■ Bangladesh
Protesters injured, killed
Two people died and at least 40 were injured yesterday as police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters in several cities enforcing a nationwide transport shutdown, police said. The main opposition Awami League said one of its officials died after a tear gas shell hit his body during violent protests at Dhaka's main bus terminal, but police said he may have died of a stroke after he left the protest scene. More than a dozen people were injured in the violence near the bus station, police said. Separately, a police officer was killed in a Dhaka suburb after he was hit by stones hurled by protesters.
■ India
Terrorists sentenced
A special anti-terrorism court sentenced three men to death after finding them guilty of involvement in a 2002 terror attack on a Hindu shrine in the west of the country that killed 33 people, a news report said. The court, at a high-security jail in Ahmadabad, sentenced three other suspects in the attack -- one to life in jail, one to five years and the other to 10 years, the Press Trust of India reported on Saturday. The three sentenced to death were identified as Chand Khan, Adam Suleman Ajmeri and Abdul Kayum Mohammed Hussain Mansuri. The court found them guilty of "hatching a criminal conspiracy and waging war against the nation," the news report said.
■ Japan
Stranded man returns
A man left behind on the Russian island of Sakhalin at the end of World War II smiled and held hands with family members as he returned to the country for the first time in nearly seven decades. Yoshiteru Nakagawa, 79, who moved to Sakhalin with his family before the war began, was separated from them in 1945 when his mother and younger sister evacuated to the country's northernmost island of Hokkaido and was subsequently not heard from for years. Riding in a wheelchair, Nakagawa greeted relatives with waves as he arrived at a Hokkaido airport from Sakhalin, then held hands with his younger sisters as they wept. "I never even dreamed that I'd be able to return to Japan," Nakagawa told reporters.
■ Afghanistan
British soldiers killed
Two British soldiers were killed when rebels attacked their base in the south of the country in a district where 12 Taliban also died in a battle, local and British military said yesterday. Rebels attacked the base in Helmand Province's Sangin district with small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire, British military spokesman Lieutenant Rob Hunt told reporters. The base had been under attack for three nights, said another spokesman, Captain Drew Gibson. "The first two were fairly minor -- last night was a fairly concentrated attack," he said.
■ Japan
Sargent Pepper's in town
The Beatles visited Japan only once as a band, but the country is commemorating the 40th anniversary of their concerts as if the Fab Four had never left the stage. Japanese media are lost in Beatlemania, and the hotel where they last stayed in 1966 is offering a special last viewing of their suite before the new owners demolish it. "We have done our best to restore the presidential suite to how it looked when the Beatles stayed," Michael Miyauchi, of the Capitol Tokyu Hotel, said as lines of fans queued for a viewing. The hotel was the Tokyo Hilton in 1966. "We expected to see mainly 50-and-60- year-olds but all generations have been turning up," he said.
agencies
■ Germany
Bear-lovers cancel holidays
Germans have been canceling holidays next to pretty Schliersee lake in protest at last Monday's shooting of a bear nearby, tourist office head Matthias Schroen said on Saturday. Some had sent rude messages saying they did not want to spend a vacation among "murderers" and about 35 had canceled bookings. The shooting of "Bruno," an "abnormal" 2-year-old bear that roamed towns and farms, was ordered by the state after biologists said he might attack people next. But millions of urban Germans fell in love with the first bear on Bavarian soil for 170 years.
■ Iran
Sub purchases denied
Tehran yesterday rejected allegations that it purchased six Soviet Kh-55 Granat missiles from Ukraine. "We have never purchased or received such missiles and even Ukrainian officials have rejected this deal," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi said in a press conference in Tehran. Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had said on Friday that Ukraine's state-owned defense exporter supplied six nuclear-capable cruise missiles to China and another six to Iran through its subsidiary Progress. "I am wondering why Mr Ivanov raised such a claim," Assefi said.
