■ China
Antibiotic deaths mystify
Investigators are still searching for the cause of at least six deaths among patients who received the same antibiotic, a deputy health minister said yesterday. Local officials have been ordered to file daily reports on possible new victims, said Jiang Zuojun. "We can't tell what was wrong with the drug at present," Jiang said at a news conference. The government banned the drug, clindamycin phosphate glucose, last week after a six-year-old girl died and dozens of people fell ill. Five more fatalities have been reported since then, and news reports say there is a possible seventh death.
■ China
Two dozen missing in crash
Rescue workers in southern China are searching for 24 people missing after a bus plunged off a mountain road into a river, state media reported. The bus, carrying 35 passengers and traveling from Qiaojia County to Zhaotong City in Yunnan Province on Wednesday, ran off the road into the Niulan river 100m below, Xinhua said in an overnight report. Eleven people were injured, Xinhua said. China has the highest annual road death toll in the world.
■ China
Drought problems spread
A persistent drought in parts of China has affected 17.6 million hectares of farmland across the country since April, up 21 percent from the same period last year, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Xinhua said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) urged local and central government departments to take efforts to secure water supplies for people and cattle in some northern, southwestern and southern areas that have been hit hardest by the drought.
■ Myanmar
Rebels forego land mines
Leaders of a rebel movement fighting the country's military junta will stop using land mines in their insurgency, a small, Geneva-based group announced yesterday in disclosing the latest militant group to sign on to its campaign against targeting civilians in war zones. "It decreases our capacity, but we can find other means to fight," said Thomas Thangnou, the top political official of the Chin rebels, who have been fighting Myanmar's government for almost two decades on behalf of what it says are persecuted Christians.
■ Afghanistan
Clash leaves 20 dead
A clash in southern Afghanistan left 12 Taliban militants and 8 policemen killed, a spokesman for a provincial governor said yesterday. The clash occurred on Tuesday in Shaiqh Qalander area of Panjwayi district in Kandahar Province, spokesman Dawood Ahmadi said. In the fight nine militants and seven officers were also wounded, Ahmadi said. The rebels took away their dead and wounded as they fled from the scene and police are pursuing them, he said.
■ India
Fetuses found in well
Thirty-five decomposed fetuses have been recovered from a well near a hospital in Punjab, where girls are routinely aborted despite a ban on sex-determination tests, officials said yesterday. "A nurse has made a statement saying she has been working at the hospital for one-and-a-half months, and during this period 12 or 13 female fetuses have been destroyed," Varinder Singh Mohi, a senior government doctor said. The couple who run the hospital in Patran, 115km south of the state capital, Chandigarh, had been arrested, he said. The remains had been sent for tests to determine the sex of the fetuses.
■ Japan
Sumos help fight flab
In their latest effort to fight the flab, overweight Japanese are turning to the behemoths of the sumo ring, who have released a DVD of simple exercises they claim keep them supple and, yes, fit. Sumo Health Exercises features professional sumo wrestlers demonstrating 12 sets of stretches, squats and splits. Despite their impressive girths, sumo wrestlers are fitter than most people think. "For their size, many wrestlers have a low fat ratio. They're professional athletes, after all," Hideki Yazaki of the Japan Sumo Association said. The sumo association says the exercises strengthen the back and legs, and can be performed by children and adults alike. "They're fun, so we hope parents can get kids to do them instead of playing computer games all day," Yazaki said.
■ South Korea
Seoul announces talks
South Korea and Japan will hold maritime talks in Tokyo today, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said, as Japan pushes for a survey near islets claimed by both countries. Seoul and Tokyo have long been at odds over ownership of the islets -- called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima by the Japanese -- which are surrounded by fertile fishing grounds and potential deposits of methane hydrate, a potent source of natural gas. Japan said early this month that it would conduct a survey near the islets, which are controlled by South Korea in waters between the two countries. Today's meeting will discuss ``issues related to a maritime survey,'' the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement. South Korea also conducted a survey near the islets last month.
■ Russia
Colonel turned spy jailed
A retired special services colonel has been sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony for passing state secrets to British Intelligence (MI6). The ruling by the Moscow district military court was announced on Wednesday after a closed trial in which Sergey Skripal, 55, was prosecuted for high treason in the form of espionage. A court spokesman said Skripal had "inflicted significant damage on the Russian Federation and its external security." Local media, quoting unidentified security sources, said the 55-year-old former officer had disrupted Russia's network of spies in Europe by revealing the names of dozens of agents. Despite the end of the Cold War, experts say that Western and Russian spies are still locked in a battle for commercial and military secrets.
