■SINGAPORE
ASEAN to push rail link
ASEAN will try again to spark investor interest in a much-delayed railway link from Singapore to Kunming, China, officials said yesterday. ASEAN economic ministers said they will convene a conference and exhibition early next year to “publicize, promote and attract investments” for the Singapore-Kunming Railway Link, they said. To complete the link, 550km of “missing links” still need to be built at an estimated cost of US$2 billion, at 2006 prices, the ministers said.
■CAMBODIA
Primate numbers rise
A survey by environmental agency Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has uncovered “surprisingly large” populations of two globally endangered primates in a remote protected area near the border with Vietnam. A census by WCS scientists and Cambodian rangers across a 780km² area in Mondulkiri Province counted 42,000 black-shanked doucs and 2,500 yellow-cheeked crested gibbons, it said. “The estimate represents the world’s largest known populations for both species,” WCS said, adding that total populations of the two threatened species within the surrounding 3,000km² area may be even larger. “Their total population figures remain unknown,” the group said.
■AUSTRALIA
Probe blames oxygen bottle
Air safety investigators yesterday blamed an oxygen bottle for a mid-air explosion that blew a minivan-size hole in the side of Qantas 747 last month, but said they don’t know why the bottle blew up. The Qantas 747-400 suffered a sudden loss of cabin pressure during a flight from Hong Kong to Melbourne, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency descent before diverting to Manila. Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) director Julian Walsh said it was clear one of the plane’s cargo hold oxygen bottles had ruptured, blowing a hole in the fuselage and sending the bottle up through the passenger cabin floor. “The oxygen bottle went from the base of the aircraft, to the ceiling of the first-floor cabin,” he said. But the preliminary report gave no explanation on why the oxygen cylinder, the fourth in a line of seven, failed under pressure.
■MALAYSIA
Car inspectors arrested
Graft-busters posed as secretaries and tea boys to infiltrate vehicle inspection centers, arresting 36 officers for approving cars without even seeing them, reports said yesterday. Tens of thousands of car owners may be forced to re-test their vehicle’s roadworthiness after the bust on the inspection centers following a three-month undercover operation.
■GREENLAND
Dead narwhals wash ashore
Dozens of massacred narwhals, an Arctic whale with a single long tusk, have been discovered on the east coast in what local police said on Thursday could be a case of poaching. “We received a complaint that there may have been a possible violation of law regarding the protection of narwhals, after the discovery of cadavers in Illoqqortoormiut,” said Morten Nielsen, the deputy chief of police. A scientific expedition from New Zealand discovered the carcasses as they sailed along the coastline “about two weeks ago.” Danish and Greenlandic media reported that 48 animals were killed.
■KENYA
UN envoy calls for aid
The UN’s humanitarian envoy to Somalia on Thursday urged Muslim nations to increase aid to Somalia, where millions of people are facing hunger. Some 3.2 million Somalis will need food aid by the year’s end, UN figures said. “We’re about to start Ramadan month in few days and what I would like to see [is] the Muslim countries [stepping] in and help the United Nations, the humanitarian agencies and the international NGOs to help the Somalis,” Abdul Aziz Arrubkan said in Nairobi.
■TUNISIA
Court convicts militants
A court has convicted 19 Islamic militants on charges linked to plots to carry out attacks in the north African country or send fighters to Iraq, a defense lawyer said on Thursday. Thirteen suspects were handed sentences last Saturday ranging from two to eight years, said lawyer Samir Ben Amor. Prosecutors had accused them of trying to set up a terror cell to carry out domestic attacks — while some of its members had also sought to send Islamic fighters to Lebanon. Ben Amor said the Tunis court did not give defense lawyers enough time to prepare or present their cases, nor did it ask questions of the suspects during the trial. Separately, six defendants were convicted on Tuesday of establishing a military camp in the northeastern Kef region to train fighters to be sent to Iraq.
