■ INDIA
Bollywood star weds
Bollywood superstar Sanjay Dutt, jailed last year for illegal weapons possession and links to Mumbai's underworld, has tied the knot with his long-time girlfriend while out on bail, a friend said. Dutt had a secret court wedding with former starlet Manyata Dilnawaz Shaikh in a Goa beach resort on Thursday and was celebrating formal Hindu nuptials in Mumbai yesterday, a friend said. The 48-year-old actor, who was sentenced to six years in prison, was released on bail in November.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Roh accepts resignation
Outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun has decided to accept the resignation of his spy chief, who offered to quit last month over the leak of a document detailing his secret trip to Pyongyang in December, his spokesman said yesterday. Kim Man-bok, head of the National Intelligence Service, offered to resign, saying he had ordered his agency to pass to a media outlet a document containing transcripts of conversations between him and his North Korean counterpart during his trip to Pyongyang on the eve of the Dec. 19 presidential election in the South.
■ INDIA
Kashmir strike closes shops
Insurgency-hit Indian Kashmir was brought to a halt by a general strike yesterday as locals marked the anniversary of the execution of a prominent rebel commander. The one-day strike was called by the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in memory of founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, who was hanged in a New Delhi jail on Feb. 11, 1984, for the murder of an intelligence officer. The strike, also supported by other separatist groups opposed to Indian rule over part of the disputed Himalayan region, closed down most of the shops, businesses and offices in the region's summer capital Srinagar.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Security raised after attack
Passenger security screening at its regional airports will be upgraded after a woman attempted to hijack a short-haul domestic flight last week, Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday. Somali immigrant Asha Ali Abdille, 33, was charged with attempted hijacking, wounding and injuring with intent to injure after she allegedly stabbed both pilots and another passenger on Friday on a domestic commuter flight. Abdille demanded to be flown to Australia. The plane landed safely in the southern city of Christchurch. Final recommendations on tighter security measures at regional airports are expected from officials within a week.
■ AFGHANISTAN
Bomb, bullets kill four
A militant mullah and two of his children were killed when a bomb he was preparing in his home exploded prematurely in southern Afghanistan, while NATO troops killed a civilian whose vehicle came too close to a military convoy, officials said yesterday. Mullah Abdul Wasay was tinkering with the explosives at his home on Saturday night in Helmand Province when they blew up, said provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal. Troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force, meanwhile, killed an Afghan riding in a car that had driven too close to the soldiers in the western province of Farah. The troops fired a warning shot that ricocheted and injured the car's driver and killed the passenger, the international military alliance said.
■ UNITED STATES
Roy Scheider dies at 75
Roy Scheider, the actor best known for his role as a police chief in the blockbuster movie Jaws, has died. He was 75. Scheider died on Sunday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, hospital spokesman David Robinson said. The hospital was not releasing his cause of death. However, hospital spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said Scheider had been treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital's Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for the past two years.
RSS