■ Hong Kong
Chan call a wake-up
Former deputy leader Anson Chan's (陳方安生) decision to promote this week's pro-democracy march will help reignite fading calls for democracy in the territory, newspapers said yesterday. Chan made a joint appeal with pro-democracy lawmakers on Sunday, calling on citizens to turn out in force for the annual march on Saturday. She also urged Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) to show more courage in pushing for universal suffrage. Chan took center stage hand-in-hand with about a dozen lawmakers as she chanted slogans urging a strong attendance at the march. The South China Morning Post said it expected her move would reinvigorate calls for full democracy. "There will probably not be a big turnout for Saturday's march. But this does not mean that Hong Kong people's wishes have changed in the past six months," it said in an editorial. "Whatever political role Mrs Chan may or may not play in the future, she has provided Hong Kong with a timely reminder of a pressing and important issue."
■ Malaysia
`Tarzan' game turns deadly
A 14-year-old boy who liked to pretend to be Tarzan at home by swinging from a rope got entangled in it and choked to death, the New Straits Times reported yesterday. For years, Mohamad Syafizul Yasri had played the game by yelling and swinging on a rope attached to the ceiling at his home in Kijang village, 500km north of Kuala Lumpur, the newspaper said. On Saturday, the 2.5m rope snapped and got looped around his neck while he was swinging, the paper said, quoting his mother, Salmah Mohammad. He was still alive when Salmah found him, but he died before an ambulance arrived, the paper said.
■ Vietnam
Mass grave discovered
A mass grave with more than 100 sets of remains believed to be those of communist soldiers killed during the Vietnam War has been uncovered, and some had nails embedded in their skulls, an official said yesterday. Construction workers found the first five sets of remains two weeks ago while digging a drainage system for a sports complex in the Central Highland province of Gia Lai, about 500km north of Ho Chi Minh City, said the official from the provincial military command. He identified himself only as Son. An army excavation team later uncovered 103 more sets of remains from the grave, Son said. Authorities suspected that the communist soldiers may have been arrested during the Tet Offensive in 1968, Son said.
■ Indonesia
Nine die in ferry accident
Nine people are believed to have died when a ferry sank off Sumatra Island last week, while around 30 people remain missing, officials said yesterday. A navy boat was trying to retrieve eight bodies of people thought to have been on board the ferry, which was carrying at least 133 people when it went down en route from Sibolga in North Sumatra to Nias Island. Ninety-four, including the ship's captain, were rescued. "We have been notified that a fishing boat sighted eight bodies ... this morning and our ship is currently heading to the area to retrieve them," Jaka Santosa, who heads the naval base in Sibolga, said. An unidentified male body was found on Sunday, he said.
■ Philippines
Impeachment charges filed
Government opponents filed a new impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday, and warned of a popular uprising to oust her if her allies in Congress again dismiss it. Arroyo, who left for a seven-day trip to Europe over the weekend, survived an impeachment attempt on vote-rigging and corruption allegations in September. The Constitution allows only one impeachment proceeding against a president in a year. Anti-Arroyo groups waited for the one-year limit to end yesterday before filing a new case against a backdrop of small but persistent protests and coup rumors. New charges against Arroyo include allegedly condoning political killings and violating the Constitution to muzzle dissent. Arroyo has denied any wrongdoing.
■ Malaysia
Wife `gouges' partner's eye
A Malaysian wife has been detained for allegedly gouging out her husband's right eye in an apparent act of jealousy, a news report said yesterday. The 29-year-old housewife was detained on Friday along with her mother after the victim was rushed to hospital by his father-in-law in the northeastern Terengganu state. The wife and her mother had allegedly punched the man before gouging out his right eye, district police chief Abdul Halim Mohamad Ishak was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times daily.
■ Australia
Murdoch most influential
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been named the most influential Australian of all time in a list of 100 candidates that includes athletes, entertainers and murderers. The list compiled by the weekly Bulletin news magazine includes everyone from national icons such as cricketer Don Bradman to controversial figures such as populist politician Pauline Hanson and bushranger Ned Kelly. "His influence on a global scale is of a magnitude unparalleled among Australians," said Bulletin news editor Tim Blair. "No one else even comes close."
■ Sudan
Peacekeeping plan hurt
The UN's bid to gain backing for its Darfur peacekeeping plan suffered a fresh blow Sunday when Khartoum accused the world body of providing cover for a rebel leader who rejects a recent peace deal. A demonstration was also organized in Khartoum during which thousands of pro-regime youths chanted slogans against the world body and its plans to deploy NATO-backed peacekeepers to the war-torn western region. Foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim said that UN envoy Jan Pronk had been summoned to give an explanation Monday of the alleged helicopter ride given to the Darfur rebel leader. The ministry said it had suspended all UN operations in Darfur until further notice, except those of the World Food Program and the UN children's fund UNICEF.
