■ SRI LANKA
Military captures bunkers
The military said yesterday that government forces captured 14 Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers in intense fighting in the north that killed “many” combatants. The fighting was reported after Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said the military was trying to minimize civilian casualties in its campaign against the rebels. Rajapaksa gave the assurance on Saturday in a telephone conversation with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. There have been protests by ethnic Tamils in nearby India who say fellow Tamils are being targeted in the Sri Lankan conflict.
■ INDIA
Troops kill three at border
Troops shot dead three suspected Islamic militants during a gunbattle along the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the army said yesterday. The three were killed overnight during a “fierce encounter” in Rajouri district, about 430km south of Srinagar, an army statement said. The militants were asked to surrender after they infiltrated into Indian Kashmir “but they instead chose to fight,” the army said.
■ TONGA
Quake rattles capital
A powerful earthquake hit near the country yesterday, but there was no tsunami alert and no immediate report of injuries, Australian seismologists said. The 6.8-magnitude quake struck at a depth of 10km and hit east of the capital of Nuku’alofa, Geoscience Australia said. A correspondent said the city shook steadily for about two minutes but no tsunami alert was issued for the island nation. Buildings in the business district and along the seafront appeared undamaged, which hit as many were at evening church services. “We’ve got it at a magnitude 6.8 and very shallow,” seismologist Clive Collins said.
■ MALAYSIA
Official makes a comeback
The former health minister, who resigned earlier this year over a sex scandal, has won a key post in the ruling coalition’s second-largest party, reports said yesterday. Chua Soi-lek, who stepped down in January over the release of a video showing him having sex with a female friend, was voted in as the deputy president of the Malaysian Chinese Association, the Star daily said. The deputy president and president of the Malaysian Chinese Association, the second-largest member of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, are traditionally given ministerial positions in the government. Chua’s dramatic comeback follows a change in leadership for the largest Chinese-based party in the ruling coalition, which has ruled the country since its independence in 1957.
■ CHINA
Veteran director dies
One of most prominent directors, Xie Jin (謝晉), has died. He was 84. The filmmaker was found dead early on Saturday in his hotel room in Shangyu, where he was attending the 100th anniversary of his middle school, Xinhua news agency reported. Xie’s career spanned six decades, predating the communist era. The cause of his death remained unclear, Xinhua said in a report late on Saturday. Actress Liu Xiaoqing (劉曉慶), made famous by Xie’s 1968 film Hibiscus Town said on her blog on Saturday that the director was still active on Friday, picking up his wife from a hospital where she had a pacemaker installed, before leaving for his school anniversary celebration.
■ THAILAND
Samak suffers from cancer
Samak Sundaravej, the former prime minister who was forced from office last month for appearing in television cooking shows, is being treated for liver cancer, local media reported yesterday. The 73-year-old had an operation earlier this month at a private Bangkok hospital to remove a tumor in his liver, the Bangkok Post reported, quoting a television journalist who had visited Samak. The newspaper said he was due to be discharged later this month and quoted the journalist as saying Samak’s condition was “not as serious as suspected.”
■ THAILAND
Doctor fires at boyfriend
A doctor lost her bedside manner when her boyfriend, also a doctor, refused to let her keep their dog after they decided to separate, a newspaper report said yesterday. Napawan Choppradit, 29, was upset when Supachoke Buddhacharoenlarp refused to part with the dog as they met on Thursday to arrange their parting. When he decided to drive off without giving up the dog, Napawan fired two shots with a handgun, hitting his Jeep Cherokee. “Dr Napawan wanted to take the dog, but I refused. After arguing for a while, I got in the car, where the dog was being kept. She was angry and shot at us two times,” he told the Bangkok Post.
■ CHINA
Herbal medicine banned
Drug regulators suspended sales and use of all Heilongjiang Wandashan Pharmaceutical Co injection products, expanding a ban on one herbal treatment that was linked to three deaths. Heilongjiang began a voluntary recall of all its injection projects on Friday in cooperation with the regulator, a State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) statement said yesterday. The company’s CiwujiaZhusheye injection, meant to enhance blood circulation, has been implicated in sickening six people, three of whom died. The product was contaminated with bacteria, the SFDA said on Oct. 16.
■ EGYPT
Tycoon pleads not guilty
A tycoon and an associate he allegedly hired as a hit man sat close together in a metal cage in a Cairo courtroom on Saturday and pleaded not guilty to charges they orchestrated the gruesome murder of a Lebanese pop star. The case has mesmerized Arabs across the Middle East who were shocked by the suspected actions of billionaire Hisham Talaat Moustafa, and just as surprised authorities arrested the powerful real estate mogul and lawmaker. Moustafa is a close friend of President Hosni Mubarak’s son, Gamal, and part of a powerful group long known as the untouchables because they were seen as above the law in the hierarchical class-based society.
