■ CHINA
Bus crash kills seven
A bus carrying 30 construction workers slammed into a dirt mound on the roadside, killing seven people and injuring 23 others, state media said yesterday. Victims of Saturday's crash in Heyang County of Shaanxi Province were laborers from Xian city who had been working on a new rail line, the official Xinhua news agency said. Traffic accidents kill about 100,000 people in the country a year, or one person every five minutes.
■ INDONESIA
Muslims seek untied rule
Thousands of followers of a hard-line group seeking to unite the world's Muslims under a single government marched through the streets of Jakarta yesterday ahead of the Islamic holy month, Ramadan. Hizbut Tahrir, a Sunni organization with an estimated 1 million members, is banned in some Asian and Arab countries. But it drew 90,000 supporters from areas including Europe, Africa and the Middle East to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, for a massive meeting last month. The group, though radical, does not support violence to obtain its objective. "The holy month is the moment to remind us we can't implement Islam thoroughly under a democracy. It has to be under a caliphate," said Ummu Himmah, 34, as she prepared to join roughly 2,000 other people on the march through Jakarta.
■ JAPAN
Anxiety increasing, poll finds
More than two-thirds of Japanese are worried about their lives -- a record high, according to a news report yesterday. An annual Cabinet Office survey conducted from July 5 to July 22 found 69.5 percent of respondents were worried or felt uneasy about their everyday lives, the Kyodo News agency said. The figure was the highest on record for the survey, conducted annually since 1958, it said. Anxiety about life after retirement topped the list, followed by health concerns, the report said. Nearly three-quarters of all respondents said the government should reform the social security system.
■ MYANMAR
Junta pans US, UK
The military government yesterday accused the US and Britain of trying to topple them by backing a wave of rare anti-junta protests. The junta has faced three weeks of near-daily protests by pro-democracy supporters around the country, sparked by public anger over a massive hike in fuel prices last month. More than 150 people have been arrested following the rare protests, according to Amnesty International. The demonstrations still grew last week to include Buddhist monks who seized 20 government officials as hostages for several hours at a monastery in central Myanmar.
■ UNITED STATES
Identity thief sentenced
A court in Hawaii sentenced a Honolulu man to 30 years in prison for stealing the land and identity of a businessman found killed in the Philippines last year. Henry Ponce Jacinto Calucag Jr, 58, will serve back-to-back 20- and 10-year prison terms for stealing the title to John Elwin's Kauai property valued at US$265,000. He must serve six and a half years before becoming eligible for parole. While law enforcement officials have confirmed Calucag is a suspect in Elwin's murder, he has not been charged in the Kauai businessman's death. Elwin, a 51-year-old well-to-do investor and paint store owner, disappeared in May of last year while on a trip to the Philippines with Calucag.
■ TANZANIA
Bus crash kills 27
At least 27 people were killed in a bus accident on Saturday in the southwestern part of the country, a senior police officer said. A bus tried to overtake a car and crashed into a truck about 50km from the town of Mbeya, said Stephen Mwinamila, the regional traffic commander. Mwinamila said two pedestrians were among those killed. Forty-three people were seriously injured and have been admitted to Mbeya Hospital, he said. The accident was one of the deadliest in the region in the past two years.
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