■ PHILIPINES
Bombing suspect arrested
Police in the south said yesterday they had arrested a man suspected of being involved in a series of deadly bombings in recent years. Inspector Leo Ajero, the chief of Kidapawan city police in Cotabato Province, said Musalim Abas, 35, was arrested for a bombing in October that killed a child and injured 39 other people. He is also suspected of involvement in other bombings as part of a gang called the Al-Khobar group, which attacked public places as part of extortion operations against businessmen.
■ SRI LANKA
Blast wounds at least eight
A bomb went off in a bus in a Colombo suburb yesterday, wounding at least eight people, a hospital official said. Passengers were evacuated from the bus in the town of Mount Lavinia after the crew raised the alarm over a suspicious parcel left inside the vehicle, Sri Lankan military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. The blast occurred outside a court house, the official said. "As the people got off the bus, the package exploded. The bus caught fire," the military official said. Eight people were brought to a hospital with minor injuries, a hospital spokesman said.
■ AUSTRALIA
'China ties not a liability'
A top diplomat said the US should pursue a more positive dialogue with China. He spoke at the close of a daylong series of meetings with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other US officials. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said at Parliament House that Canberra's growing trade relationship with China will not hurt its strong and long-standing ties with the US. He said the situation could be "win-win" and acknowledged that China was a topic of discussion during the meetings. Smith said: "We can have a very good economic relationship with China, which doesn't adversely impact upon our relationship with the United States."
■ INDIA
Troops kill six militants
Troops killed six separatist rebels in a fierce gun battle near the border with Myanmar yesterday and recovered several weapons, a military spokesman said. The militants were identified as members of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), fighting for the independence of nearly two million people in the northeast Indian state of Manipur. Colonel L.M. Pant said a cache of automatic rifles, rocket and grenade launchers, and pistols was recovered after the shootout close to Moreh, a Manipur town bordering Myanmar. The UNLF accuses New Delhi of doing little for the economic welfare of the verdant, hilly state, and has waged an armed struggle for almost two decades.
■ SINGAPORE
Panty thief pleads guilty
A professor who nicked bras and panties pleaded guilty to stealing women's underwear from a university dormitory, a newspaper said yesterday. The 39-year-old man -- an associate professor in a Chinese university -- was charged for taking women's underwear from a university hostel's clothes-line last December, the Straits Times reported. The Singaporean professor, who teaches in China, was in the city-state for his leave when he committed the crime. "I have heard stories before about underwear being stolen, but I never thought it would happen to me," a victim was quoted as saying. A lawyer for the professor said that he was an honorable and kind person who had no intention of causing annoyance to the underwear owners.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Odd book titles lauded
They may not leap off the shelves into the bestseller category, but the books shortlisted for the oddest book title prize are certainly original. I was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen recounts the tale of a fictional US World War II pilot who is captured by jungle pygmies led by a sadistic woman. Its sequel, which is not on the shortlist released by trade publication The Bookseller on Friday, needs no explanation: Go Ahead, Woman, Do Your Worst. How to Write a How to Write Book and Cheese Problems Solved are likewise self-explanatory, as is the equally eclectic niche tome People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr. Feelgood that strives to put the English east coast resort on the map. Some titles are likely to prove more divisive. Try If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs or Are Women Human? And other International Dialogues.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Girl asks queen for apology
Elishia Stevenson wanted an apology when she was bitten by a swan. So she wrote to Queen Elizabeth II. The six-year-old from Cornwall wrote to Buckingham Palace because her mother told her the queen owns all swans. She decorated her letter with flowers and a picture of a swan with a sad face. A lady-in-waiting responded, saying the queen was "sorry to hear about the swan." Though the queen doesn't own all swans, she does own some swans in the Thames. This tradition goes back to the 12th century, when roast swan was considered a delicacy, and continues today with the annual "Swan Upping" census of swans on the Thames.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Will Smith wins suit
Actor Will Smith won an apology and undisclosed damages in a London court on Friday over a false claim that he had described World War II Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as a "good person." The Oscar-nominated star was left deeply distressed and acutely embarrassed over the wrong story ran by an entertainment newswire service, the High Court heard. Smith's comments, originally published in the Scottish Daily Record newspaper, were then "wholly misrepresented" by the London-based World Entertainment News Network (WENN), Judge David Eady was told. The agency, which says on its Web site that it provides information to more than 1,000 media outlets in 25 countries, picked up the interview and then wrongly published worldwide a story headlined "Smith: Hitler was a good person."
