■ India
Bomb kills three in Assam
At least three people were killed and 20 injured in a powerful explosion at a crowded marketplace in the northeastern state of Assam, officials said yesterday. Suspected militants of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) triggered the blast on Friday at a busy vegetable market in the town of Dhekiajuli, about 140km north of Assam's main city of Guwahati, police said. "The market was crowded with evening shoppers when the powerful bomb went off," Assam police intelligence chief Khagen Sharma told AFP. "At least 12 of the injured are stated to be critical," the police official said. Two paramilitary troopers were among the injured.
■ Japan
Leader calls for nuke debate
The policy chief of the ruling party renewed his calls for a debate over whether the country should acquire nuclear weapons capability in the face of the nuclear threat now posed by North Korea. "The main goal is to stop North Korea's outrageous acts," Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party, told a press conference in Washington. "As a form of deterrence, one can argue for nuclear an option. We must discuss all options to ensure that Japan would not come under nuclear attacks," he said.
■ Vietnam
Drug trafficking ring busted
Fifty people went on a trial in northern Vietnam for alleged involvement in one of the country's largest drug trafficking rings, state media reported yesterday. The defendants, including 11 policemen and border guards, were accused of trading 70 guns and trafficking 814.5kg of opium and 3.5kg of heroin, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said. Court officials were not available for comment yesterday. The case was uncovered in December 2004 when two former border guards were caught with four guns in Hanoi, the newspaper said. They told police that they had bought the guns from a police officer who was in charge of a warehouse in Hanoi run by the Ministry of Public Security, it said.
■ Thailand
Unique show lodging offered
Cheap and quiet accommodation is available for visitors to an upcoming international horticultural show, but some may find it too quiet -- the lodgings are in the funeral hall of a Buddhist temple. Three million visitors are expected at this year's Royal Flora Ratchaphruek, which opens Wednesday in the northern city of Chiang Mai and lasts until Jan. 31, the Bangkok Post reported yesterday. The event, being held to honor the country's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, is expected to strain the capacity of the area's numerous hotels and guest houses, so 20 local temples are also throwing their gates open to visitors, the newspaper reported.
■ Philippines
Poor move into cemetary
In the crowded sprawl of Manila, the living must compete for space with the dead. Fortunately for Virginia Bernardino and hundreds of other slum dwellers who have moved into the largest cemetery in the Philippines, the deceased don't seem to mind. "So far we have not seen any ghosts here," the soft-spoken Bernardino, 59, said with a chuckle. "I think that only happens in the movies. As the saying goes, we should fear not the dead but the living." For years, Manila North Cemetery, a public graveyard in the center of the capital of 12 million people, has been a thriving community for those evicted from their homes.
■ United States
Clinton's office shut down
Former president Bill Clinton's Harlem office was shut down on Friday afternoon after a woman in the office opened a letter and a suspicious white powder spilled out, police said. The substance was later found to be nontoxic, but its disco-very led the authorities to evacuate two floors of the building and to decontaminate several workers in the office. Police said the letter included a "rambling diatribe." It was the third time since 2001 that a letter containing a mysterious but nontoxic substance had been sent to Clinton's office.
■ United States
Airborne laser aircraft rolls in
The Missile Defense Agency has rolled out an airborne laser aircraft (ABL), the latest development in a missile-defense system that was once ridiculed as a "Star Wars" fantasy. In a ceremony held on Friday at Boeing Co's Integrated Defense Systems facility in Wichita, Kansas, the agency announced it was ready to flight test some of the low-power systems on the ABL aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400F designed to destroy enemy missiles. The laser weapon's system is designed to detect, track and destroy ballistic missiles in their boost flight phase. "I believe we are building the forces of good to beat the forces of evil," said Henry "Trey" Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency
■ United States
Rove speaks on Iraq
Presidential advisor Karl Rove blasted Democrats for even suggesting the US withdraw from Iraq, saying the US can't leave one of the world's largest oil reserves in terrorist hands. Rove also said the military must be flexible in its tactics. "More sacrifice is going to be required," Rove told a ballroom full of Republicans at a fundraiser on Friday for Wisconsin candidates. "We will either create a world in which our children and our grand-children have a hope of an optimistic future or we will leave to them a world with a hateful empire centered in the Middle East."
■ Colombia
Uribe strikes deep
Famed for his tough approach, President Alvaro Uribe went one step further on Thursday when he ordered a local official suspected of corruption arrested as he sat in the audience listening to the presidential speech. Speaking in the port city of Buenaventura, Uribe accused the city mayor's secretary of trying to get a naval officer to hand over a captured stash of cocaine and ordered police to detain him. "You are unworthy to carry out your duties," Uribe said, wagging his finger as two plainclothes officers escorted the official out of the hall. "The government cannot do battle when someone in a position as important as yours lacks patriotism."
■ Canada
Sex offender not welcome
An American sex offender who was sentenced by a US judge to three years "exile" in Canada was arrested by Canadian border guards on Thursday and faces deportation, the government said. Federal ministers and legislators had expressed deep unhappiness after a New York state judge allowed former teacher Malcolm Watson -- convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old girl -- to live in Canada on probation rather than spending time in a US jail. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said the government had officially requested that Watson be deemed inadmissible because of his conviction. Immigration officials will start examining the case at a hearing on Friday.
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