■NEW ZEALAND
Korean fishermen detained
Three South Korean fishermen were fined and two boats seized after being caught with hundreds of tonnes of fish caught illegally in territorial waters, officials said yesterday. The South Koreans earlier pleaded guilty to providing “false and misleading” declarations for more than 700 tonnes of fish, a Fisheries Ministry official said. The offenses occurred during eight fishing trips last year. Kim Dae-geun, Pyon Se-hun, and Bae Gap-joo were fined a total of NZ$360,000 (US$221,000) earlier this week. The two fishing boats were forfeited to the New Zealand government.
■SRI LANKA
Troops capture rebel town
Troops captured a rebel-held town in the island’s north following heavy fighting that killed a “large” group of guerrillas, the defense ministry said yesterday. Security forces took the town of Maniyakkulam, 25km southwest of the military’s primary target of Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Tamil Tiger rebels, the ministry said. It did not say how many guerrillas were killed in Thursday’s fighting. The violence forced the return of a food convoy that the UN was trying to escort into the rebel-held Wanni region, the organization said. The UN office said it would immediately seek “renewed security assurances from the two sides” before attempting to resend the 50-truck convoy with 750 tonnes of aid.
■HONG KONG
HIV rates in gays rising
Up to a third of gay and bisexual men in the territory may be infected with HIV by 2020 if prevention programs to reduce new infections and promote safe sex fail to work, experts warned. HIV is primarily passed from person to person through sex. The number of gay and bisexual men confirmed with the virus has risen sharply every year since 2003. The figure rose from 50 in 2003 to 67 in 2004, 96 in 2005 and 112 in 2006, while newly confirmed infections among heterosexuals stayed within a range of 110 to 116 each year. Rising numbers of gay and bisexual men are becoming infected in many countries, perhaps because of the availability of HIV drugs, which can control the virus but not cure the infection.
■INDIA
Woman beheads man
A woman chopped the head off a man who allegedly tried to attack her and then paraded the head through a market in northern India, police said yesterday. Police arrested the woman late on Thursday after receiving calls from frightened witnesses who reported a blood-soaked woman holding a severed head who was walking through the village, police officer Ram Bharose said. The woman, 35, told police she had gone to a nearby forest to cut grass for fodder for her cattle when a man attacked her from behind. The woman also told police that the man had been harassing and stalking her for three months and she had no regrets about killing him.
■JAPAN
Aso skips shrine visit
Dozens of politicians visited Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni shrine to war dead yesterday, but new Prime Minister Taro Aso — who supported the shrine visits in the past — stayed away, lawmakers’ offices said. Forty-eight parliamentarians — 21 upper house members and 27 lower house politicians — visited the shrine on the first day of its four-day annual autumn festival. No Cabinet members were seen at the shrine, which honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 top war criminals from World War II.
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