■ Myanmar
Nation off blacklist
The military junta welcomed a financial watchdog's decision yesterday to remove the country from a list of uncooperative money-laundering nations, saying that suppression efforts have paid off. The Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based intergovernmental group, has removed Myanmar from its blacklist of non-cooperative countries whose systems support money laundering activities. "We are happy that the FATF recognized the progress we have made," police Colonel Sit Aye, head of the Transnational Crimes Department, said yesterday.
■ China
Court showing murder trial
A Chinese court is taking the rare step of letting a local TV station broadcast the trial of a farmer charged with stabbing 10 people to death at a Taoist temple, the Beijing News said yesterday. Qiu Xinhua, 47, goes on trial on Thursday in Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, it said. It didn't say whether the broadcasts would be live or whether some portions of the trial might be blacked out. The state-controlled media have sharply increased coverage of trials in recent years as the government tries to assure the public it is stamping out crime and corruption.
■ Thailand
Muslims killed in south
Two Muslim villagers have been shot dead by suspected separatist insurgents in the troubled south, police said yesterday. Salahudin Toja, 19, was shot as he tapped rubber trees yesterday morning in Narathiwat Province. After the shooting, the attackers hacked his face beyond recognition, police said. In an attack in Narathiwat late on Friday, two militants dressed in black walked into a noodle shop and shot and killed Amran Ahdoloh, 43.
■ Malaysia
Elephants go bananas
Wild elephants rampaged through a plantation district, trampling more than 1,000 banana and rubber trees, a news report said yesterday. At least four elephants believed to be foraging for food ventured out of a jungle on Friday and tore through a rural plantation in the northern state of Kedah, shocking villagers whose livelihood depends on the crops, the Star newspaper reported. "I hope they will not make rampaging a habit," said resident Hussin Rashid, whose 300 banana trees were destroyed. Villagers have urged wildlife officials to patrol the area over the next few days to prevent the pachyderms from returning amid fears that they might attack humans.
■ Afghanistan
Governor cheats death
A provincial governor escaped an assassination attempt in the east of the country yesterday but a colleague was killed in an early morning attack involving bombing and gunfire. The governor of the eastern province of Laghman, Gulab Mangal, told reporters a bomb struck the first vehicle of his convoy -- he had been in the second vehicle. As the occupants disembarked to assess the damage, they came under small arms fire, Mangal said. "A bomb struck under our front vehicle. Then we had some shots and our friend was hit," he said. "I was in the second vehicle." The dead man was an administration official.
■ Sri Lanka
Bodies to be exhumed
Authorities will exhume next week bodies of 15 aid workers massacred in the northeast of the country in August to try to establish who killed them, their French employer said yesterday. The 15 were among 17 mainly Tamils who worked for Paris-based voluntary group Action Contre la Faim (ACF) and were found killed in their office compound in Muttur town after a battle in the area between the army and Tamil Tiger rebels. The bodies would be exhumed and brought to Colombo, where bodies of the remaining two have been kept, for a new autopsy in the presence of international observers, ACF said in a statement. An earlier autopsy was inconclusive.
■ Indonesia
Defendants walk out
Prosecutors demanded that seven men accused of slaying two US teachers at a US-owned gold mine serve sentences of between eight and 20 years in jail, the defendants' lawyer said. The men, all alleged members of Papua province's rebel movement, walked out of court before the sentence recommendations were read out in protest at what they have always maintained is an unfair trial, said attorney Johnson Panjaitan. The men are accused of opening fire on a vehicle carrying Rickey Lynn Spier, 44, of Littleton, Colorado, and Leon Edwin Burgon, 71, of Sun River, Oregon in 2002.
■ China
Ships collide in the night
At least seven people were missing after two cargo ships collided in the reservoir of China's huge Three Gorges Dam, sinking one boat carrying more than 200 cows, officials and state media said yesterday. The collision occurred after dark on Friday near Quxikou, about 7km up stream from the dam in Hubei Province, an official with the Three Gorges transportation agency told reporters. "One ship was hauling coal and the other was carrying cows," an administration official surnamed Bu said. "The boat carrying the cows sank," he said.
■ United Nations
New UNSC members in
Tomorrow, Belgium, Italy and South Africa will be selected as non-permanent members of the UN Security Council for the 2007-2008 period, a spokeswoman said on Friday. The three countries, which enjoy the support of their respective regional groups, will be elected by secret ballot by the 192-member General Assembly. They will be succeeding Denmark, Greece and Tanzania. Five non-permanent seats on the 15-member Security Council are up for grabs. Winners need a two-thirds majority and will take their seats on the panel on Jan. 1.