■ Ethiopia
Somalia crossing denied
The government denied that its troops crossed into Somalia on Saturday to protect the interim government seat of Baidoa from an attack by the powerful Islamists movement. A member of parliament in Somalia told reporters that six armored vehicles from Ethiopia had moved into the Baidoa airport. A Somali intelligence source said the Ethiopian troops were in the town of Berdale, about 60km from Baidoa toward the border with Ethiopia. The Islamists, who took the capital Mogadishu on June 5 and control a large swathe of the country after defeating US-backed warlords, have repeatedly said that Ethiopia has sent troops into Somalia.
■ Romania
Six dead after flash foods
At least six people are dead and six others unaccounted for after storms and flash floods swept across the country, the Realitatea TV channel reported yesterday morning. The Interior Ministry in Bucharest said 535 people were evacuated in the hardest-hit Suceava region, in the north of the country, following heavy rainfall over the previous two days. Powerful storms also hit in Sibiu in central Romania, Pitesti in the south, as well as Maramures and Bistrit-Nasaud in the north. Parts of Constanta on the Black Sea and the capital Bucharest were submerged after storms deposited nearly 50 liters of water per square meter within minutes.
■ United Kingdom
Discrimination alleged
The Ministry of Defense has been accused of perpetuating discrimination against homosexuals by withholding compensation to servicemen and women sacked from the forces for being gay and lesbian. Scores of people, who served in the Royal Air Force, the British Army or the Royal Navy and were discharged when their sexuality became known, are still awaiting payment from the ministry -- even though the government has accepted that their dismissals were illegal. The forces' policy of barring homosexuals was scrapped in January 2000, following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
■ Egypt
Gonzales defends transfers
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the transfer of terror suspects for interrogation in other countries after meeting with President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday. Gonzales, however, refused to confirm reports that Egypt, whose human rights record has been criticized by Washington, had received any of the suspects. ``I'm not going to confirm that there have been any [suspects sent to Egypt], and I'm certainly not going to talk about the numbers -- it's intelligence activity and we just don't do that,'' he said. ``All I can say is that we do have an obligation to seek assurances from any country in which we are returning someone, that the individual is not going to be tortured.''
■ United States
Zoo probes elephant death
The keepers of a 48-year-old Asian elephant that died last month did not begin emergency procedures for more than eight hours after the animal was discovered in a sitting position, a Los Angeles Zoo investigation has found. A zoo statement issued on Friday said Gita, a female, was seen sitting down -- a general sign of distress -- the night before she died, but it did not say who observed her. Keepers did not begin emergency procedures until the following morning, it said. Animal rights activists had long complained about conditions for elephants at the zoo, and have asked for a federal investigation into Gita's death.
■ United States
Shuttle launch delayed
NASA prepared for a new attempt yesterday to launch the Discovery shuttle on a critical mission for the US space program after storm clouds scuttled Saturday's liftoff. The launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, was scrubbed just minutes before its scheduled liftoff. NASA were due to try to launch the shuttle again yesterday afternoon for a mission to the International Space Station aimed at improving space flight safety. Saturday's attempt was canceled due to storm clouds near the launch pad that officials feared could produce lightning during blastoff.
■ United States
Bikers defy rally cancelation
Thousands of bikers roared into Hollister, California -- the town made famous by Marlon Brando's 1953 film The Wild One, defying a city council decision to cancel the rally. The bikers cruised Hollister's streets on Saturday on personalized choppers, racing bikes and tricked-out Harley-Davidsons. Bars were packed before noon. The Hollister Independence Rally has been a destination for bikers for decades, but earlier this year the Hollister City Council voted to cancel the event, saying it was too expensive and too dangerous. Police estimated about 5,000 people attended on Saturday compared to 15,000 to 20,000 in previous years.
■ United States
Dutch resistance hero dies
Jaap Penraat, an architect and industrial designer who helped 406 Jews sneak out of Nazi-occupied Netherlands and withstood torture to protect fellow resistance members, died June 25 at his home in Catskill, New York, of cancer. Born in Amsterdam in 1918, Penraat was in his 20s when he began forging identity cards for Jews. He was imprisoned for several months and tortured, but refused to tell his captors anything. After his release, Penraat and other resistance members began disguising Jews as construction workers and escorting them to France. He made 20 trips to Lille, with about 20 Jews each time. The French underground then escorted the Jews to Spain.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
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SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
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