■ JAPAN
Neighbours catch baby
A five-month-old baby was caught by neighbors after her mother threw her from the third-floor window of a burning building in Osaka yesterday, police said. Rion Morioka was uninjured in the fall but was being treated for smoke inhalation, as was her mother Miyuki, 24, Kyodo news agency said. She and the baby's father, Junichi, 22, both jumped from the window, about 7m above the ground. Junichi suffered broken bones. Neighbors had spread bedding on the ground and shouted to the couple to throw the baby after the fire broke out, the agency said.
■ MALAYSIA
Fight disrupts wedding
A wedding for 22 couples in Sabah state was abandoned after the imam leading the ceremony came to blows with a religious official, the Star newspaper said yesterday. An officer from the Sabah Islamic Affairs Department claimed the imam -- who was from Borneo -- did not have permission from the town's religious affairs unit to conduct the marriages. The argument degenerated into a scuffle between the two men, causing the 22 couples and their family members to flee.
■ JAPAN
Velvet Revolver banned
US hard rockers Velvet Revolver have canceled a tour after being denied visas. The band, featuring three members of rock legends Guns N' Roses and the Stone Temple Pilots' former frontman Scott Weiland, issued an apology to Japanese fans on their Web site. "We don't understand why the authorities won't give us visas when they granted them for us in 2005 for what was a successful tour and a great experience. We love Japan and look forward to our return there," they said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Kidman says she was scared
Nicole Kidman told a judge yesterday that she was "really, really scared" when chased in her car by Jamie Fawcett two years ago. Fawcett sued the Sun-Herald for defamation over an article that said he was Sydney's most disliked freelance photographer and that his behavior toward Kidman was so ``intrusive and threatening'' that he scared her. A jury has already found that the article defamed Fawcett. The court is mulling whether to award damages.
■ KENYA
Lion, hyenas attack man
Kenyan surgeons have amputated the arms and reconstructed the face of a herder who slew a lion, only to be mauled later by a pack of hyenas, an official said yesterday. Moses Lekalau, 35, on Friday speared a lion to death in Samburu, about 260km northeast of the capital Nairobi, only to be savaged by hyenas that emerged from the bush. Lekalau speared the lion that had attacked him while walking home with his livestock, then bludgeoned it to death. Lekalau hails from a nomadic pastoralist community where boys are ritually required to kill lions as a signature of maturing into manhood.
■ ITALY
Berlusconi starts party
Opposition leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi announced the creation of a new political party on Sunday, saying the People of Liberty party would ensure democracy, development and freedom for the future. The hasty announcement came as a surprise: Berlusconi announced it during an impromptu news conference in a Milan piazza where his existing Forza Italia party was collecting signatures calling for early elections. The media mogul said his supporters had gathered so many signatures calling for change -- 7 million by his count -- that he felt the time was right to announce the creation of a new party.
■ SPAIN
Right-wing supporters rally
Hundreds of demonstrators nostalgic for the country's right-wing past held a rally on Sunday to commemorate a hardline leader killed during the civil war. The rally, held next to the royal palace in Madrid's old quarter, was in remembrance of the killing of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1936 by leftist forces. Tensions between opposing political forces have been high since a teenager was stabbed to death by a right-wing activist during a clash between rival groups on Nov. 11. Primo de Rivera founded the Falange, the political movement linked to dictator Francisco Franco's regime, which ended in 1975. Most of those attending were elderly.
■ BELGIUM
Protesters call for unity
An estimated 35,000 people marched in the capital on Sunday to vent their anger about a political deadlock that has prevented a government from taking office and stoked fears the nation of Dutch and French speakers may break apart. The demonstrators, members of both linguistic groups, gathered at a park in Brussels to sing the national anthem and hear speakers call for unity. A petition signed by some 140,000 people urges politicians "to stop wasting money at our expense on quarrels that interest only a small minority." The issue of more self-rule for Dutch and French-speaking regions has deadlocked bids to form a center-right government since June elections.