■AUSTRIA
Court orders retrial of couple
The country’s highest court has ordered the retrial of a couple convicted of making terror threats. The man, identified only as Mohamed M, was found guilty earlier this year of involvement in an online video in March last year threatening Austria and Germany with attacks if they did not withdraw military personnel from Afghanistan. He was sentenced to four years in prison. His wife, identified as Mona S, was convicted of helping him, mostly by translating Arabic texts into German. She was sentenced to 22 months in prison. A court spokesman said on Thursday that the court ordered the retrial because the questions asked were too abstract.
■NETHERLANDS
Church tower out-leans Pisa
The Tower of Pisa is being challenged by a lesser-known 12th-century building in the northern town of Bedum as Europe’s most steeply leaning tower. Retired geometrician Jacob van Dijk said measurements this week on Bedum’s 36m church tower of Walfridus revealed it is now leaning more than its Italian rival. At a height of 55.86m, Pisa’s tower leans about 4m, while Bedum’s tower leans 2.61m on its height of 35.7m. If both towers were the same height, Bedum would have a greater tilt of 6cm, Van Dijk argues. “In Italy they’re happy with the result, but here in Bedum we are much more happy, because the tower of Pisa is now leaning less than the tower of Bedum,” Van Dijk said.
■CANADA
Brothers smothered in grain
Two young brothers died after being sucked beneath a load of grain that was being unloaded from a trailer in a western province. Sergeant Ged Dentinger said on Thursday that the incident happened about 160km northeast of Grande Prairie, Alberta. The boys’ identities were not released. The children, aged five and seven, were on top of a trailer carrying grain that was being unloaded by a family member on Wednesday, he said. Family members soon realized the boys had somehow been pulled under the grain and were able to retrieve them about five minutes after they went in.
■CANADA
Airline removes life vests
An official with regional air carrier Jazz says the airline is removing life vests from all its planes to save weight and fuel. Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said on Thursday Transport Canada regulations allow airlines to use floatation devices instead of life vests provided the planes remain within 80km of the coast. Safety cards in the seat pockets of Jazz aircraft now direct passengers to use the seat cushions as floatation devices. Stuart says Jazz is a transcontinental carrier that doesn’t fly over the ocean. Jazz planes do fly over the Great Lakes and along the Eastern seaboard from Halifax to Boston and New York.
■CANADA
Thin woman ads removed
A Quebec publisher apologized on Thursday for promoting scrawny female forms in a young women’s magazine, which he also pulled from stores amid a public outcry. In an open letter posted on his company La Maison Simons’ Web site, Peter Simons offered his “personal apologies” for the latest issue of Twik magazine featuring emaciated models, saying he failed “to exercise proper attention, empathy and especially, sensitivity and social responsibility.”
■GUYANA
Top criminals gunned down
The country’s top criminal and an accomplice, blamed for the 2006 murders of agriculture minister Satyadeow Sawh and two of his siblings — all Canadian citizens, were killed on Thursday in a shootout with security forces, police said. Divisional Police Commander, Welton Trotz, said Rondell Rawlins, 33, and Jermaine Charles, 23, were gunned down by police and soldiers near the country’s international airport, in Timehri, about 32km southeast of Georgetown. Rawlins and Charles were blamed for the April 2006 murder of Sawh, his brother and sister, shortly after they had returned home from a family function.
■UNITED STATES
Honest advertisement works
It was an unusually honest ad for a live-in nanny, a 1,000-word tome beginning, “My kids are a pain.” But it worked, attracting a brave soul who’s never been a nanny before. “If you cannot multitask, or communicate without being passive aggressive, don’t even bother replying,” Rebecca Land Soodak, a mother of four on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, wrote on Aug. 19 in her advertisement on Craigslist. “I can be a tad difficult to work for. I’m loud, pushy and while I used to think we paid well, I am no longer sure.” This being the age of instant communications, the ad took on a life of its own, making the rounds of parenting blogs and e-mail inboxes and inspiring an article in Thursday’s New York Times. Soodak, a 40-year-old painter whose husband owns a wine store, eventually hired Christina Wynn, a 25-year-old University of Virginia graduate, to take care of Rubin, 12; Ellis, 9; and Shay and Cassie, both 6.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not