■ India
Temple blast kills four
A grenade exploded in a Hare Krishna temple during a major Hindu religious festival in the northeastern state of Manipur, killing four people and leaving 40 others injured in a stampede following the blast, police said. The explosion took place in the state capital of Imphal on Wednesday while Hindus were celebrating the birthday of Hindu god Krishna, police officer Kasim Ali said. The temple belongs to the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. The injured included four foreign nationals, an army officer said on condition of anonymity.
■ India
Media `egged on' suicide
TV journalists keen for a story encouraged a protester to burn himself to death, giving him matches and fuel, a report quoting police said on Wednesday. The journalists in the eastern state of Bihar kept the cameras rolling as Manoj Mishra, who was demanding back pay, suffered 90 percent burns to his body, the Indian Express newspaper said. Police later filed a case against the journalists, accusing them of abetting suicide, the daily said. "The media people fully knew the intention of the man and still allowed him to proceed with his plan to commit suicide and went on shooting the scene," Jain was quoted as saying.
■ China
Brothel causing headache
A city is agonizing over whether it should preserve an ancient building that once housed a brothel in case it is seen as promoting prostitution, state media said yesterday. The problem is that if the authorities at Jinggang, Hunan Province, decide not to save the structure, they may be seen as indifferent to the value of cultural relics, Xinhua news agency said. Built in 1733, the brothel is now on the verge of collapse and the city government must reach a decision one way or the other, the agency said. It is getting little help from the public, as some vehemently oppose keeping it while others are passionately against tearing it down.
■ Japan
Tokyo pressing for release
The government dispatched diplomats yesterday to negotiate the release of three fishermen detained by Russia after a high-seas shooting killed a fellow crew member. A Russian patrol boat opened fire on their vessel on Wednesday in the latest flare up in a territorial row over a series of islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaido. Russia seized the boat, accused the crew of illegal fishing and took the three survivors to Russia for further questioning. Japanese newspapers cited Russia's Itar-Tass news agency as saying they would be indicted for poaching, smuggling and border violations. The Foreign Ministry yesterday pressed again for their immediate release. It also protested Russia's response to the alleged poaching as too extreme and demanded that the officials responsible for the shooting be punished.
■ Philippines
Arroyo orders killings probe
President Gloria Arroyo has ordered the setting up of an independent commission with "broad powers" to investigate a wave of political killings, the presidential palace said yesterday. The announcement comes days after rights group Amnesty International released a report condemning the killings and urged the government to take immediate action. "The president is now mulling over a short list of appointees for a new, powerful commission that will probe the killings of journalists and activists."
■ Czech Republic
Pluto still a planet
The question of whether Pluto is a real planet, hotly debated by scientists for decades, came to a head on Wednesday when the International Astronomers Union (IAU) proposed a definition of a planet that raises their number to 12 from nine, and includes Pluto. Some 2,500 astronomers and scientists from round the world, attending an IAU conference in Prague, have to weigh a select committee's two-part definition, on which IAU members will vote next Thursday. To be called a planet, a celestial body must be in orbit around a star while not itself being a star, and must be large enough in mass for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape.
■ Israel
Minister chides Costa Rica
Costa Rica's decision to move its embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv is regrettable and could be interpreted as a "surrender to terror," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said yesterday. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said on Wednesday the move was needed to bring the Central American nation into line with international law and mend relations with Arab nations. El Salvador will now be the only country with an embassy in Jerusalem. Most countries don't recognize Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem, the sector it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War. The country claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim the eastern sector.
■ Spain
Shepherds flock for jobs
A farm union office has been inundated with calls from people wanting to apply for jobs as shepherds after a television report mistakenly said there were 2,000 posts vacant in the region. "The program went out on Aug. 7 and we've received thousands of calls," said a spokeswoman for the young farmers' union ASAJA in the central region of Castilla-Leon. Phone calls and e-mails have come from as far away as Latin America. ASAJA was forced to put out a statement denying it had a batch of jobs on offer. Two farmers had appeared on the program and said they needed shepherds and were prepared to offer 730 euros (US$934) a month.
■ Iran
Nation open for talks
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Wednesday that the country was willing to discuss suspending uranium enrichment during negotiations with European countries and China. Mottaki, spoke two weeks before the Aug. 31 deadline set by the UN Security Council for the nation to halt the enrichment or face sanctions. Other officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have responded defiantly to the demand to suspend the program, which he says is intended to make fuel for nuclear power plants rather than nuclear weapons.
■ South Africa
Church slams moonlighting
The nation's Catholic bishops have warned priests to stop moonlighting as witchdoctors and to rely on Christ for miracles. The Catholic Bishops' Conference, which represents the bishops in several African nations, said on its Web sites some priests were adopting the traditional practice of calling on ancestors for healing. The bishops ordered priests to "desist from practices involving spirits," and to steer clear from witchcraft, fortune-telling and selling spiritual powers or magic medicines.
■ Brazil
Stroessner dies in exile
Former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, a ruthless anti-communist Cold War general who ruled from 1954 to 1989, died in exile at Brasilia's Santa Luzia hospital on Wednesday. Stroessner, 93, died of an infection caused by the pneumonia he developed after being operated for a hernia last month, according to a doctor at the hospital. "He was surrounded by his entire family," said Alfredo "Goli" Stroessner, the general's grandson and a leader of Paraguay's ruling Colorado Party, which supported the dictatorship. Stroessner lived in Brazil since he was ousted in a 1989 military coup Victims of his dictatorship have said they would stage protests if the body is sent to Paraguay for burial.
■ United States
Anti-missile fleet beefed-up
The Navy will double to six by the end of the year the number of its ships in the Pacific capable of shooting down enemy ballistic missiles, the head of the Pentagon missile-defense project involved said on Wednesday. "I think it gives the nation more options," Rear Admiral Alan Hicks, program manager for AEGIS ballistic missile defense, said in Huntsville, Alabama, after speaking to a conference on the fledgling shield. In coming years, a growing number of ship-based interceptor missiles will be deployed on 18 AEGIS cruisers and destroyers. The six ships due to be available this year will carry a specialized AEGIS combat system as well as Standard Missile SM-3 interceptors, Hicks said.
■ Canada
Activists protest star power
The constellation of political and entertainment world stars drawn to the International AIDS Conference in Toronto has drowned out the voices of the people living with AIDS, a group of activists complained. The activists, many from South Africa, nearly derailed a news conference Wednesday to protest the presence of former US president Bill Clinton and others, saying they had drawn media attention away from the plight of people living with HIV or AIDS. "We are quite aggrieved," said Sipho Mthanthi, general secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign of South Africa. The news conference quickly became an ideological discourse over whether the AIDS meeting was being tugged off track by the celebrities whose sessions have dominated news coverage of the event.
■ Peru
`Good luck potion' kills
The government warned people to be wary of fake medicine men offering cure-all miracle herb potions on Tuesday, after a bogus brew killed a man hoping to shake off his family's spell of bad luck. "Avoid consuming brews made with herbs of questionable origin or hallucinogenic plants prepared by so-called Shamans," the country's Health Ministry said in a statement, warning the potions used could kill or cause long-term illness.
■ United States
Containers spark alert
US Customs officials in Seattle evacuated one of North America's largest ship container terminals on Wednesday after two cargo containers from Pakistan alarmed bomb-sniffing dogs. Officials found no explosives or chemical or biological agents in containers, one filled with clothes and the other with large bundles of used or recycled textiles. The containers raised suspicion when a screening using gamma ray technology about the contents' density did not match the items listed on a ship's manifest.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of