■ VIETNAN
Gamblers arrested
Police have arrested at least 100 gamblers, many of them foreigners, in three major hotels in Ho Chi Minh City and confiscated millions of dollars, state media said yesterday. In raids reported to be the biggest ever in the nation's southern business hub, police swooped on two upmarket hotels and another smaller one, according to a report on the Thanh Nien online newspaper. Cash worth several million dollars was collected from gambling machines in the hotels, the paper said. Police refused to comment and no details on the nationalities of arrested foreigners were available. Gambling is forbidden but is widespread nevertheless.
■ AUSTRALIA
Chinese coffins a risk
People were warned yesterday that cheap coffins from China could split and give mourners a nasty or even dangerous surprise. The Funeral and Allied Industries Union cautioned that cut-price imports were not up to the stress of containing the increasingly bulky bodies of Australians. "I'd hate to see the day that one falls apart halfway through the service," union spokesman Aiden Nye told the Sun-Herald. He called for sub-standard imports to be kept out. "I don't care whether it costs 2 dollars or 2,500 dollars, what matters is whether it's safe and capable of being used," Nye said.
■ MALAYSIA
Wives wary of Chinese maids
A plan to recruit housemaids from China drew protests, with women worried their husbands will be seduced by the ``little dragon ladies,'' a news report said yesterday. Ng Yen Yen, who heads the women's wing of the Malaysian Chinese Associ-ation, told the Bernama news agency her political party has received numerous complaints from wives that their husbands have fallen prey to the charms of women from China. Home Affairs Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said on Friday the government was considering bringing in domestic maids from China and India to alleviate a shortage from Indonesia and the Philippines.
■ CHINA
Dating Web sites closed
An Internet watchdog has accused 12 dating Web sites in Beijing of being a cover for prostitution and has ordered them to clean up their act, state media said yesterday. "The outrageous pimping content in some Web sites is very shocking," the Beijing Online News and Information Panel said in a statement, Xinhua news agency reported. One of the Web sites contained a posting supposedly from a young woman describing herself as a "professional pleasure giver," Xinhua said. The 12 sites are loaded with similar information, including "service items, pricing and contact information," the statement said.
■ PAKISTAN
Lawmaker's travel blocked
A prominent opposition lawmaker and staunch critic of President Pervez Musharraf was banned from traveling to Karachi yesterday because of his "provocative" statements about deadly violence in the southern port city, officials said. Imran Khan, a former cricket star, was barred from taking a flight from Lahore to Karachi, said Omar Cheema, a spokesman for Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf, or Movement for Justice party. Khan has accused the Mutahida Qaumi Movement, a Karachi-based party allied with Musharraf, of stoking violence in the city during a visit by suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry on May 12, in which 41 people were killed and dozens injured.
■ ZIMBABWE
MDC headquarters raided
Scores of armed police officers raided the Harare headquarters of the political opposition on Saturday afternoon as a youth organization was meeting, arresting as many as 200 people and wrecking some offices, opposition officials and news reports said. The arrested, mostly members of the Youth Assembly of the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), were taken in vans to Harare's central police station. A human rights lawyer, Alec Muchadehama, said that the police had refused to grant access to the prisoners and would not disclose any charges.
■ IRAN
Nuclear talks postponed
The Foreign Ministry yesterday said a meeting between its leading nuclear negotiator and the EU's foreign policy chief has been postponed. Ali Larijani and the EU's Javier Solana were to meet on Thursday, possibly in Madrid, to explore whether there's room to resume negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. "Based on an agreement by both sides, the talks have been postponed," said Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a ministry spokesman. He did not elaborate or say why the meeting was postponed, but he did leave open the possibility of future talks.
■ FRANCE
Sarkozy's jogging criticized
After just 10 days in office, the warning light is already flashing: "Be careful, Mr President." The advice to President Nicolas Sarkozy does not concern his bold policy initiatives to rejuvenate France but a matter of personal concern -- his jogging. Writing in the Saturday edition of the weekly L'Equipe, coach Renaud Longuevre said Sarkozy is doing it all wrong. Longuevre, analyzing Sarkozy's running style, said his torso is bent too far forward, his stride is off, his arms are dangling and his feet are hitting the ground the wrong way. All this slows him down, makes him work harder than he needs to and risks giving him a backache -- issues faced by any head of state.
