■ Sri Lanka
Rebels kill six policemen
Six policemen were killed and several more wounded yesterday in a roadside bomb attack carried out by Tamil Tiger rebels, the defense ministry said. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) used a powerful Claymore mine to blast a bus transporting constables who were travelling home on leave, a ministry spokesman said. The attack was in the district of Batticaloa, where security forces 12 days ago captured the main Tiger bastion of the town of Vakarai.
■ China
CCP official sentenced
A Chinese provincial Communist Party official who built a luxury office building resembling the White House has been sentenced to life in prison on corruption charges linked to his construction projects, a state-owned newspaper reported yesterday. Feng Liucheng was given the sentence for taking bribes worth 3.69 million yuan (US$475,000) and embezzling 2.71 million yuan in public funds, the Beijing Morning Post said. Feng, 50, became party secretary of a district in the capital of Henan Province in 1999.
■ China
Tibetan detainees tortured
Police tortured a group of Tibetans with cattle prods after they were detained while trying to flee to Nepal, a rights group said. The incident on Sept. 30 sparked international concern after Chinese border guards apparently shot dead two of the fleeing party. Police took at least 25 Tibetans into custody, including young children, the International Campaign for Tibet said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Some children who were not collected by their parents were held for up to three months and only released upon paying a fine.
■ Hong Kong
Pollution level dangerous
Air pollution hit dangerous levels yesterday as a row broke out over a carbon emissions trading plan with China that is aimed at improving chronically poor air quality. Smog from vehicles and power plants in the area nudged pollution monitors into the "very high" level, triggering an automatic health warning. The government-collated Air Pollution Index passed the critical 100 mark, a point at which people with breathing or heart problems are told to stay at home. The worst affected areas were the downtown Central region and the Yuen Long new town in the New Territories.
■ Japan
Chickens died of H5N1
Dozens of chickens at a poultry farm died of the H5N1 bird flu strain, agriculture officials said yesterday, fueling concerns about a series of recent cases in the country's poultry industry. The bird flu outbreak in Okayama was the country's third this year involving the H5N1 strain. Two earlier outbreaks in southern Miyazaki prompted the slaughter of thousands of chickens. Officials are still trying to determine whether another Miyazaki outbreak also involved H5N1. Authorities already began slaughtering chickens at the Okayama farm after the bird flu virus there was confirmed on Tuesday to involve a virus from the H5 family, a ministry official said.
■ China
Man seeks to rent girlfriend
A desperate university student wants to "rent" a girlfriend for 10 days so he can show her off to his parents over the Lunar New Year, state media reported yesterday. The physics student posted a notice on a bulletin board at Peking University offering US$130 to a woman who would pose as his girlfriend for the trip home for the holiday, Xinhua news agency reported. The advertisement said the woman should be "an honest, kind and similar-aged girl with a diploma." Xinhua said the man had told his parents, who were pressuring him to get a girlfriend, that he had been studying too hard and had no time to meet a potential partner.
■ South Korea
Spammer arrested
A man blamed for several trillion spam e-mails in recent years has been arrested, police said yesterday. They said the 21-year-old computer science major was detained for hacking into hundreds of computer systems and collecting data illegally. "He was the creater of the notorious software responsible for several trillion spam e-mails under a female nickname `Kim Ha-na' since 2003," said Lee Young-sil, a detective handling the case. The duo are suspected of having hacked into government offices and financial institutions and collecting personal data through spam messages.
■ Philippines
New defense head named
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has appointed former national police chief Hermogenes Ebdane as the new secretary of defense, her spokesman said yesterday. Ebdane, who graduated from the Philippine Military Academy, is currently secretary for public works and highways. "I believe he will do a good job," Ignacio Bunye, Arroyo's spokesman, told reporters. The defense post has been vacant since the end of November, when then secretary Avelino Cruz resigned, saying he disagreed with Arroyo's attempts to overhaul the political system and bring in a parliamentary form of government.
■ United Nations
War crime prosecutor to quit
The chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal confirmed on Tuesday she will retire in September. Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's longest serving chief prosecutor, will be remembered primarily for overseeing former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's genocide trial, which ended before a verdict could be reached after he died of a heart attack last March. "After eight years, I have done my work. It's time for me to go back to a normal life," she told reporters. Del Ponte said that in the dozens of trials she has supervised -- including 20 in which the defendants pleaded guilty -- "I never saw one who had real remorse." Expressions of regret were only designed to ease their sentences, she said.
