■ Myanmar
Aid targets killer diseases
Myanmar will receive US$99.5 million in aid to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the three leading causes of death in the country, replacing funds withdrawn by a UN-formed international fund, state-run media reported yesterday. The aid comes from a newly created consortium which, unlike the UN-created Global Fund, aims to provide money directly to non-governmental organizations rather than to the country's military junta.
■ Hong Kong
Police nab attack suspects
Police have arrested four men in connection with a brutal attack on a lawmaker, news reports said yesterday. Three of the men were being held in Hong Kong while the other was in custody in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, the Standard newspaper quoted unidentified police and government sources as saying. Pro-democracy lawmaker Albert Ho (何俊仁) was attacked by bat-wielding thugs in a busy McDonald's restaurant in August. The attackers ran off after the assault. Ho has said the attack was probably linked to his legal work. Ho, a solicitor by profession, said he handled many cases that would "jeopardize the interests" of triad gangs.
■ China
School hit by food poisoning
The latest in a string of food poisoning outbreaks in schools has sickened as many as 200 students and teachers, news reports said yesterday. The incident occurred on Wednesday at the school in Guangzhou and involved students aged six to 12, according to the government's Xinhua News Agency and the Beijing Morning Post newspaper. At least 96 were admitted to hospital but were expected to be released yesterday, Xinhua said.
■ Afghanistan
Suicide bomber kills eight
A suicide bomber in a car targeted a NATO convoy in the south, killing eight civilians and wounding five other people, including two NATO soldiers, alliance and police officials said. The attack in southern Kandahar city also damaged two NATO and two civilians vehicles, said Abdul Wasae, a police official at the scene. The two NATO soldiers wounded in the blast were taken to a military medical facility for treatment, said NATO spokesman Squadron Leader Jason Chalk.
■ Australia
Militia head faces extradition
A self-confessed Serb paramilitary commander will face an extradition hearing later this year after a federal court postponed his appeal yesterday. Croatian authorities have accused Dragan Vasiljkovic of ordering the torture, killing or expulsion of Croatian prisoners of war and civilians while commanding a rebel Serb paramilitary unit during the 1991 Serbo-Croat war. The 51-year-old Australian citizen -- known as "Captain Dragan" -- has been held in a Sydney jail since Jan. 20 pending extradition to Croatia on the charges, which carry a maximum 20-year prison sentence.
■ Vietnam
Inmate becomes pregnant
A death-row inmate held in solitary confinement for almost a year is pregnant and is seeking a pardon to give birth, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The Lao Dong newspaper quoted a police doctor as saying tests in September confirmed that convicted heroin trafficker Nguyen Thi Oanh, 39, was then 11 weeks pregnant. The report said it was the first time that a death-row prisoner had become pregnant in Vietnam. Oanh's husband is serving a jail sentence at another prison, the newspaper said.
■ Italy
Priest held for pimping
An 81-year-old priest has been arrested for sexual abuse of minors and pimping in a town near San Marino on the Adriatic Sea, press reports said on Thursday. Don Giuseppe Giacomoni, who ran a homeless shelter, had two accomplices, an Italian restaurant owner and a young Romanian man, who were also arrested on Wednesday in the town of Cesena. Prosecutors told the daily La Republica that illegal immigrants who came to Giacomoni's shelter had to choose between prostituting themselves or being turned in to the customs authorities.
■ Zimbabwe
Safe sex starts with a trim
Hairdressers will offer counseling and condoms to their clients as part of an innovative program to reduce HIV infection, backed by a grant from the British government. The money will go to the Population Services International NGO to help fund a five-year campaign to reduce new infections. More than 1,000 hairdressers have been trained to give advice to their clients about sexual matters and to sell male and female condoms. Last year more than half of all female condoms were distributed through 700 beauty salons in low-income areas. The country has one of the world's highest HIV rates, with one in five adults estimated to be infected.
■ Kenya
Redefining youth
A government minister has proposed changing the legal definition of youth to anyone aged from 15 to 50 -- a two-decade jump from the current ceiling of 30 years. If passed by parliament, that would put youths within five years of the official retirement age of 55. Youth Affairs Minister Muhammad Kuti was quoted in local media as saying the government plans to change the law so more people can access a 1 billion shilling (US$14 million) youth fund established this year. The proposal has rankled some in the east African nation, where critics say the reform agenda of President Mwai Kibaki, 74, has stalled.
