■ 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.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number