■ China
Fines for Online rumormills
Internet users in southwest China who spread malicious rumors online face fines of up to 5,000 yuan (US$630) and possible detention, state media reported yesterday in the latest crackdown on dissent. Under legislation passed in Chongqing municipality, people who post "defamatory comments or remarks, launch personal attacks or seek to damage reputations online" will receive a warning or be fined between 1,000 and 5,000 yuan, the China Daily said. "Those whose rumors cause serious consequences could be detained for five days or even more," the paper said.
■ China
Beijing's beat police doubled
Beijing has doubled the number of plainclothes police officers on the beat in a bid to make people feel more secure, state media reported yesterday. A 1,200-strong plainclothes team under the Public Security Bureau was put in place this week to combat street crimes such as theft, robbery, fraud and drug dealing, the China Daily reported. The plainclothes police officers will be deployed across the city in public places such as railway stations, hotels, restaurants and business districts and will be allowed to carry weapons, including guns. Some local residents have expressed reservations about such a measure, fearing it would lead to more abuse of power, which is often cited as a huge problem among police.
■ Turkmenistan
`Free creativity' house opened
President Saparmurat Niyazov has inaugurated a massive, book-shaped building dedicated to the media in the heavily censored and tightly controlled Central Asian nation, a government-run daily newspaper reported yesterday. The US$17 million ``House of Free Creativity'' was unveiled on Tuesday as part of lavish celebrations of the country's 15th anniversary of independence. The new building will accommodate offices of the government-controlled press. Niyazov -- who has declared himself Turkmenbashi, or Father of All Turkmen -- personally approves the content of all newspapers.
■ Solomon Islands
Immigration minister arrested
The country's immigration minister was arrested and charged yesterday over his government's attempts to prevent the extradition of Julian Moti, its attorney-general, to Australia, on child sex charges. Peter Shanel was charged with perverting the course of justice, misleading a police officer and misleading a public officer over his role in the affair, which has led to the development of a crisis in the relationship between the Pacific neighbors. The charges against Shanel relate to an order he signed which would have allowed Moti -- a close friend of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare -- to enter the country without a passport.
■ Philippines
Four kidnapped in Jolo
Gunmen kidnapped a Filipino engineer and three workers who had inspected a US-funded road project on the Jolo island, officials said yesterday. Six kidnappers, who were believed to be security guards for the project in Jolo's Parang town, stopped the victims' pickup truck and dragged them away at gunpoint on Tuesday, provincial army commander Colonel Reynaldo Sealana said. It was still not clear if the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, who are being targeted by a months-long US-backed offensive in Jolo's hinterlands, were involved in the kidnapping. A US embassy spokesman said the incident would not affect humanitarian projects in Jolo that are being funded by Washington.
■ Mexico
Fourteen killed in bus crash
Fourteen people were killed on Tuesday when a passenger bus crashed into the back of a tractor trailer in the western state of Nayarit, officials said. The bus was heading from the state capital of Tepic to Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city, when it smashed into the trailer and exploded into flames, said Nayarit fire chief Jose Lopez. Tepic is 625km northwest of Mexico City. Four people suffered minor injuries. Lopez said an investigation would be launched to determine the cause of the crash but it appeared likely that the bus was speeding. The area is often foggy, he added.
■ United States
Dinosaur stolen
New York police are on the lookout for a missing dinosaur, last seen at the weekend in an affluent Long Island suburb. The life-size fiberglass replica of a carnivorous Deinonychus went missing on Saturday from a local festival, the New York Post reported on Tuesday. "It's a very unusual theft, and because of that, we're hoping the public will spot it somewhere," police detective Lieutenant John May said. The report said that someone had sawn through a metal pole attaching the 3m-long model to a trailer. "You'd definitely notice it, if someone rode by with it," said Cindy Smith, spokeswoman for the Oyster Bay Festival.
■ United States
Drunk driver guilty of murder
A New York man who drove the wrong way down a highway following a night of heavy drinking, slamming head-on into a wedding limousine and killing the chauffeur and a seven-year-old flower girl, was convicted on Tuesday of two counts of murder. Martin Heidgen, 25, was charged with murder -- a rarity in driving-while-intoxicated fatal crashes -- after prosecutors said he showed a "depraved indifference to human life" by ignoring drivers on the Long Island highway who flashed their headlights and honked their horns as he drove into traffic. The slain girl's parents and several jurors cried when the verdict was read out.
■ United States
Study details medicine harm
Harmful reactions to some of the most widely used medicines -- from insulin to a common antibiotic -- sent more than 700,000 US citizens to emergency rooms each year, landmark government research shows. Accidental overdoses and allergic reactions to prescription drugs were the most frequent cause of serious illnesses, according to the study, the first to reveal the nationwide scope of the problem. People over 65 faced the greatest risks. The study was developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, and published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
■ Turkey
Erdogan leaves hospital
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was discharged from hospital on Tuesday several hours after he was admitted after fainting due to exhaustion and fasting. A smiling but tired Erdogan emerged from the private Guven hospital in the company of his wife Emine and was greeted by children throwing petals on his path and presenting him with flowers, live footage on the NTV news channel showed. "Thank you very much and I wish you a good night. I will continue onwards," Erdogan said, waving and posing for photographers before leaving in his official car. Erdogan, 52, fainted around 11am as he was being driven to parliament.
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