flag, were escorted and carried by a military honor guard out of Incheon Airport. Lee, who was cremated after his death on May 22, was the first Korean to head an UN agency. He will be buried at a national cemetery in the central city of Daejon today, according to the government. President Roh Moo-Hyun has paid tribute to Lee whose death the foreign ministry last week called a "great loss" for the country.
■ Sri Lanka
War on the horizon
A top Norwegian envoy warned on Saturday that Sri Lanka could be headed toward war, even as the parties agreed in principle to meet for talks to discuss the safety of Scandinavian cease-fire monitors. "The situation is very grave," Erik Solheim, Norway's international development minister, said in a telephone interview from India after his deputy, Jon Hanssen-Bauer, met with the Tamil rebels' political chief in northern Sri Lanka. "Full-scale war is not inevitable but may still happen," said Solheim, who helped broker a 2002 ceasefire agreement between Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
■ Thailand
Mass grave uncovered
Some 300 unmarked graves found two months ago in the country's restive south appear to hold bodies of slain migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar, Thai authorities said yesterday. Most of the bodies were found in late March in Pattani, one of three insurgency-hit provinces in the south. They were buried in unmarked graves at cemeteries for the region's ethnic Chinese community, the Central Institute of Forensic Science said. "Police believe they were illegal immigrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar, and 80 percent of them were killed," the center's deputy head Pornthip Rojanasunand said.
■ Lebanon
Israeli jets attack bases
Israeli jets attacked Syrian-backed Palestinian and Lebanese guerrillas in Lebanon yesterday, sparking gunbattles on the volatile border hours after rockets fired into northern Israel wounded an Israeli soldier. At least one Palestinian militant and a Lebanese Hezbollah fighter were killed in one of the worst bouts of violence since Israeli troops ended a 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon six years ago. The Israeli army ordered residents living in northern areas to go to the bomb shelters after a clash between Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers near Kibbutz Menara and mortar and rocket fire into northern Israel, Israeli security sources said. Hezbollah guerrillas, backed by Syria and Iran, also attacked Israeli posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, Lebanese witnesses said.
■ Austria
Constitution must wait
EU foreign ministers admitted on Saturday there was no chance of rescuing the constitution before elections next year in France and the Netherlands where voters have already rejected the charter. Ministers meeting in Vienna insisted the project, aimed at streamlining EU decision-making and boosting its foreign policy clout, was not yet dead. But they saw no chance soon of breaking the political stalemate. "We cannot say today it's dead because 15 democracies are not considering it dead," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said of the states which have ratified the charter.
■ Iran
Russian envoy starts talks
Russian National Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov began talks in Teheran yesterday with Iranian officials on Iran's nuclear program. Ivanov started his talks with Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki and was scheduled to meet his Iranian counterpart Ali Larijani later yesterday. Top of the agenda was to be the latest proposal by Britain, France and Germany to forge a diplomatic solution to the international dispute. The proposal includes incentives for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and reportedly involves international assistance with a light water reactor and nuclear fuel supply.
■ Israel
Sharon moved to clinic
Former prime minister Ariel Sharon, comatose since a stroke in January, was moved yesterday from a Jerusalem hospital to a long-term care facility near Tel Aviv, where doctors will continue to try to awaken him. But experts cautioned that chances for Sharon's recovery remained slim. Sharon, 78, was admitted to the respiratory wing of the Chaim Sheba Medical Center's rehabilitation hospital after being taken under heavy guard by ambulance from Hadassah hospital, where he had been treated since suffering a brain hemorrhage on Jan. 4.
■ Nicaragua
Costa Rican plan protested
Managua on Saturday objected to supposed plans by Costa Rica to "militarize" the border between the two nations -- though Costa Rica has no army. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it "views with great concern" a Costa Rican proposal to strengthen security in the region. It claimed that Costa Rican Security Minister Fernando Berrocal had talked of "militarizing the border," when he proposed a creating a small, specialized police force for the border zones.
■ United States
Man kills young sons
A man killed his two children by throwing them off the 15th floor of a Miami Beach hotel and then jumped to his own death, police said. Edward Van Dyk, 43, tossed his two sons, aged 4 and 8, from the hotel on Saturday morning, police spokesman Bobby Hernandez said. The mother of the children, Qinuo Van Dyk, 40, told police she and her husband had been having marital problems but hadn't argued right before the incident, Hernandez said. The woman heard one of her children screaming from an adjacent room in the Loews Hotel, where the family was staying. When she walked into the room she saw her husband going off the balcony, Hernandez said.
■ Brazil
Leak blamed for violence
Leaked testimony from a secret congressional session on prison transfers gave jailed gang members a crucial window of time to launch a week of violence that left 187 people dead, a former top prison official said in comments published on Saturday. Nagashi Furukawa told Estado de S. Paulo newspaper that leaders of the notorious First Capital Command would not have been capable of ordering followers on the outside to attack police without the information. Hours after the May 10 testimony about the transfers, prison authorities started moving the gang leaders to more secure prisons, but the gang was still able to coordinate the violence that erupted on May 12 with a wave of prison riots and attacks.
■ Namibia
Angelina has a baby girl
Angelina Jolie gave birth to a daughter fathered by Brad Pitt, People magazine said on Saturday. A representative for the couple said Jolie, 30, gave birth to their daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie Pitt, in Namibia. The couple has been closely followed by the tabloids since they arrived in the African country more than six weeks ago to have their baby. Green cloth screens mask the beach resort where they are staying and bodyguards and Namibian security have kept a tight cordon around the family Photographers from all over the world are hoping to capture the first picture of the baby, which is expected to garner a multimillion-dollar price tag.
■ United Kingdom
Kids held at Guantanamo
More than 60 minors have been held as prisoners at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, a London-based human rights group claimed in a report published yesterday. Those detainees were under 18 when they were captured by US forces, and at least 10 of them still being held at Guantanamo were 14 or 15 when they were seized, held in solitary confinement, subject to repeated interrogation and allegedly tortured, the charity Reprieve was reported as saying. "We would take a very, very dim view if it transpires that there were actually minors there," the Independent on Sunday newspaper quoted a British government official as saying.
■ United States
Skydiver slips to death
A first-time skydiver slipped from her harness during a jump and fell to her death, authorities said. The 44-year-old woman was participating in a tandem jump on Saturday, with the AerOhio Skydiving school, near Sterling, Ohio, according to the Wayne County Sheriff's office. The victim's name was withheld pending notification of her family. During tandem jumps, a novice skydiver is harnessed to the chest of an experienced jumper. When the parachute is deployed, the experienced skydiver guides the team to the ground.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the