■ Gandhi wants dialogue
Sonia Gandhi, the country's most powerful politician, stressed the importance of frank dialogue with China during her visit to Beijing, as the two rivals pledged to strengthen bilateral ties. India and China are competing for global influence and for the raw materials and energy needed to fuel Asia's two fastest growing economies. "We may well have different views and different perspectives on both bilateral and global issues. That is only natural," Gandhi said in a speech to students at Tsinghua University yesterday. "However, I have no doubt that there is no problem that can not be sorted out through free and frank dialogue and discussion."
■ CHINA
Wrong photo steals thunder
A local newspaper celebrated the launching of the country's first lunar probe this week with a huge front page photo -- of a Japanese rocket. The paper accidentally switched a photo of a Long March 3A rocket carrying the probe with an H-2A rocket that sent Japan's own lunar orbiter into space earlier this month, a deputy editor of the Jingzhou Evening News, who would only give his surname, Deng, said on Friday. The photo editor failed to read the caption carefully. "We've already criticized and educated the editors involved and asked them to conduct a self-criticism at the next staff meeting," Deng said.
■ PAKISTAN
Militants battle authorities
Security forces exchanged heavy gunfire with militants at the sprawling seminary of a powerful cleric in the troubled North-West Frontier Province on Friday, a day after a suicide bomber killed 20 people, most of them border guards, in the same area. Armed militants also beheaded four men thought to be police officers or members of local security forces in a village 16km west of Mingora, a resident said by telephone. The home secretary of the province, Badshah Gul Wazir, acknowledged at a news briefing late Friday that three men of the armed civil guard known as the Frontier Constabulary and one policeman.
■ PHILIPPINES
Anger erupts over pardon
Leading newspapers and groups opposed to President Gloria Arroyo expressed anger yesterday over her decision to pardon her disgraced predecessor Joseph Estrada despite his conviction for massive graft. Many of these critics said Arroyo's decision was intended to divert attention away from corruption allegations being hurled at her in congressional hearings and by the opposition. Arroyo pardoned the 70-year-old former movie star on Thursday, just six weeks after a special corruption court found him guilty of stealing millions of dollars from the state's coffers and sentenced him to life in prison. The Philippine Daily Inquirer branded the pardon as "shameful capitulation."
■ SOUTH KOREA
Apology offered to Japan
Seoul will apologize to Japan for the 1973 kidnapping in Tokyo of South Korean dissident Kim Dae-jung, who later became president and won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Yonhap news agency reported yesterday. A South Korean government panel said on Wednesday that the country's spy agency abducted Kim, who was leading an overseas campaign against dictator Park Chung-hee. Kim was kidnapped by Korean CIA agents from a Tokyo hotel in August 1973. His life was dramatically spared thanks to the intervention of US authorities.
■ Pedophile examiner jailed
A police crime scene examiner was jailed on Friday after grooming a child over the Internet and asking her to do a "rude dare." Southwark Crown Court heard how Paul Rogers, 37, had pretended to be a 14-year-old girl named Sarah to groom a girl he was told was 12. Rogers offered to pay the youngster ?100 (US$205) to strip him, dress him in female underwear and spank him -- but only if the 12-year-old was in underwear herself. The 12-year-old girl turned out to be an undercover reporter from the Sunday People newspaper. Rogers, of Southampton, was jailed for 18 months and has been sacked by the police force.
■ GERMANY
Go-kart kid evades police
A teenager speeding through the streets on a go-kart with seven squad cars in hot pursuit managed to give the frustrated officers the slip, police said on Friday. After leading the convoy on a 5km chase through the streets of Moenchengladbach, the 18-year-old driver spotted a private garage with an open door, where he decided to lie low, police said. Police later discovered his hiding place. "He told us he knew driving a go-cart on the street is illegal," a police spokesman said. "But he had purchased the vehicle from a friend and said he had no other way of getting it home."
