■ India
Pakistani killed in shootout
Police killed a Pakistani man and injured another during a shootout in central Mumbai yesterday, as the pair were being investigated for possible links to last month's rail bombings that killed more than 200 people. Lead police investigator K.P. Raghuvanshi said the two Pakistanis opened fire on police in an abandoned building early yesterday. Automatic rifles were recovered from them, he said.
■ India
Wrong virus blamed
A deadly virus that has claimed nearly 90 lives this year in the Gorakhpur region in Uttar Pradesh state was not Japanese encephalitis as originally thought but another illness, officials said yesterday. The state's top health official B. Nath said 28 of the 31 samples tested positive for Coxsackie-B virus, which causes high fever and diarrhea among children. More than 1,450 children died of Japanese encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh last year and hundreds more were left disabled. More than 6 million children in the state were vaccinated against the illness this year in a bid to prevent a similar outbreak. The Coxsackie virus spreads through contaminated food or water and there is no vaccine against it. Japanese encephalitis is a mosquito-borne viral disease.
■ Japan
Birthrate rises
The number of births in the first six months of the year rose for the first time in six years, raising hopes for a turnaround in the plunging annual birthrate, officials said yesterday. A total 549,255 births were registered from the first of the year to the end of June, up 11,618 from the same period last year, according to Health Ministry statistics released on Monday.
■ Indonesia
Humans not passing bird flu
Investigators found no proof that bird flu is spreading among humans in a remote part of Java where two people died from the virus and a third was sickened, the WHO said yesterday. Four other people died in the Cikelet region of West Java before swab samples were taken to determine the cause, according to local health officials. Test results are pending for five others receiving medical treatment for symptoms of the disease, including a 61-year-old man admitted to hospital early yesterday. "Though some of the undiagnosed deaths occurred in family members of confirmed cases, the investigation has found no evidence of human-to-human transmission and no evidence that the virus is spreading more easily from birds to humans," the WHO statement said.
■ Indonesia
Chili used in prison break
Prisoners squirted a mixture of water and chili peppers in the eyes of guards at a prison then bolted for freedom past their temporarily blinded captors, police said yesterday. Eighteen prisoners broke out of the jail in Pematang Sinatar on Sumatra on Sunday, but 16 of them have since been apprehended, local police detective Den Martin said. The men were on the way to the canteen for breakfast when they stormed the prison gates shouting "Attack! Attack!" and spraying the fiery liquid from plastic bottles at guards, Martin said. "The is the first time chili has been used to get out of this penitentiary," prison warden Harianaja was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post.
■ India
Hitler restaurant slammed
A new restaurant called Hitler's Cross in Mumbai drew condemnation yesterday from the city's small Jewish community, which said it would appeal to the owners to change the name. The eatery has a huge poster of Adolf Hitler prominently displayed at the entrance and is decorated by Nazi swastika symbols. "The Jews are very disturbed by the enormity of the ignorance and the insensitivity" displayed, said Jonathan Solomon of the Indian Jewish Federation. "We believe it is an act of ignorance rather than deliberate malice," he said. The restaurant owner said he had not realized the Nazi theme would upset people.
■ India
`Witches' hacked to death
Unidentified attackers hacked to death five villagers accused of practicing witchcraft in the state of Assam, officials said yesterday. The deaths take the toll of people believed to have been killed over sorcery allegations to at least nine in the past two weeks in a remote part of the state, where many indigenous tribes believe in witchcraft. The latest killings took place on Sunday in the village of Nandipur said Mrinal Talukdar, a senior police official. "Six men armed with machetes stormed a house ... and hacked three members of a family to death late Sunday accusing them of practicing sorcery," he said. Another middle-aged couple also suspected of practicing sorcery was killed on Sunday in a nearby village.
■ India
Idols `drink' milk
Thousands of people flocked to temples in Uttar Pradesh on Monday hoping to see a miracle as word spread that idols of Hindu gods were drinking milk, TV reports said. TV pictures showed milk disappearing as people held up spoons full of the liquid to idols of deities such as Lord Shiva, Ganesha and goddess Durga. "Even Shiv's lingam [revered phallus] drank milk. I feel blessed by the god," visitor Rukmani Devi said.
■ Spain
Derailment kills five
A train derailed in the northern town of Villada on Monday, killing at least five people and injuring around 30, police said. The six-car, long-distance train was carrying 426 passengers, the state rail company RENFE said. The cause of the derailment was not immediately known, authorities said. Police said the derailment occurred in the train station of the town, some 150km northwest of Madrid. Of the injured, three were hospitalized and the rest were treated on the scene at a field hospital, officials said. The train was heading from the northwest Galicia region through the Basque region toward the border with France.
■ United States
Sexy billboards constitutional
A law banning sexually suggestive billboards along Missouri highways is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court panel ruled on Monday. The law took effect in 2004 after the state claimed the ads were inappropriate for children and could lead to traffic accidents. Monday's ruling by the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the law was too broad. A less broad ban, it said, could achieve the same aims. The state will seek a rehearing before the full appeals court, said John Fougere, a spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. House Speaker Rod Jetton called the court's ruling "unfortunate." "It leaves Missourians of every age exposed to sleazy billboards along our highways," he said in a statement.
■ Switzerland
Conventions now universal
The 1949 Geneva Conventions on the protection of civilians and prisoners during war has now achieved universal acceptance following the recent accessions of Montenegro and Nauru, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday. The ICRC, which is the official guardian of the conventions, said that with the ratification by Nauru on June 27 and that of recently independent Montenegro on Aug. 2, 194 nations are now signatories. "For the first time in modern history an international treaty has achieved universal acceptance," the humanitarian organization said.
■ Russia
Space tourist barred
Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto will not be allowed to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) next month after failing to meet medical requirements, Russian space agency officials in Moscow said on Monday. Enomoto will likely be replaced by Iranian-born American Anousheh Ansari for the 10-day flight to the orbiter with a Russian crew, Roskosmos spokesman Igor Panarin said. She will pay around US$20 million for the trip and become the first female "space tourist." Enomoto, 35, will be unable to fulfill his dream of orbiting the earth dressed like his cartoon pilot hero "Char Aznable", a character from the Gundam robot animation series.
■ United States
Dark matter `observed'
A huge collision between two clusters of galaxies has provided the first direct evidence of the existence of the universe's mysterious dark matter, researchers said on Monday. "This is the most energetic cosmic event, besides the Big Bang, which we know about," said Maxim Markevitch of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The impact forced apart dark and normal matter, offering the strongest evidence yet that most of the matter in the universe is dark, researchers said. "We've come closer than ever to seeing this invisible matter," Doug Clowe, a leader of the study, said.
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