■ RUSSIA
Crew rescued from sea
Nearly all of the crew and passengers of the cargo ship that sank on Sunday during a storm in the Sea of Japan were rescued overnight, with only one still missing, news agency Interfax reported. Of the 30 crew and six passengers that were cast adrift on the high seas after escaping the sinking ship, 35 were rescued, Interfax said. The ship, registered in the Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, had been transporting timber to China. The vessel sunk 180km south of the port of Nakhodka.
■ UNITED STATES
Cattle run through town
Cattle roundups are mostly a thing of the past, and this is western Pennsylvania, but on Thursday a Stoystown resident called to report a herd of cattle stampeding through her yard. Mayor Bill Boyd was first on the scene, honking his horn at the nine bulls, cows and calves that were plodding along, barely 90m from Main Street in this borough of just over 400 people. A handful of residents joined in and together they managed to get the wandering herd corralled on a nearby field. Boyd said he did not know who owned the cattle.
■ UNITED STATES
Order agrees to pay US$50m
A Roman Catholic religious order has agreed to pay US$50 million to more than 100 Alaska Natives who allege sexual abuse by Jesuit priests, a lawyer for the accusers said on Sunday. The settlement with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus is the largest one yet against a Catholic religious order, said Anchorage lawyer Ken Roosa. "These are people who were altar boys and altar servers and altar girls," Roosa said. "These are people who tried to tell their story and in many instances were beaten or told to shut up and told, `How can you say such things about a man of God?'" The sexual abuse allegations involved 13 or 14 clerics and children aged five years old to teenagers.
■ UNITED STATES
Kucinich joins protest
Thousands of people demonstrated outside a big US Army base on Sunday to demand the closure of a defense department training school they say promotes torture and murder in Latin America. Long-shot Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich joined the annual protest outside the Fort Benning Army base in Georgia to shut down the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Protesters say it teaches security personnel from Latin American countries to use repressive tactics and that graduates have overthrown legitimate governments, citing a coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 as an example.
■ UNITED STATES
Reverend refuses vow
A Lutheran church in Chicago has ordained a lesbian who refuses to take a vow of celibacy, becoming the first in the denomination to test a new resolution that gives bishops leeway in disciplining such violations. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America requires vows of celibacy for gay but not for heterosexual clergy -- a policy the Reverend Jen Rude, 27, calls discriminatory. Rude, whose father and grandfather are both Lutheran ministers, expressed gratitude to the congregation. "It's meaningful to me in the sense that my call is being affirmed not only by God, but the people of God," she said.
■ COLOMBIA
FARC landmines kill seven
Seven soldiers were killed by landmines and four guerrillas died in a subsequent gun battle over control of a longtime rebel stronghold near the center of the country, the army said on Sunday. A soldier tripped a landmine that set off a chain of explosions in Tolima province late on Saturday. Those who survived the blasts fired on members of Colombia's biggest rebel force, the FARC, which was born in Tolima in 1964. Four of the FARC rebels were killed in that exchange. President Alvaro Uribe has pushed the guerrillas on to the defensive with his US-backed security policies but thousands are still killed every year in this war involving a mosaic of militias funded by the multibillion-dollar cocaine trade.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
Trinidad and Tobago declared a new state of emergency on Friday after authorities accused a criminal network operating in prisons across the country of plotting to kill key government officials and attack public institutions. It is the second state of emergency to be declared in the twin-island republic in a matter of months. In December last year, authorities took similar action, citing concerns about gang violence. That state of emergency lasted until mid-April. Police said that smuggled cellphones enabled those involved in the plot to exchange encrypted messages. Months of intelligence gathering led investigators to believe the targets included senior police officers,
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is to meet US President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally would secure a more favorable trade deal before the deadline on Friday next week. Marcos would be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term. Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in trade talks even with close allies that Washington needs to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China. “I expect our discussions to focus on security and defense, of course, but also
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