■ Spain
Radioactive snails found
The discovery of radioactive snails at a site in the southeast where three US hydrogen bombs fell by accident 40 years ago may trigger a joint US-Spanish clean-up operation, officials said on Wednesday. The hydrogen bombs fell near the fishing village of Palomares in 1966 after a mid-air collision between a bomber and a refueling craft, in which seven of 11 crewmen died. Hundreds of tonnes of soil were removed from the Palomares area and shipped to the US after high explosive igniters on two bombs detonated on impact, spreading plutonium dust-bearing clouds across nearby fields.
■ Serbia
Kosovo dead returned
UN authorities in Kosovo yesterday handed over to families the bodies of 29 Serb civilians killed during the 1998-99 conflict in the volatile province. Most of the victims are believed to have been from the western Kosovo towns of Orahovac and Opterusa, UN spokesman Neeraj Singh said. Previously, they all had been reported as missing. Singh said a delegation of family members and Serbia's officials is to receive the bodies at Merdare boundary crossing, some 40km north of Kosovo's capital, Pristina. Over 2,000 people are still missing from the Kosovo conflict in what remains one of the most sensitive and emotionally charged issues between the two former foes.
■ United States
Warner out of 2008 race
US Senator Hillary Clinton's closest potential rival for the Democratic nomination in 2008 dropped out of the presidential race on Thursday, saying he wanted to have "a real life" with his family. "This weekend made clear what I'd been thinking about for many weeks -- that while politically this appears to be the right time for me to take the plunge -- at this point, I want to have a real life," former Virginia governor Mark Warner said on his Web site. "And while the chance may never come again, I shouldn't move forward unless I'm willing to put everything else in my life on the back burner. This has been a difficult decision, but for me, it's the right decision."
■ Venezuela
Love on the campaign trail
Talk of love is in the air as campaigning heats up ahead of the Dec. 3 presidential election. Newspaper ads by President Hugo Chavez's campaign include a solemn "message of love" for Venezuelan that reads: "I have always done everything for love." The opposition has hit back, taking out its own ads with a wilted rose and a "love note" reading in part: "Don't ask for more time. Don't talk to me about love." Polls show Chavez in the lead ahead of opposition candidate Manuel Rosales, the governor of western Zulia state.
■ Brazil
Rio's Christ now a sanctuary
Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue, which looks down on the city from its mountaintop perch, was raised to the status of an official Roman Catholic sanctuary on Thursday, 75 years after it was inaugurated. Rio de Janeiro Cardinal Eusebio Scheid said he decided to consecrate the space, which includes the 38m-tall monument and the church at its base, because the statue was becoming known more as a tourist site than a religious destinantion. Hundreds of nuns and priests from Rio mingled with tourists during the mass celebrated under sunny skies on Thursday morning. The Archdiocese hopes the monument's new status will attract more religious pilgrims to the site. More than 300,000 tourists visit the monument each year.
■ United States
Military dissenter jailed
A 24-year-old Fort Bragg, Carolina, paratrooper who says he left his base because he disagreed with the US mission in Iraq was sentenced to three months' confinement after pleading guilty on Thursday to going absent without leave. Sergeant Ricky Clousing will also receive a reduction in rank and forfeit two-thirds of his pay during the time of his confinement before getting a bad conduct discharge. Clousing's attorney, David Miner, said his client "no regrets" about his decision to leave his barracks in June last year after a five-month tour in Iraq, where he worked as an interrogator in a military intelligence battalion. Clousing claims to have witnessed another soldier kill an innocent Iraqi man in Mosul, but said his superiors dismissed his account.
■ United States
New population mark due
The Census Bureau said on Thursday that with a net gain of one person every 11 seconds, the nation's population will reach 300 million at about 7:46am on Tuesday. The estimate assumes that an American is born every seven seconds, one dies every 13 seconds and the nation gains an immigrant every 31 seconds. Whoever the 300 millionth American is, his or her arrival is bound to be a relief to Robert Woo, a Georgia lawyer who was anointed by Life magazine as the 200 millionth American in 1967. "Forty years is enough," Woo said on Thursday.
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
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
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not