■ China
River suffers more damage
The Songhua River, the site of a massive chemical spill last year that halted water supplies to millions of people, has been hit by more than 130 water pollution accidents in the past 11 months, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration was quoted as saying that a chemical accident pollutes the Songhua every few days. He blamed "irrational distribution of industrial enterprises" for the frequent accidents, the report said. No additional details about the accidents were given.
■ China
Unrest over teacher's death
Crowds angered by alleged police mishandling of a teacher's death attacked government offices in Rui'an City, Zhejiang Province, leading to beatings and arrests, newspapers and a local hospital said. Students and residents claimed police colluded with the husband of high school English teacher Dai Haijing to have her death classified as a suicide, according to Hong Kong newspapers Ta Kung Pao and the South China Morning Post. An official at Rui'an City People's Hospital said more than one dozen people had been admitted for treatment following Friday's violence.
■ China
Miscarriage forces landing
An American woman suffered a miscarriage on a United Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Chicago, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Beijing, the China Daily said yesterday. The plane made the emergency stop on Saturday afternoon just two hours after take-off. The woman and her husband were taken to the Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital in Beijing, it said.
■ Thailand
Belgian tourist shot, killed
A 24-year-old Belgian tourist was shot dead on Sunday in Thailand's popular resort island of Phi Phi, police said. The man was gunned down in front of a budget beach hotel as he came back from a local bar with two other Westerners, said police colonel Boontawee Toraksa. "Witnesses told us three young men approached the Belgian and shot him in the head," Boontawee said, adding that the two others were unhurt. The Belgian, whose identity was not clear, arrived in Phi Phi last week with an brother, the police official said. He declined to give further details.
■ India
Nationalists attack school
Young members of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday vandalized a prestigious Catholic girls' school in northern India after reports of a "seance" there last week, reports said. The school aroused the ire of Hindu nationalists for holding a religious meeting for approximately 250 teenage girls at which a Catholic rickshaw-puller served as a medium for Jesus Christ, the Press Trust of India news agency said. Dozens of schoolgirls apparently fainted in fright and had to be admitted to the convent's infirmary on Wednesday after the priest began writhing and calling on Christ to enter his body. "It is not unusual to be terrified when the Lord comes before you. Even I was frightened," said the school's principal, Sister Monica.
■ New Zealand
World not safer: Clark
The security crackdown that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks five years ago has failed to make the world safer, and the US-led invasion of Iraq has created a new haven for attackers, New Zealand's leader said yesterday. "No, we're not more secure since 9/11," Clark told reporters on the fifth anniversary of the attacks, when asked whether the world was safer because of the war on terror launched in response to them. Though there had been terrorist attacks before, Sept. 11 heralded "a new era because it showed the ability of terrorists to strike at the very heart of the most powerful nation on earth and that was a very, very sobering thought," Clark said.
■ Pakistan
Security tightened up
Pakistan yesterday tightened its security for the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, using bomb-sniffing dogs to sweep parks in the capital and taking extra precautions at airports and army posts, a news report said. Intelligence agencies have reported that militants or activists would try to "exploit the situation" by stepping up their "nefarious designs," the Daily Times newspaper said, citing unidentified officials. No details were given.
■ Australia
Collector, paintings reunited
An Australian collector who bought two paintings for A$1.5 million (US$1.1 million), put them on his car roof racks but forgot to tie them down said on Sunday that he had been reunited with his lost art works. Gordon Syron bought the two contemporary art works from a downtown Sydney gallery on Friday afternoon and was driving to his nearby home before he realized his mistake. Both had fallen off. One painting was picked up from the street and handed to police on Saturday and the second was returned on Sunday after the finder saw a television news report of the loss Saturday night, he said. "A guy picked up the painting after it flew off my car and took it home without really looking at it. I think he liked the frame," Syron said of the second painting.
■ Russia
Sakashita trial begins
Preliminary hearings opened in the Yuzhno-Kurilsk District Court yesterday in the trial of a Japanese fishing boat captain accused over an incident in which one of his crew was killed by Russian coast guards. Prosecutors indicted Noboru Sakashita earlier this month for poaching and illegally crossing a state border in connection with the Aug. 16 incident. Both Russian and Japan claim Sakashita's boat was in its own waters when Russian guards opened fire, killing a Japanese fisherman. Russian officials say coast guards fired a warning shot after the boat failed to heed orders to stop, accidentally killing the fisherman.
■ Finland
Say again, Jacques?