■ United Kingdom
Two quizzed over cover-up
Two former detectives in Belfast, Northern Ireland, were questioned on Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in the cover-up of a 1997 killing involving a major outlawed Protestant group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Investigators have spent more than a year looking into why nobody was charged with the killing of Raymond McCord Jr, a 22-year-old Protestant who was beaten to death by UVF members in north Belfast. The victim's father has accused former members of the police's secretive intelligence-gathering arm, Special Branch, of protecting at least one of the killers. Detectives questioned retired Chief Superintendent Tom Meek and Constable Trevor McIlrath, but released them without charge on Wednesday night.
■ Italy
Volume lowered on TV ads
The government plans to clamp down on broadcasters turning up the volume when they show advertisements. Communications Minister Paolo Gentiloni said research showed Italy's three main channels on average raised the volume on adverts by 50 percent compared with ordinary programming, even though this is banned by law. It is usually done by networks in agreements with advertisers in order to try keep viewers glued to the screen during commercial breaks. "We need to stop television advertising that raises its voice," Gentiloni told a news conference. He said Italy's media watchdog would set up a fine system before the end of next month for those found breaking the law.
■ Spain
Dumb has a new definition
Police have arrested four Frenchmen for jumping in front of cars on a busy road so that they could film them and post the footage on the Internet, El Pais newspaper said on Tuesday. The four took turns leaping in front of cars, forcing the drivers to swerve or brake sharply and putting themselves and other vehicles in danger, officials in Alicante were quoted as saying on the El Pais Web site. The quartet's intention was to film the reaction of drivers and post them on the Web, officials said.
■ Russia
Prosecutor's home attacked
Attackers fired grenades and set off two explosions at a prosecutor's house in the restive region of Ingushetia before dawn yesterday, killing the prosecutor's brother and wounding 12 other people, the republic's Interior Ministry said. The attack took place in Nazran, Ingushetia's principal city, and targeted the house of Nazran prosecutor Gerikhan Khabiyev.
■ Brazil
Man tries to open grenade
A man died on Tuesday when he tried to open what police believe was a rocket-propelled grenade with a sledgehammer in a mechanical workshop on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Another man who was in the workshop at the time of the explosion was rushed to a hospital with severe burns, a police officer said. The workshop was destroyed and several cars parked outside caught fire. Police found several unexploded army issue rocket-propelled grenades in the workshop. They believe the ammunition had been brought there by scavengers wanting to sell them as scrap metal.
■ United States
Child porn not private
A Montana man who used his work computer to access child pornography does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy that would bar a search of the machine, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. Jeffrey Ziegler had argued that his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures should prevent the government from using evidence that he had viewed many images of child pornography at work. The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco cited similar past cases and found that even if some people lament the lack of privacy at work, the law was against Ziegler.
■ United States
Sword killer gets 18 years
A man pleaded guilty to manslaughter for killing his wife in a bloody attack with a samurai sword in their apartment almost three years ago, with prosecutors saying he will spend 18 years in prison under a plea agreement. Ivor Forbes, 35, was naked and covered in blood when police arrived at his Bronx apartment on Dec, 7, 2003. "I'm God! I'm immortal!" he screamed at the officers, who fired 14 shots at the suspect, striking him in both legs. The plea deal was reached on Tuesday after authorities considered all the circumstances in the case, including Forbes' psychiatric reports, said Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.
■ Brazil
Jet door falls off
A jet owned by leading Brazilian airline TAM landed safely on Tuesday after one of its doors fell off and crashed to earth next to a supermarket shortly after departure from Sao Paulo. No one was hurt in the incident, a TAM spokeswoman said. The Fokker 100 plane with 79 people aboard en route to Rio de Janeiro returned to the airport safely 18 minutes after taking off. TAM has been replacing its Fokker planes since the Dutch aircraft maker went bankrupt 10 years ago. It still has 22, but expects to gradually eliminate all of them by 2010. The same type of plane, also operated by TAM, caused one of Brazil's worst air disasters in 1996. It crashed in an urban area shortly after taking off from Sao Paulo, killing 100 people.
■ United States
Headware gets thumbs up
The US Coast Guard is changing its regulations to allow religious head coverings -- but certain headware, such as Sikh turbans, would still be excluded. That's because the head coverings will have to fit under a uniform hat or helmet. "We should respect people's religious values ... We should find a way to accommodate them," said State Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn, who served as an advocate for a Hasidic Jew who challenged the rule. Coast guard spokesman Dan Tremper said on Wednesday that the new rules "have verbally gone into effect."
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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