■ Pakistan
Musharraf slams clerics
The Muslim world must correct Western misperceptions created by "semiliterate clerics" about Islam as a religion that fosters militant extremism, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf said yesterday. "We need to inform the world of the reality of Islam," Musharraf told a meeting of the World Islamic Economic Forum. "Semiliterate clerics who hold sway over the masses [have contributed] to the rise of extremism in the Muslim world as opposed to moderation," he said. "This is the unfortunate reality because this is the critical malaise which spawns terrorism."
■ Malaysia
Leaders slam sex article
Government leaders have rebuked a local newspaper for publishing a frank expose of sexual attitudes among the country's youth. The Weekend Mail gave detailed descriptions of favorite sex positions from its survey -- including "spooning, galloping and tea bag positions" -- in a three-page feature that delivered on its front-page promise: "You'll be shocked." "I received endless calls and SMS over the articles," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak told a ruling-party meeting on Sunday. "The media going overboard in exploiting sex will only worsen our social problems," he was quoted by the New Straits Times.
■ China
Mine blast kills 17
At least 17 miners were killed and another 30 were trapped after a gas explosion in a coal mine in Xinzhou, Shanxi Province, on Sunday, the Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Initial indications showed that the gas accumulated and exploded after exhaust fans stopped working due to a power failure.
■ Indonesia
Narco-producers sentenced
Courts sentenced Dutch, French and Chinese nationals from 20 years in prison to life yesterday for ties to an ecstasy factory capable of producing millions of illegal pills a year. Presiding judge Mulyanto told the Tangerang District Court that Frenchman Serge Areski Atloui and Nicolaas Garnick Josephus of Holland were given life behind bars for helping produce ingredients used to make the drug. Five Chinese men each received 20 years for producing methamphe-tamines, known locally as shabu-shabu, another judge said.
■ India
Police cadets arrested
Twenty-eight aspiring policemen have been arrested after around 18,000 of them went on a rampage following the police admission exam, an official said yesterday. "Cars were stopped, roads were blocked, vendors were looted and some of them abused and hooted the women," a police official in the northern city of Ghaziabad said. "We are investigating the reason why so many people went wild," he said. Newspaper reports said the mobs commandeered cars, buses and three-wheeler auto-rickshaws, sometimes forcing out the original passengers and smashing car windows. Several women were also molested.
■ Thailand
Frenchman stabs girlfriend
A Frenchman was arrested in Thailand after he confessed to stabbing his Thai girlfriend to death in their Bangkok apartment during a drunken brawl, police said yesterday. Arthur Bordoni, 26, was detained on Sunday. Bordoni told police that he and his girlfriend, Rosarin Aswapanuwat, 21, got into an argument over her alleged affair with another man, prompting a fight that resulted in his stabbing her to death. After killing the woman, Bordoni telephoned his mother in France and asked her to contact the French embassy in Bangkok. He waited in his apartment, which he and his girlfriend had shared for several months, until police arrived.
■ China
Say no to wife-swapping
Sociologists said that the country should promote bolder attitudes towards sex, but that wife-swapping was off the agenda, state media reported yesterday. Chinese attitudes towards sex have relaxed in recent decades, triggering a boom in extramarital relationships which the Communist Party has blamed on bourgeois mores imported from the West. "Wife-swapping should not be promoted to the public as it will lead to the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases," the China Daily quoted a family planning official, as saying at the fourth Guangzhou Sex Culture Expo over the weekend. "Neither the sex forum nor the expo should provide a platform for advertising bold and unacceptable views to the public," he said.
■ South Korea
Scientist files lawsuit
A disgraced scientist who falsified stem cell research data filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking reinstatement from a university that fired him over the controversy, a court official and his lawyer said. Hwang Woo-suk, who once claimed to have produced the first cloned human embryos, said in the suit that Seoul National University fired him based on "distorted and exaggerated" evidence contained in the outcome of an in-house investigation, an official at the Seoul.
■ Congo
Kabila ahead in early polls
The election commission began releasing partial results on Sunday from last week's presidential run-off to try to stem the flow of rumors and unofficial results circulating in the tense capital. Results from 12 of 169 constituencies were published on its Web site, giving President Joseph Kabila 68.5 percent of the vote in the race against Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel turned vice president. The commission stressed the figures were partial and should not be used to extrapolate a final tally for the election. The final results must be published by Nov. 19 but are expected a week earlier.
■ Turkey
Former PM Ecevit dies
Former prime minister Bulent Ecevit, a political force for almost half a century who ordered the invasion of Cyprus and later pushed his country toward the West, has died. He was 81. Ecevit died on Sunday at Ankara's GATA military hospital after nearly six months in a coma following a stroke, the hospital said in a statement, citing circulatory and respiratory problems as causes of his death. He started his political career in 1957 as a staunchly left-wing lawmaker, but later became a US ally, a transformation that mirrored changes in his country which has gone from a largely insular nation to one that is increasingly opening to the West.