French President Jacques Chirac, who has upset Finland in the past by making scathing comments, went on a charm offensive on Sunday by describing the country's prime minister as "sexy." "Let me introduce you to the sexiest man in Finland," Chirac told Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as he introduced him to Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen at an EU-Asia summit. Chirac was quoted last year by newspapers as telling former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin that "after Finland, [Britain] is the country with the worst food." Last week, Chirac's office denied a French magazine report that he had said Finland's foreign minister was incompetent.
■ India
CPA names new head
Somnath Chatterjee, speaker of the Indian lower house Lok Sabha, has been named as the new president of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), the association said on Sunday. The CPA named 76-year-old Chatterjee as successor to Alhaji Aminu Masari, speaker of the Nigerian parliament, at its 52nd annual conference in the Nigerian capital Abuja. Chatterjee called on CPA member countries to introduce "proactive measures to check the prevalence of human rights abuses, poverty, diseases, political repression and suppression in Commonwealth member countries."
■ Latvia
No charm for NATO
Hundreds of people knitting 4,500 pairs of woolen mittens as gifts for the NATO summit in November have been told to avoid a folk symbol -- the Latvian Thunder Cross, or Fire Cross -- because it looks like a Nazi swastika. The Thunder Cross is a folklore symbol used as a charm against evil. It commonly features on mittens and other folk items found in Latvian shops. The mittens will join a bottle of traditional Latvian spirits -- Black Balzam -- a CD of local folk music, a jar of honey and some Latvian tea in a gift bag for delegates.
■ Zimbabwe
Anglican churches closed
Nolbert Kunonga, the Anglican bishop of Harare, ordered his cathedral and the capital's other Anglican churches closed for services, and instead held a prayer meeting and fundraiser at a sports arena to celebrate his 33rd wedding anniversary. Church officials accused him of demanding the closures so that congregations could attend his event on Sunday, which was also meant to raise funds for a clerical training college.This was the first time the cathedralhad been closed since Zimbabwe's 1980 independence.
■ Canada
Plane lands on street
A pilot landed his small airplane in a downtown Montreal street on Sunday after the Cessna aircraft encountered problems shortly after taking off from a suburb, police said. The plane, carrying two adults and a child, made the emergency landing on a relatively clear Parc Avenue and rolled for 400m before stopping. One of its wings slammed a street pole, but no one was injured in the incident, Montreal police said. An investigation was launched to determine if the incident was due to a mechanical problem or an empty fuel tank, police said.
■ Canada
Karzai wants troops to stay
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will address parliament on Sept. 22 to urge Canadian military forces to remain in Afghanistan, a newspaper reported on Sunday. The French-language daily La Presse said Karzai would speak to a joint session of parliament about his support for Canada's military presence and ask that the troops stay in his country to restore order. His visit will come amid rising calls for Ottawa to withdraw its 2,300 soldiers from Afghanistan since five troops died last week. The leftist New Democratic Party adopted a motion on Saturday calling for the Canadian contingent's withdrawal.
■ United States
University students rampage
An Ohio State University student accused of driving his car into three people, injuring them slightly, was among several people arrested during a raucous celebration of their No. 1-ranked team's win over No. 2 Texas. There were about 40 fires reported, with couches and mattresses set ablaze, in student neighborhoods on Saturday night, said Sergeant David Howson of the Columbus police. Police arrested about 17 people, including five on arson charges. A trash bin also was set on fire, burning two nearby cars, he said.
■ Mexico
Child trafficking ring busted
Federal police said on Sunday they had arrested two men who were part of an international child-trafficking ring and rescued three children aged 2, 4 and 6, at the international airport in the border city of Tijuana. One of the adults initially told police he was the children's father, but further investigation revealed the men were attempting to smuggle the children into the US without proper documents, police said. The suspects said they had been hired by the children's grandmother to take them to the border, where they would presumably be meet by another smuggler. It was not clear if the children were to have joined their real parents once in the US.
■ United States
Skydivers killed in accident
Two tandem skydivers fell to their deaths when their main and reserve parachutes opened only partially, authorities said. Paul Joseph, 30, and Reed Michael Loeschke, 28, were found just before noon Sunday in the yard of a vacant home in southern New Jersey and were pronounced dead at the scene. Joseph was an instructor at Freefall Adventures, a skydiving school. He and Loeschke were making a tandem jump, a practice in which an instructor and inexperienced skydiver are bound together, authorities said. The jump, which took place around noon, was from a plane owned by Freefall Adventures, police said. Staffers from Freefall Adventures would not comment on the accident.
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