■ ANGOLA
Chinese to rebuild railway
Thousands of Chinese engineers and workers have set up camp on the Angolan coast, as they prepare to rebuild a vital rail link aimed at reviving trade following the 27-year civil war. Funded by Chinese loans, the Benguela-Moxico rail line is at the heart of Angola's development in the wake of the 2002 ceasefire, explained project coordinator General Fernando de Sousa e Andrade. The 1,350km long line will link the western city of Benguela to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, and enable copper and mineral from those countries to be exported via the nearby port of Lobito.
■ SPAIN
Local elections held
Spaniards voted yesterday in regional and municipal polls representing the Socialist government's final major test ahead of general elections expected early next year. Final opinion polls ahead of Saturday's official "day of reflection" showed the main conservative opposition Popular Party running just behind the Socialists of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Zapatero has consistently enjoyed more widespread support than his opposition counterpart Mariano Rajoy, despite his efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict in the northern Basque region being derailed by a Dec. 30 fatal bombing claimed by ETA.
■ MEXICO
Head left for journalists
The severed head of a town councilman was dumped outside the offices of a newspaper in Tabasco state in what the paper's publishers said was an attempt to intimidate reporters. The head, left outside Tabasco Hoy's offices in Villahermosa, was inside a cooler and left by a man who stepped out of a sport utility vehicle on Saturday, the paper said on its Web site. Police and soldiers said the head belonged to Terencio Sastre, a councilman from the nearby municipality of El Cedro. "It has all the characteristics of an act of intimidation and an attempt to silence the freedom of information that the publishers exercise," the newspaper said.
■ UNITED STATES
Astronaut returns to Navy
A male US astronaut whose involvement in a love triangle sparked a dangerous confrontation between his two female love rivals is being cut from the US space program, NASA announced. Bill Oefelein, 42, will be going back to the Navy effective on Friday, Jim Rostohar, spokesman at Johnson Space Center, said on Friday in Houston, Texas. Oefelein was romantically involved with former astronaut Lisa Nowak, 43, who in February drove more than 1,500km from Houston to Orlando, Florida, to confront Oefelein's girlfriend. "The Navy and NASA mutually agreed to end his detail" with the space agency, Rostohar said. "NASA determined his detail was no longer necessary," he said, giving no further details.
■ BRAZIL
Politician in payoff scandal
The leader of the senate accepted payoffs from a leading construction company, a major newsweekly said in a report that widens a corruption scandal reaching into the inner circle of the government. Senate President Renan Calheiros vehemently denied the allegations published in the latest edition of the newsweekly Veja, which reported that the construction company paid rent on an apartment for Calheiros in Brasilia, as well as a nearly US$6,000 monthly stipend for his three-year-old daughter. Mendes Junior, one of the country's largest construction companies, also rented a flat for Calheiros at a Brasilia hotel and contributed to his campaign and family expenses, the report said.
■ RUSSIA
Agent fears UK authorities
An ex-KGB officer wanted in Britain on charges of murdering a prominent Kremlin critic said he feels in danger from the British authorities, a report published yesterday said. "If I feel any danger, then it's from the British side," Andrei Lugovoi was quoted as saying by the Newsru.com news site. Lugovoi was apparently responding to a suggestion made by his former associate, London-based businessman Boris Berezovsky, that Russia's secret services could kill him now that he is accused in last year's radiation poisoning of fugitive agent Alexander Litvinenko. Russia has refused Britain's request for the extradition of Lugovoi.
■ IRAN
No info on NGO worker
The Foreign Ministry said yesterday it had no information about an Iranian-US consultant working for the Open Society Institute who the New York-based NGO claims is being detained. Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant who has also worked for the World Bank, was detained on or around May 11, the institute said. The group is a private foundation that encourages democracy-building in countries around the world.
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