■ United States
Too wild for Disney
The Walt Disney Co on Thursday said it took "appropriate action" against employees at its Paris theme park who were caught simulating sex while dressed as Disney characters in a digital video that has received wide attention on the Internet. Disney would not say whether it had dismissed any of the costumed employees featured in the grainy video, which appears to have been shot with a hidden camera at a backstage dressing room at Disneyland Resort Paris. The video shows Minnie Mouse struggling to free herself as she is grabbed from behind by Goofy and then a giant snowman.
■ GAZA
Six Hamas members killed
Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a group of Palestinian gunmen yesterday, killing six and wounding 15, Palestinian security officials said. Five of the dead were identified as members of Hamas, security officials said. Two of the wounded were in serious condition. A woman was also among those hurt. Witnesses said ambulances driving to the scene came under fire. More than a dozen Israeli tanks also moved in the area, and security officials reported exchanges of fire between the Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen.
■ Georgia
President offers citizenship
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has responded to a wave of deportations of his countrymen from Russia with an offer of citizenship to Russians living in Georgia. "We will set up a system so that even Russian citizens can receive Georgian citizenship without problem," Saakashvili said at a briefing on Friday. "Our laws allow dual citizenship," he added. In particular, he urged the families of Russian military officers stationed in Georgia to apply for citizenship. Saakashvili also appealed to ethnic Georgian businessmen, who have faced a clampdown in Russia in recent weeks, to relocate to their ethnic homeland, promising "better business conditions and lower tax rates."
■ Russia
NGO shut down
The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a Russian NGO aimed at promoting dialogue between Russians and Chechens, has become the first NGO to be closed under new anti-extremist legislation, the Kommersant newspaper reported yesterday. Amnesty International condemned the closure, saying in a statement it could provide a "blueprint for a further crackdown on independent voices." The organization was shut down under a new amendment to the law on extremist activity, which stipulates that organizations headed by individuals charged with extremism should be closed. The head of the group, Stanislav Dmitrievsky, was charged in February last year with inciting extremism for publishing an appeal by the then Chechen leader.
■ United States
Police stop school riot
A fight between two high school students erupted into a riot involving 500 people, prompting officers to fire bean bags and rubber pellets to scatter the crowd, police said. No major injuries were reported. Approximately 100 officers rushed to Fontana High School on Friday after students threw rocks and bottles at other officers and one another, according to Fontana police. Two students were arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, and four others were arrested for refusing to disperse and resisting arrest. Police were investigating the cause of the fight.
■ United States
State legislator charged
A state legislator has been charged with scuffling with a protester dressed as a cockroach during a gubernatorial debate last month, and allegedly tore the head off the giant bug costume. Representative Vaughn Flora, a Democrat from Topeka, was charged on Sept. 27 with a single count of battery stemming from his alleged contact with an anti-abortion protester during a political debate between Governor Kathleen Sebelius and her Republican challenger, Senator Jim Barnett. A pretrial hearing has been set for Nov. 21. If convicted, Flora could face up to a year in prison.
■ United States
Pro-marijuana man charged
A leading medical marijuana advocate who successfully appealed his federal conviction this year has been indicted on new criminal charges that include tax evasion and money laundering. Ed Rosenthal, a spokesman for the movement to legalize marijuana, was already facing a retrial on federal charges of growing marijuana for medical use. He is to be arraigned tomorrow in federal district court on the new indictment. It accuses Rosenthal of 14 felony charges that include cultivating marijuana plants, laundering US$1,850, which the government says he got from selling the plants to medical dispensaries, and tax evasion.
■ United States
Dish burner pleads guilty
A man who pleaded guilty to setting fire to a satellite dish at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been sentenced to three years in state prison. Tyrone Willkerson, 49, was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to one count of arson, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said in a statement on Friday. In exchange, prosecutors dropped one count each of vandalism and possession of flammable materials. Prosecutors want Willkerson to repay US$180,300 in damages he caused to the satellite dish on March 13.
■ Argentina
Closure for Peron's daughter
Martha Holgado says even strangers comment that she looks strikingly similar to former president Juan Peron. But it took until now, at the age of 72, before she got the chance to prove her claim that she is his illegitimate daughter. Thwarted for decades by Argentina's military leaders and then by Peron's family, Holgado finally got her chance on Friday to obtain DNA samples for a paternity test now that Peron's body is being moved to a new US$1.1 million mausoleum. ``This for me is the end of a long lapse of time that was real agony, just agony,'' Holgado said in an interview on Friday. ``I want to have my identity and to live with my name and my identity that corresponds. It is my human right.'' The DNA tests should be complete in six weeks.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was