■ Azerbaijan
Avian flu strikes village
Four people have died after catching avian flu from infected swans, in the first confirmed cases of the disease being passed from wild birds, scientists have revealed. The victims, from a village in Azerbaijan, are believed to have caught the lethal H5N1 virus earlier this year when they plucked the feathers from dead birds to sell for pillows. Three other people were infected by the swans but survived. Andreas Gilsdorf, an epidemiologist at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, who led the team that made the discovery, said: "As far as we know this is the first transmission from a wild bird, but it was a very intensive contact. We know that the virus is carried by swans and we know that you can catch the virus if you have close contact, so it doesn't change anything, it's just the first time it has been reported."
■ Algeria
Job development targeted
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, seeking to stabilize a society emerging from more than a decade of conflict, urged his government on Sunday to create more jobs for young people suffering high unemployment. The recovery of the giant north African oil-exporting nation following years of violence between Islamist rebels and government forces is widely seen as crucial for the security of the Mediterranean region. According to official figures, the national unemployment rate is estimated at 15.3 percent, but among people under 30 it was 75 percent in 2005, up from 73 percent a year before.
■ South Africa
Twelve killed in shootout
A shootout between police and suspects in a supermarket robbery left 12 people dead, including four police officers. Two officers and an undisclosed number of other people were injured, police said. They said the gun battle erupted Sunday when police trailed people suspected of robbing a suburban Johannesburg supermarket to a house in another suburb.
■ South Africa
Ground crewman injured
A British Airways jumbo jet parking at Johannesburg's airport on Sunday ran over a member of the ground crew, severing the man's legs. The South African Press Association reported that witnesses said the man passed out while he was attempting to position wheel chocks on the Boeing 747. The agency said the plane then ran over the man, severing both legs. The airline said in London that it had launched an investigation into the accident.
■ Iraq
Two US soldiers charged
Two soldiers have been charged in the Feb. 15 shooting death of an unarmed Iraqi man near the city of Ramadi, the US military said on Sunday. Specialist Nathan Lynn was accused of shooting the man and charged with one count of voluntary manslaughter. He and Sergeant Milton Ortiz Jr, both of the 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry (Mechanized) of the Pennsylvania National Guard, were also charged with one count of obstructing justice for allegedly conspiring with another soldier to put an AK-47 near the body to make it look as though he was an insurgent.
■ United States
Congressman seeks charges
A prominent Republican congressman has called on the administration of US President George W. Bush to seek criminal charges against the New York Times for publishing details of a secret program to monitor the financial transactions of thousands of Americans. Peter King, chairman of the House of Representatives' homeland security committee, said he was asking the attorney general to prosecute "the reporters and the editors and the publisher" of the paper. "We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," he said.
■ Colombia
Town won't change name
Residents of the hometown of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez failed to pass a referendum on Sunday to change the town's name to Macondo, the fictitious tropical hamlet in his masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude. Although 93 percent of residents in Aracataca voted for the change, only 3,600 of the town's 22,000 eligible voters -- less than half the minimum needed -- cast ballots. Garcia Marquez was born in the banana-growing town near the Caribbean coast in 1927, and was raised there until he was nine.
■ United States
City launching AIDS initiative
The city of Washington will this week launch an unprecedented campaign to test every resident aged between 14 and 84 for HIV. The initiative, believed to be the most comprehensive in the history of the AIDS epidemic, is part of a plan to make HIV testing as routine as getting a blood-pressure check in the city that has the US' worst rate of new infections. Clinics and doctors' surgeries will receive hundreds of thousands of free oral testing kits, which can indicate a person's HIV status within 20 minutes. The aim of the program -- which uses the motto "Come Together DC, Get Screened for HIV" -- is to ensure that "all Washington DC residents know their HIV status by December 31 2006".
■ United States
University head falls to death
Community leaders were shocked to learn of the apparent suicide of the University of California, Santa Cruz chancellor on Saturday. "Everybody's stunned," Santa Cruz Mayor Cynthia Mathews said of the death of Denice Dee Denton, 46. Denton apparently jumped from a 43-story luxury apartment building in downtown San Francisco, police and university officials said. Running the University of California campus can be a pressure-cooker, Mathews said. "This is a community that puts everybody in a spotlight," she said. "That can create a lot of pressure. I'm not sure she was prepared for that." Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee reportedly told investigators that her daughter was "very depressed."
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