■AUSTRALIA
Rudd’s popularity falls
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday blamed a sharp fall in his popularity on last week’s budget, which racked up a record A$58 billion (US$44 billion) deficit. In a survey that Rudd’s political rivals said showed his long honeymoon with voters was ending, the center-left Labor leader’s personal approval rating was 64 percent, down 10 points on the previous reading in March. The poll, published in Fairfax newspapers, also showed the conservative opposition turning in its best result since being ousted in November 2007 elections. The conservatives won the support of 43 percent of voters polled, against 44 percent for Labor.
■VIETNAM
Web site shuts down
Vietnam has shut down a Web site it ran jointly with China, officials said yesterday, as diplomatic tensions escalated over islands claimed by both countries. The two sides created the Web site in 2006 amid great fanfare in order to promote bilateral trade, but it became embroiled in their dispute over the Paracel islands in the South China Sea, over which both countries claim sovereignty. The dispute over the Web site began when China posted an article blasting Vietnam’s claim to the Paracels. The article was posted by the Chinese Ministry of Trade, which ran the site with Vietnam’s trade ministry. The episode has aroused nationalist passions in Vietnam.
■SOUTH KOREA
Truckers, activists detained
More than 300 truckers and union activists were still being held for questioning yesterday about a weekend protest that left more than 150 people injured, police said. Police detained 457 people on Saturday after the clash in the central city of Daejeon involving about 6,000 truckers and members of the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Of them, 123 have been released, while 334 are still being questioned, said Ahn Jong-koo, a police spokesman in Daejeon. “The protesters hurled rocks or wielded bamboo staves, injuring 104 policemen and damaging 99 police vehicles,” Ahn said. Newspapers said the truckers displayed anti-government slogans and streamers mourning the death of Park Jong-tae, a union leader who committed suicide in Daejeon on May 3.
■PHILIPPINES
Severed head found
Philippine police recovered the severed head of a farm owner kidnapped by Muslim militants and authorities said yesterday he was likely beheaded because his family failed to pay a ransom. Doroteo Gonzales, 61, was snatched by gunmen on April 25 from his house in Zamboanga city and brought to nearby Basilan island, where al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels are holding at least five other people in a surge of ransom kidnappings. At least three gunmen believed to be involved in Gonzales’ abduction have been arrested, regional military spokesman Captain Neil Estrella said, without elaborating. Police found Gonzales’ severed head in Basilan’s Akbar town on Sunday, said Chief Inspector Rolando Democrito.
■NEPAL
Maoists to block vote
Former Maoist rebels announced yesterday they would block a parliament vote to elect a new prime minister. Narayan Kaji Shrestha, deputy leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), said the party would not allow parliament to function unless their demands are met. The Maoists want the president to sack the army chief.
■RUSSIA
Obese woman gives birth
Doctors in Moscow are congratulating themselves on the birth of a baby to a woman whose severe obesity would normally preclude conception, a newspaper reported yesterday. The Komsomolskaya Pravda said the birth was personally overseen by Moscow’s chief gynecologist because of the weight of the 34-year-old first-time Mum: 250kg, or — as the newspaper helpfully put it — “a good quarter of a tonne!”
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