■ FRANCE
Sarkozy’s account robbed
Thieves have made withdrawals from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s bank account after obtaining his account number, the Journal du Dimanche reported yesterday. The president’s office confirmed Sarkozy had filed complaints last month concerning the theft, which the newspaper quoted sources as saying involved only small amounts. The failure to apprehend the criminals “shows that the criminals weren’t amateurs,” the newspaper wrote.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Pro-life MPs drop battle
Anti-abortion members of parliament on Saturday abandoned their parliamentary fight for new restrictions, calling for the bitterly contested issue to be resolved by a high-powered inquiry instead. Nadine Dorries, the Tory member of parliament and former nurse who has led attempts to cut the time limit for abortions, said that the issue was too important to become a “political football” and deserved more lengthy reflection. The retreat came as Wednesday’s vote on the government’s embryology bill, seen by anti-abortionists at first as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the law on a woman’s right to choose, risked descending into farce.
■ ISRAEL
Pope invite renewed
Jerusalem has renewed an invitation to the pope to visit the Holy Land despite differences between Jews and Catholics on the possible beatification of Pope Pius XII, the country’s envoy to the Vatican said yesterday. “The invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to come has been renewed and remains,” Ambassador Motti Levy told public radio. “Our differences can be reduced, but the date of the visit has not yet been set.” Last month, Pope Benedict sparked a row when he praised the memory of Pope Pius XII on the 50th anniversary of his death and said he would like to see him beatified.
■ GREECE
Byron gets his day
The poet whose verse was more feared by the Ottoman Empire than insurgents’ bullets has won the belated honor of a “day of celebration” in the country he romanticized. Nearly 200 years after George Gordon, Lord Byron, invoked the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae to “dream that Greece might still be free,” the government in Athens has announced a Byron day on the anniversary of the writer’s death. Readings, drama and school outings will celebrate the role of the British peer, who partly redressed a reputation for bisexual immorality by dying while preparing to serve in the revolutionary navy.
■ CANADA
Body building icon dies
Ben Weider, who helped turn bodybuilding into a worldwide sport and who was instrumental in launching Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career in the US, has died at 85. Weider died on Friday after being taken to a hospital in Montreal, a family spokeswoman said on Saturday. The cause of his death was not immediately known. “He did work out every day until his death,” she said. Weider and his brother, Joe, turned their love of bodybuilding into a billion-dollar business that includes nutritional supplements, gyms and magazines. In 1946 Weider co-founded the International Brotherhood of Body Builders, which sanctions thousands of bodybuilding competitions worldwide. In 1969, the Weiders brought Schwarzenegger, a then-unknown bodybuilder, to California. Weider, a noted Napoleonic scholar, won the French Legion of Honor for his investigative work into Napoleon’s death. “He wrote books on Napoleon, has written screenplays, he actually wanted Jack Nicholson at one point to play Napoleon in a movie. So he was a very interesting guy,” Schwarzenegger said.
■ UNITED STATES
Abducted boy found alive
A six-year-old boy kidnapped from a Las Vegas home by alleged drug dealers has been found alive in a neighborhood northeast of the Las Vegas Strip, police said. Cole Puffinburger was recovered at around 11:30pm on Saturday after a citizen informed detectives about a child walking the streets, Las Vegas police Officer Jay Rivera said. He said the child appeared to be healthy. Puffinburger was abducted on Wednesday morning by two men posing as police officers. Authorities arrested Cole’s grandfather Clemens Tinnemeyer late on Friday in connection with the boy’s disappearance. Police believe that the abductors were Mexican drug dealers and that the kidnapping at gunpoint was a “message” to Tinnemeyer, who they said may have stolen millions of dollars from the dealers. Police said money and drugs were a huge factor in the abduction. “The only innocent person involved in this entire operation is the boy,” said Las Vegas police spokesman Cris Johnson.
■ MEXICO
City desperate for cops
The border city of Ciudad Juarez is sending police recruiters across the country and will keep 175 officers who have used drugs in the past as it tries to replace nearly half a police force gutted by firings and retirements. The city has seen several policemen killed and dozens of people murdered in bloody drug gang turf battles in recent months. More than 900 policemen have been fired, resigned or retired since the start of year — including 334 who were ousted on Friday after they failed psychological, background and other checks as part of a clean-up campaign meant to root out officers who are corrupt or cooperating with drug traffickers.
■ UNITED STATES
Researcher wins millions
A jury has ordered a Mobile, Alabama-based chemical manufacturer to pay a retired researcher US$192 million for stealing his ideas. The Mobile jury ruled on Friday that Ineos Americas LLC and Ineos Phenol profited by patenting Sven Peter Mannsfeld’s invention after he had retired, the Press-Register reported. Mannsfeld created a process for transforming hazardous waste into building products in the manufacture of tires and other items. Mannsfeld came up with the idea in the late 1990s. He filed his lawsuit in 2006 after realizing the company had filed patents using his idea in Europe and the US.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was