■ SERBIA
Looters a YouTube hit
A video of two young women looting with gay abandon during rioting in Belgrade was becoming a Balkan smash hit on the video-sharing Web site YouTube on Friday. Police arrested a number of looters but public humiliation by YouTube may prove a far more painful punishment for the pair, whose spree on Thursday night was also aired on local TV stations and was being discussed across the Internet. An amateur cameraman followed the women as they loaded up with chocolates at a corner shop, then went after designer bags, shoes and clothes at Belgrade's swankiest stores in its vandalized main shopping street. "Get lost, stop filming," one of them shouted. "But you are the heroines of this protest for me," the cameraman replied sarcastically above the din of burglar alarms.
■ GUAM
Stealth bomber crashes
A B-2 stealth bomber crashed yesterday at an air base, but both pilots ejected safely and were in good condition, the US Air Force said. It was the first crash of a B-2 bomber, said Captain Sheila Johnston, a spokeswoman for Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. Thick, black smoke could be seen billowing from the wreckage at Andersen Air Force Base, said Jeanne Ward, a resident in the northern village of Yigo who was on the base visiting her husband. Ward said she didn't witness the crash but noticed a rising plume of smoke behind the base's air control tower.
■ MONACO
Overfishing a threat: UNEP
A deadly combination of climate change, over-fishing and pollution could cause the collapse of commercial fish stocks worldwide within decades, said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Program (UNEP). "You overlap all of this and you see you're potentially putting a death nail in the coffin of world fisheries," Steiner told reporters on Friday on the fringes of a climate conference involving more than 150 countries and 100 environment ministers. Some 2.6 billion people worldwide depend on fish for protein, said a UNEP report In Dead Water published on Friday.
■ UNITED STATES
Dog drives pickup truck
Police said Charles McCowan parked his pickup in front of a mini-mart on Wednesday, leaving his 36km Boxer Max in the passenger seat. When he came out, the truck and Max were gone. McCowan called police, assuming the truck had been stolen. When officers arrived, they found the pickup across the street in a fast-food parking lot but had no idea how it got there. In security video shown on Thursday on KCAL-TV, the truck can be seen rolling backward out of the store lot and across the street, threading its way through traffic and out of view. Police said Max had knocked the vehicle out of gear and sent it rolling backward.
■ UNITED STATES
Record sale sets record
A Pennsylvania man says he can now retire because someone bought his massive record collection on eBay for the asking price -- US$3 million. A buyer from Ireland agreed to shell out US$3,002,150 for the collection of about 3 million vinyl albums, singles and CDs, owner Paul Mawhinney said on Thursday. The winning bidder has already deposited US$300,000 and a bank has confirmed that he has enough money to buy the collection, Mawhinney said. The price tag is one of the highest recorded by eBay Inc, said Karen Bard, a spokeswoman for the online auctioneer. "I am legally blind. I had a couple of strokes a few years ago ... and it's time at my age to think about doing something else with my life," Mawhinney said.
■ UNITED STATES
Bush has rhythm: Rice
President George W. Bush has rhythm, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters on Friday after watching her boss join African dancers during his five-nation tour of the continent this week. "I just want to report that the president did a fair amount of dancing when he was in Africa and demonstrated that he can stay on the beat," said Rice, an accomplished musician who loves to dance herself. "You look skeptical, but I was there? I can certify," Rice added when reporters chuckled at her observations and asked to see a video of the president dancing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
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
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