■ Turkey
Free speech may be eased
Prime Minister Recep Erdogan signaled on Sunday that he was prepared to amend a law limiting free speech, a surprise move that was apparently an 11th-hour attempt to prevent a crisis with the EU over the nation's troubled membership talks. The European Commission is expected to publish a damning report this week criticizing Turkey for sluggishness on the changes it needs to make if it wants to join the EU. Turkey's law on freedom of expression, which makes "denigration of the Turkish state and identity" a crime, has generated widespread international criticism.
■ South Africa
Ex-Zuma aide loses appeal
The top appeals court yesterday rejected an appeal of a corruption conviction by a former aide to ex-deputy president Jacob Zuma, a move analysts say could hobble any bid by Zuma for the presidency. The Supreme Court of Appeals in Bloemfontein said Schabir Shaik was "correctly convicted" on all three counts against him, according to a live feed by SABC TV. "We find a wealth of evidence to show that the friendship [between Shaik and Zuma], which we accept exists, was persistently and aggressively exploited by Mr. Shaik for his own and his group's advantage," the court's ruling said.
■ Somalia
Fighting flares in north
Fighting flared yesterday between Islamist forces and troops from the semi-autonomous northern enclave of Puntland which has resisted Islamist influence, Islamist sources said. Islamists said they were under heavy attack near Puntland in a dangerous turn of events in the Horn of Africa nation that many fear is on the verge of all-out war. If confirmed, the clash would be the first violence since peace talks between the Islamists and the interim government broke down in Sudan last week. Puntland leaders have repeatedly said that they would resist any attempt by the Islamists to extend their control into the northern province which largely runs its own affairs.
■ United Kingdom
Military families in court bid
Families of soldiers killed in Iraq returned to London's High Court yesterday to press their case for an independent inquiry into Britain's involvement in the war. The families are appealing against a court refusal of their bid for an inquiry last year. They were given permission for yesterday's appeal in June, but were told by the court they faced "formidable hurdles" in winning their case. "I believe our prime minister lied to us and an inquiry would establish whether that was the case," said Rose Gentle, a member of the families bringing the legal action. Her son Gordon was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra.
■ United Kingdom
Blair defends ID scheme
All foreigners from outside the EU will need a British identity card to find work or claim benefits in Britain under a new scheme that comes into force from 2008, Prime Minister Tony Blair said. Writing in yesterday's Daily Telegraph, Blair said the project, which also includes the introduction of national ID cards for all Britons, would help catch terrorists and combat illegal immigration. The ID card plan has been criticized as infringing upon civil liberties, being too costly and unlikely to be effective. Blair, however, said the cards and a national ID database were a step in the right direction.
■ Canada
`Good Samaritan' killed
A US sailor killed during an early morning bar brawl in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was a "Good Samaritan" trying to break up a fight he wasn't even involved in, police said on Sunday. Damon Crooks, 28, of Jacksonville, Florida, was stabbed early on Saturday outside a club after a fight that began inside spilled onto the street. Cory Wright, 23, of Halifax was charged on Sunday with first-degree murder. Two other local men face less severe charges. Crooks and at least one other sailor, who was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, apparently tried to break up a fight that escalated into a brawl involving about 20 people, police said. Crooks was stationed on one of two US naval vessels in Halifax to take part in exercises with the Canadian navy.
■ United States
LouseBuster blasts lice
Head lice were blown away in half an hour by a new blow dryer-like device, University of Utah researchers report. The "LouseBuster," which kills bugs and eggs by drying them out, might one day offer an alternative to the powerful delousing shampoos currently used. The LouseBuster results were reported in this month's issue of Pediatrics. A study of 169 children in the Salt Lake area showed the LouseBuster killed 80 percent of hatched lice and 98 percent of eggs on infested children. Enough bugs were killed to prevent remaining lice from breeding so "virtually all subjects were cured of head lice when examined one week following treatment," the researchers wrote. The LouseBuster could be on the market within two years.
■ United Kingdom
Abuser faces sentencing
A woman in York faced sentencing yesterday for turning her sister-in-law into a slave, forcing her to do housework naked and beating her savagely. Antonia Pearson-Gaballonie, a 35-year-old mother of six, kept Veronica Sandeman, 26, as a slave, stabbed her with scissors and made her beg for food for several years. She was found guilty at York Crown Court in September of making threats to kill, false imprisonment and six counts of assault resulting in bodily harm between 2002 and 2004.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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