■ Nepal
Police fire on refugees
Police fired on a group of Bhutanese refugees demonstrating outside their camp in southeastern Nepal, killing one and wounding several, officials said. Police opened fire on Monday after the refugees defied a curfew and began throwing stones at police, said Jayamukunda Khanal, the chief government administrator in the area. Officials were investigating the incident and the curfew was still in place in the area to stop the spread of violence, Khanal said. There are seven camps in the area about 500km southwest of Katmandu, where more than 100,000 Bhutanese refugees have been living since the early 1990s. Trouble began on Sunday when two refugee factions began fighting. Police reached the site and opened fire to control the situation. One person was killed.
■ Japan
Government ordered to pay
The country's top court ordered the government to pay about ?3 billion (US$24.65 million) in damages to thousands of residents for noise from a US military base in Tokyo, a news report said yesterday. In a suit brought against the government in 1996, about 6,000 plaintiffs living near Yokota Air Base in Tokyo's western suburbs demanded that early morning and late night flights be suspended, and residents be compensated for the noise. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ordered the government to pay -- but refused to acknowledge some of the compensation a lower court had awarded the residents, Kyodo news agency reported.
■ Japan
71-year-old beats Everest
A 71-year-old Japanese mountain climber has become the oldest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, a news report said yesterday. Katsusuke Yanagisawa was 71 years, 2 months and 2 days old when he reached the 8,850m peak last Tuesday, Kyodo News agency reported. He beat the previous record set last year by another Japanese climber, Takao Arayama, who was aged 70 years, 7 months and 13 days, Kyodo said. Yanagisawa, a retired junior high school teacher from central Japan, was part of a New Zealand climbing expedition, Kyodo said.
■ China
Rich-list executive arrested
Police have arrested a businessman once listed as one of the country's 100 richest men on fraud charges, state media reported yesterday. Sun Shuhua was arrested on Monday in the province of Henan suspected of swindling 1.36 billion yuan (US$177.9 million) from several banks using fake financial reports, state television said on its Web site, citing a local newspaper report. Sun, a delegate to the Henan provincial parliament and former plastics' recycler, was listed in 80th place on the 2004 Hurun China Rich List, with estimated wealth of US$170 million. "The reason for his success depended on borrowing money from banks," the newspaper report said. "His common tricks were to use illegal or fake land certificates to borrow the money." Sun could not be reached for comment.
■ China
Bone-breakers busted
A Shanghai gang of nine who helped break each others' arms and then jumped off building sites to win compensation were jailed for extorting 100,000 yuan (US$13,000) from their bosses, local media said yesterday. A Shanghai court handed down three-year jail terms to the gang's ringleaders, surnamed Cheng and Yang, who helped seven men get jobs on construction sites around the city, the Shanghai Daily said.
■ Germany
EU, Iranian officials to meet
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana confirmed yesterday that he would meet Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani this week for the latest round of talks on Iran's nuclear program. "Yes, everything is on course. It's going to be Thursday, likely in Madrid, probably," Solana told reporters in Hamburg where he was attending a meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and Asian nations. "I hope that we will be able to relaunch the dialogue."
■ Russia
Missile test successful
Moscow yesterday test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces said. The missile, called the RS-24 and fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch in the northwestern part of the country, and its test warhead, landed on target some 5,500km away on the Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, a statement from the forces said. The new missile is seen as eventually replacing the aging RS-18s and RS-20s that are the backbone of the country's missile forces, the statement said.
■ Russia
Britain requests extradition
Britain made an official request on Monday to Russia to extradite the man suspected of killing ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210, deepening a rift between the former Cold War foes. British prosecutors said last week they wanted to bring Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoy before a British court to try him for the murder of Litvinenko, who died on Nov. 23 after being poisoned with the rare radioactive isotope. "I this morning delivered the extradition papers to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the extradition of Mr. Lugovoy," Ambassador Anthony Brenton told reporters. "We look for an early and positive response from the Russian authorities to the extradition request."
■ Syria
President wins referendum
President Bashar al-Assad won 97.62 percent of the vote in a referendum that confirmed him for a second seven-year term, Interior Minister Bassam Abdel Majeed said yesterday. "This great consensus shows the political maturity of Syria and the brilliance of our democracy and multi-party system," Majeed told reporters. "There has been some repetition of votes but we caught them by reviewing the voting lists," Majeed said in response to a question about the possibility of vote-tampering. Assad was the only candidate allowed to run in Sunday's referendum, which had been widely regarded as a formality and boycotted by the opposition.
■ Turkey
Amendment voted on
In a stormy session marred by fistfights, lawmakers on Monday again voted for a constitutional amendment for the president to be elected by popular vote, overriding the current head of state's objections. The defining second round of voting is scheduled for tomorrow. The key provision of the reform package, which calls for a two-round popular vote to elect the president, was supported by 367 deputies at the first reading in the 550-member parliament. It was exactly the two-third majority required for constitutional changes to be enacted without a referendum.
■ Iraq
German lecturers abducted
Gunmen wearing police uniforms abducted three German economic experts and several of their foreign bodyguards from a Finance Ministry building in Baghdad yesterday, a witness said. The witness said the lecturers had been giving ministry personnel a lecture on organizing electronic contracts. The gunmen entered the conference room shouting "Where are the foreigners, where are the foreigners?" she said. A fourth lecturer escaped being abducted because he was sitting apart from his colleagues. The witness said the lecturers had given at least 12 lectures at the ministry over the past year. Meanwhile, a suicide car bomb exploded in busy Tayaran Square near a police patrol yesterday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 20, according to security and defense officials.
■ Iran
Detentions confirmed
Tehran said yesterday it has detained US-Iranian social science academic Kian Tajbakhsh on charges of spying, the same accusation leveled against another academic with dual nationality. Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi confirmed that US-Iranian academic Haleh Esfandiari, who was detained on May 8, has been formally accused by the intelligence ministry of "acting against the security of the country through propaganda and espionage for foreigners." "The same goes for Mr Tajbakhsh. He is being kept in detention," said Jamshidi, confirming that Esfandiari was also still being held. An expert in urban planning, Tajbakhsh was arrested on May 11.
■ United States
Thief attempts romance
A thief found out the hard way that robbing a woman isn't the best way to capture her heart. Two men robbed a U-Haul truck rental store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon, taking an unspecified amount of cash, according to the store's manager. But instead of fleeing, one man lingered and tried to strike up a conversation with the woman he had just robbed. "He stuck around and was trying to get the female employee's number," the manager. "She said he was just saying, `Hey baby, you're pretty fine.'"
■ Brazil
Politician claims innocence
The leader of the Senate, the latest politician to be snared in an unfolding scandal over kickbacks for government contracts, declared his innocence before fellow legislators on Monday. Renan Calheiros, a close ally of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is accused of taking cash from a lobbyist in exchange for favoring a construction firm. The allegations made in Veja magazine also involve payments to Calheiros' mistress for their three-year-old daughter. Calheiros said he was innocent: "This is a false scandal."
■ Canada
Police rock Vancouver
The Police kicked off their reunion tour before a sold-out crowd of 20,000 -- not bad for a group playing its first stadium in more than 20 years. Fans took to their feet and sang along as Monday night's show opened with Message in a Bottle, the group's 1979 smash hit. The trio of singer-bassist Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland followed that up with a six-minute rendition of 1982's Synchronicity. The Police broke up in 1984 at the height of its success. Sting, 55, Summers, 54, and Copeland, 64, have since pursued individual careers.
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