■ United Kingdom
Cops detain Blair aide again
Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief fundraiser and confidant Lord Levy was arrested for a second time on Tuesday on suspicion of perverting the course of justice over his role in the cash for honors affair. The development suggests Levy is suspected of allegedly lying or withholding evidence from detectives as part of a coverup. Detectives, who are investigating whether money was donated to the Labour party in exchange for peerages, placed Levy under arrest when he went to a London police station to answer bail. Perverting the course of justice involves attempts to put obstacles in the way of police.
■ Canada
Environment chief fired
The environment commissioner has been fired because of her outspoken calls for action to be taken on climate change, the Globe and Mail newspaper said on its Web site on Tuesday. Johanne Gelinas works for the office of the auditor-general, which reports to parliament rather than the government. She issues an annual report on how Ottawa is handling environmental issues. Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to Gelinas in the House of Commons as the former commissioner, indicating she had lost her job. The Globe said Fraser thought Gelinas had become too much of an advocate on the issue of climate change.
■ United Kingdom
Civil servants strike
Thousands of civil servants were to hold a one-day strike yesterday, timed to coincide with the last day for self-assessment tax returns. Public and Commercial Services Union chief Mark Serwotka said the strike would hit tax offices, job centers, the passport agency, courts, museums, driving test centers and 200 other public departments. Members were angry about below-inflation pay rises, low wages, job cuts and government moves to use private companies in parts of the public sector. The strike will be followed by a two-week overtime ban.
■ South Africa
AIDS spreading among rich
The AIDS epidemic, often regarded by health workers as a disease of the poor, is spreading quickly among the country's richest and best educated people, researchers said on Tuesday. The study by the Markinor polling firm and the University of South Africa showed a rapid increase in HIV infections in professionals and those in full-time employment. The study challenges assumptions about the country's HIV/AIDS crisis, which is often described as a disease of the rural poor who lack access to information, treatment and basic health services.
■ Cuba
Healthier Castro on news
A stronger-looking President Fidel Castro said his recovery from an intestinal ailment was "far from a lost battle" as state TV showed a video of him meeting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez almost six months to the day after he temporarily gave up power. Castro stood, appeared alert and was shown drinking juice in the 10-minute videoclip aired on Tuesday, but which state TV said was shot during Chavez's previously unannounced visit to Havana on Monday. The newest images of Castro -- the first shown in three months -- appeared aimed at deflating rumors that his health has been deteriorating since late July.
■ Ecuador
Protesters storm Congress
Five thousand backers of President Rafael Correa stormed into Congress, chasing out opposition legislators they said were blocking reform of the Constitution. Two civilians were injured in the melee, the Red Cross said, as police used tear gas on the crowd. Protesters want the majority opposition lawmakers to allow a referendum on a constitutional assembly, which Correa needs to rewrite the Constitution to facilitate the reforms he promised when campaigning. Correa was sworn in as president on Jan. 15 to a five-year term saying he would reverse free-market measures, renegotiate foreign oil contracts, pay off the country's foreign debt and cease doing business with the IMF.
■ Italy
Tower gets support
One leaning tower is enough, according to local authorities in Venice who plan to reinforce the foundations of St Mark's bell tower to stop it from falling. The 99m bell tower has long been known to have a crack, but now authorities have decided to act. The bell tower was built after the existing 16th century structure collapsed in 1902. But the new tower was found to contain a fissure, discovered in 1939, which is very slowly spreading. The work will involve wrapping a titanium belt around the tower's foundations.
■ United States
Sidney Sheldon passes on
Sidney Sheldon, an Oscar-winning Hollywood screenwriter who went on to become one of the world's most read novelists, died in California on Tuesday at the age of 89, a publicist said. Sheldon's death was caused by complications from pneumonia in Rancho Mirage, California. He became a US icon in the 1970s with bestsellers spun out of international intrigue and the sexual liberation of the era. Strong women were often the main characters. Translations into 71 languages in 180 countries won him a listing in The Guinness Book of Records as "the world's most translated author."
■ United States
Obama wants troops out
Likely Democratic presidential contender Illinois Senator Barack Obama called on Tuesday for the removal of US combat forces from Iraq by March 31 next year, to counter what he called President George W. Bush's "failed policy of escalation." "The American people have waited, the American people have been patient. We have given chance after chance for a resolution that has not come," Obama said on the floor of the Senate, as he pledged to introduce legislation calling for the troop pull out. "The time for waiting in Iraq are [sic] over. The days of our open-ended commitment must come to a close, and the need to bring this war to an end is here."
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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