■ CHINA
Kids tossed out window
Police arrested a man suspected of throwing six children from the third story of a school building, killing one girl and injuring the others, state press said yesterday. The incident occurred on Thursday morning in Hongqiao, Hunan Province, with the suspect grabbing eight and nine-year-old boys and girls in a hallway and tossing them out a window, Beijing News reported. One of the boys was able to grab part of a tree as he fell, breaking his fall and reducing his injury. According to the paper, the suspect, identified as Kuang Xi, 28, had a history of mental illness.
■ INDIA
Pilgrims hit by train
At least 12 Hindu pilgrims died after being hit by a train, police said yesterday. The Kanwarias, or followers of the god Shiva, got off the train when it stopped on a bridge over a river near in Uttar Pradesh state, police officer J.K. Singh said. Another train arrived on an adjacent track and ploughed into a group of about 16 people, while others leapt off the bridge into the river below. "We have recovered 12 bodies. Some of them were badly cut by the train," Singh said.
■ CHINA
E-moon cakes risky
Internet users have been warned to be wary of downloading virus-infected mooncake greeting cards ahead of the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival after a wave of Internet worms hit hard-drives last year. Web sites offering electronic versions of moon cakes have become popular in recent years. "Always scan files over the Internet before you download them," yesterday's China Daily quoted an official with Guangdong's Internet supervision bureau as saying. "I was very attracted by the e-card on QQ [an online chat application], but after I opened it many harmful pages popped up on my computer," the paper quoted PricewaterhouseCoopers employee Pan Yanyan as saying.
■ AUSTRALIA
Police linked to crimes
Corrupt police officers were linked with a bloody gangland war which raged for years in Melbourne, police confirmed yesterday. Victoria state's deputy police commissioner, Simon Overland, who formerly headed an investigation into the city's gangland violence, said detectives recently uncovered evidence of police involvement in two separate gang-related matters. "We've got specific information now that says there is a direct link between police corruption and gangland murders," he said. Police also confirmed that a senior officer was suspended on Thursday. A link between police and gangland criminals had long been suspected, particularly after a police informer and his wife were murdered.
■ COLOMBIA
Warlords put in prison boats
Two top members of the country's underworld, including one on the FBI's most-wanted list, are being transferred to offshore floating prisons for security reasons, the government said. Diego Montoya, whose capture on Monday was hailed as the country's biggest drug war victory since the 1993 slaying of Pablo Escobar, and paramilitary warlord Carlos Jimenez were being moved from the Combita prison to separate "prison boats" on the Pacific Ocean and off the Caribbean coast. Colombian Interior Minister Carlos Holguin told Caracol radio that Jimenez was transferred on Thursday and Montoya was to be moved yesterday. Both are awaiting extradition to the US.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Same lab at fault again
The virus that sparked the latest case of foot-and-mouth disease in Surrey this week came from the same nearby Pirbright laboratory that triggered last month's outbreak, according to preliminary tests, officials confirmed on Thursday. The Environment Department said scientists were busy analyzing its genetic sequence to determine whether the virus escaped in the same lapse of biosecurity from drains last month or whether a separate leak occurred. The disease re-emerged just a few days after government officials had declared it eradicated. The news brought some relief to farmers, who are less likely to face long-term stringent restrictions and culls than if it had come from a different source.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Irishman resigns over jokes
An Irishman who edits a local magazine in Cornwall blasted "political correctness gone mad" on Thursday after he was forced to resign due to protests about Irish jokes in the publication. Denis Lusby, editor of the community magazine which sells about 500 copies in the Cornish villages of Blisland and Saint Breward, quit after a complaint from the head of Cornwall's equality and diversity service, Ginny Harrison-White. Harrison-White wrote to local schools calling on them to urge Luby to remove the jokes as they used racist language or ridicule as defined in British anti-racism laws.
■ EGYPT
Editors sentenced
Four outspoken newspaper editors have been sentenced to a year in prison and fined for defaming President Hosni Mubarak and his son Gamal, who is widely expected to succeed him. A Cairo court yesterday allowed Ibrahim Issa, Adel Hammouda, Wael el-Ebrashi and Abdel-Halim Qandil to pay bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (US$1,770) each to stay out of jail pending an appeal. The four editors had benefited from a relative liberalization of the press in recent years, publishing often sensational and highly opinionated tabloid articles.
■ MALI
Rebels shoot US plane
Suspected rebels hit a US military plane with machine-gun fire as it flew food to Malian troops pinned down in a remote desert village on the Algerian border, according to US and Malian officials. No one was wounded and the aircraft landed safely despite suffering minor damage. The attack occurred on Tuesday night over Tin-Zawatine, said US Major Pam Cook, a spokeswoman for the US military command in Stuttgart, Germany, on Thursday. The aircraft had responded to a rare, one-time request for help from the government.
■ MEXICO
Kidnapped cop's head found
A policeman was kidnapped on Wednesday and decapitated by his captors, while his severed head was recovered on Thursday, police said. The policeman, Ignacio Soria, was snatched during a police operation to halt a shootout between rival gangs, in which two gang members were killed. His severed head was found at a highway crossing near the tourist town of Taxco along with a menacing letter threatening that others would "die the same way." The brutal slaying, in the southern state of Guerrero, comes after a period last year that was marked by a spate of similar decapitations.
■ VENEZUELA
Name proposal withdrawn
Officials withdrew a proposal to bar parents from giving their children names like Edigaith, Mileidy or Superman, the state-run news agency reported on Thursday. The National Electoral Council had proposed banning "names that expose [children] to ridicule, are extravagant or difficult to pronounce" or raise doubts about whether a child is a girl or a boy. The council also proposed to draw up a list of traditional names for parents to use "as a reference" when registering their children. But the clause prohibiting odd monikers was axed after child protection officials warned it could violate "the right to liberty," Electoral Council member Sandra Oblitas said.
■ UNITED STATES
Navajos win royalties suit
A federal appeals court handed the country's largest Indian reservation a victory in a long legal battle over claims that the government and a coal company conspired to cheat the Navajo Nation out of millions of dollars in royalties. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Thursday that the federal government failed to uphold its trust duties to the Navajos. "After 14 years of litigation, it's extremely gratifying that a distinguished court of appeals has embraced the position that the Navajo Nation has taken and has ensured that trust responsibility is not simply a catch phrase, but it has some real meaning," said Paul Frye, an Albuquerque, New Mexico, lawyer who represented the tribe in the case.
■ CANADA
Bomb suspect arrested
Authorities have arrested a fourth suspect in connection with an online threat against Austria and Germany, officials said on Thursday. The arrest was made in the Mauricie region of Quebec on Wednesday, Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia said. Royal Canadian Police Corporal Sylvain L'Heureux said Said Namouh, 35, was charged with "conspiring for the purpose of delivering, placing, discharging or detonating an explosive in a place outside Canada." L'Heureux said police didn't know where Nomouh and the other suspects planned on detonating the explosive, but said there was no direct threat and that no explosives were found.
■ SUDAN
Government backs ceasefire
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said yesterday his government was willing to observe a ceasefire in Darfur from the start of peace talks next month. "We have given our government's willingness for a ceasefire from the start of the peace talks," he said, speaking through a translator at a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Peace talks are due to start on Oct. 27 in Libya between Khartoum and rebel groups to end more than four years of violence in Darfur.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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