■ GERMANY
Old church finds new home
A 700-year-old church began its slow journey to a new home on Thursday at 2kph atop a huge flatbed trailer, leaving behind an eastern German village being turned over to open-pit coal mining. The Emmaus Church, first mentioned in historical documents in 1297, only reached the edge of its home village of Heuersdorf outside Leipzig on Thursday on its way to the town of Borna, some 12km away. It's expected to get there by Wednesday, after crossing railroad tracks and the rivers Pleisse and Wyhra. The building is a village church from the Middle Ages in Romanesque style, made of stone with a steeply pitched roof and a small black tower atop the roofline. The move will cost the coal mining company Mibrag 3 million euros (US$4.2 million).
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Shots offered against cancer
Schoolgirls are to be offered vaccinations against cervical cancer from next year, in a scheme which could save hundreds of lives a year, officials said on Friday. The voluntary vaccinations for girls aged 12 to 13 will be available from September of next year. Girls will be vaccinated against the sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV causes around 70 percent of cases of cervical cancer, which kills more than 1,000 women in Britain each year.
■ NETHERLANDS
Royal photos protected
The government demanded on Friday a Web site promoting sympathy for pedophiles remove photographs of child members of the royal family, including the three-year-old heiress to the throne Princess Amalia. The government said it would seek an injunction on Monday, demanding a penalty of 50,000 euros (US$72,000) for every royal picture that remained on the site. A government spokesman said pictures of the children appeared on the Web site of the Dutch pedophile association Martijn with the caption: "Our royal family has produced a whole new generation of princes and princesses. How fortunate!"
■ Worms turn lesbian
Altering a gene in the brain of female worms changed their sexual orientation, researchers said on Thursday, making female worms attracted to other females. The study reinforces the notion that sexual orientation is hard-wired in the brain, said Erik Jorgensen, scientific director of the Brain Institute at the University of Utah. "They look like girls, but act and think like boys," Utah researcher Jamie White, who worked on the study said in a statement. Researchers in Jorgensen's lab switched on a gene in female worms that makes the body develop male structures, but they only activated the gene in the brain.
■ UNITED states
Killings to be investigated
The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings said on Friday he plans to investigate deaths caused by the US military and contractors in Iraq, including the recent Blackwater case in Baghdad. Private security firm Blackwater has been under intense scrutiny since the shooting deaths of at least 17 Iraqis last month in an incident that enraged Iraq's government and sparked calls for greater accountability for contractors. Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, told a news conference at the UN the US was among the few countries that had agreed for him to visit.
■ UNITED STATES
Lock of Che's hair sold
A lock of socialist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara's hair and related items were auctioned on Thursday in Dallas to a Houston-area bookstore owner for the very capitalist sum of US$119,500. The curious collection had belonged to Gustavo Villoldo, 71, a former CIA operative who helped hunt Guevara down in the jungles of Bolivia in 1967 and who claims he cut off the lock before burying the guerrilla fighter with two of his comrades. There was media speculation that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leftist who greatly admires the iconic Guevara, would bid for the items.
■ UNITED STATES
Diplomats face draft
In the largest call-up of diplomats since the Vietnam War, the State Department is planning to order some of its personnel to serve at the embassy in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers. Those designated "prime candidates" -- from 200 to 300 diplomats -- will be notified on Monday that they have been selected for one-year postings to fill the 40 to 50 vacancies expected next year. They will have 10 days to accept or reject the position. If not enough say yes, some will be ordered to go to Iraq and face dismissal if they refuse, Harry Thomas, director general of the Foreign Service, said on Friday.
■ CHILE
Pinochet charges dropped
An appeals court on Friday dropped embezzlement charges against the widow of the country's late dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, and most of their children. Fifth Appeals Court chief justice Juan Eduardo Fuentes said the panel dropped the charges lodged on Oct. 4 against the widow, Lucia Hiriart, four of their children, and 10 advisers. The finding said there was no evidence the accused had knowledge of a criminal effort to embezzle public funds, and added that they had not been questioned about reserve or slush funds or their alleged management. The prosecution said it will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of