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■CHINA

Dissident meets lawyers

Lawyers for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) met with the writer for the first time since he was detained more than six months ago, a rights group said yesterday. Lawyers Shang Baojun (尚寶軍) and Ding Xikui (丁錫奎) met with Liu on Friday afternoon for 40 minutes at a police detention center in Beijing, according to the Hong Kong-based group Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). Liu, 53, was detained in a secret location in early December for his involvement in Charter 08, a manifesto calling for increased protection of human rights and political reforms. He was formally charged on June 23 with “inciting subversion of state power.” At the meeting, Liu told the lawyers that police investigations focused on his involvement with the charter and more than 20 other articles he published between 2001 and last year, CHRD said. Liu said he had not been tortured to force a confession during his detention and maintained that he was not guilty of any crime. The lawyers told CHRD that the authorities violated proper procedures on several occasions, including not allowing them to talk privately with their client.



■PHILIPPINES

Freak diving fatality

A 52-year-old Japanese tourist was killed in a freak diving accident in the central Philippines, police said yesterday. Etsuko Kosaka from Ishikawa was hit on the head by a boat’s propeller as she surfaced from a dive in waters off the city of Lapu Lapu in central Cebu province on Thursday, police said. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, but later died of her injury, police said. The waters around Cebu are popular diving spots for foreign tourists, but have seen a growing number of incidents in recent months. In March, two Chinese divers drowned after failing to resurface.



■PAKISTAN

Twelve militants killed

At least 12 militants were killed and more than a dozen wounded yesterday when government forces attacked the suspected bases of a feared Taliban chief, officials said. “Two Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban militant hideouts in Makeen and Laddha, killing 10 Taliban and injuring 15 others,” local tribal police official Syed Akbar Khan said. Makeen and Laddah are the main South Waziristan strongholds of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, who is blamed for a number of suicide attacks and bomb blasts in Pakistan. The tolls could not be verified independently as the areas are out of bounds to journalists because of the ongoing military operation and presence of Taliban militants.



■CHINA

Ethnic tensions spark brawl

Ethnic tensions between workers at a toy factory in the south sparked a brawl that left two dead and 118 injured, state media and a government spokesman said yesterday. The official China News Service said hundreds of workers at the Xuri Toy Factory in Shaoguan City fought for two hours before more than 400 police restored order early on Friday morning. A spokesman from the Shaoguan City government said the brawl was due to tensions between Uighurs — Turkic-speaking Muslims — and Han Chinese. The spokesman said the fight started after a Han Chinese girl entered a dormitory where Uighur workers were staying. Uighur workers allegedly tried to harass her, and she screamed. The spokesman would not give his name or give details on the two people who died.



■AUSTRALIA

Fifth swine flu patient dies

A young woman with underlying health problems yesterday became the country’s fifth swine flu-related death, authorities said. The 26-year-old from Perth died late on Friday in intensive care, where she was being treated for a serious medical condition, Western Australia’s chief health officer Tarun Weeramanthri said. All five people who have died in Australia after contracting swine flu were suffering from underlying conditions, and authorities have been careful not to attribute their deaths directly to the A(H1N1) virus. Two children are currently in intensive care with the disease, including a five-year-old girl with no other health problems, authorities said. Total cases here stood at 3,519 yesterrday.



■NEW ZEALAND

Quakes rattle North Island

A series of eight earthquakes in 13 hours rattled the central region of North Island yesterday, seismologists at GNS Science reported. The quakes ranged in magnitude from 2.6 to 4.4 on the Richter scale, but all were shallow — one only 2km below the surface — meaning they were widely felt in the area. All were centred within 5km to 10km of the town of Turangi, situated halfway between the capital Wellington and the nation’s biggest city, Auckland.



■AUSTRALIA

Shark injures surfer

A surfer was attacked by a shark off a deserted beach yesterday, prompting calls for patrols during the winter season. The man suffered a small laceration to his leg and was taken to hospital with shock after being bitten during a morning surf at Seven Mile Beach, south of Sydney, emergency officials said. “We believe he was in a stable condition and may have been helped to shore by fellow surfers,” an ambulance service spokesman said.



■UNITED STATES

Miami priest weds girlfriend

A Miami priest who left the Catholic Church after photos surfaced of him kissing his girlfriend on the beach has married her at an Episcopal Church. The ceremony for 40-year-old Alberto Cutie and 35-year-old Ruhama Canellis was held on Friday evening at St Bernard de Clairvaux Episcopal Church in North Miami Beach. The two were legally married by a judge in Coral Gables last week. The priest known as “Father Oprah” was removed from his South Beach parish last month after the photos were first made public. Cutie has said he met Canellis at church, and the two were friends for years before becoming romantically involved. Cutie gave his first sermon before Episcopalians last month but is not yet an official priest in that religion.



■LEBANON

Saad Hariri to form Cabinet

Saad Hariri, the son of a popular former prime minister assassinated four years ago, is expected to be asked today to form a new government after his party won this month’s elections. Hariri’s anti-Syrian March 14 alliance won 71 out of parliament’s 128 seats in this month’s parliamentary election, and his allies have put the 39-year-old’s name forward for the top post. A rival alliance, led by Syrian- and Iran-backed Shiite party Hezbollah, secured 57 seats in the peaceful June 7 vote. All parliamentary blocs are due to wrap up consultations this afternoon, after which President Michel Sleiman is expected to officially designate Hariri as prime minister and task him with forming a new government. Hariri’s rivals in the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance refrained from proposing anyone for the job, which is reserved for a Sunni Muslim under the country’s complex sectarian political system.



■ARGENTINA

Pigs contract swine flu

Swine flu has been detected in numerous pigs at a farm near the Argentine capital, but the virus has not shown itself to be any deadlier to the animals than a normal flu, the government said on Friday. The discovery comes as the country is experiencing a human swine flu outbreak during the South American winter. The Health Ministry confirmed three new deaths — raising the country’s toll to 26, more than any other nation on the continent. Jorge Amaya, chief of the National Agricultural Health and Quality Service, told Mitre radio that about a quarter of the pigs at the unidentified farm in Buenos Aires Province were found to be infected. “The mortality rate is less than 2 percent, which is typical of a normal flu for swine,” Amaya said.



■MEXICO

Twelve dead in shootout

A shootout between police and suspected cartel hitmen in a central state on Friday left at least 12 people dead and one police officer wounded, officials said. Guanajuato state Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa said police and soldiers were checking a report of armed men at a building in the town of Apaseo el Alto when assailants opened fire and lobbed grenades at them. All the 12 dead were gunmen, Zamarripa said. Twelve suspects were detained. Governor Juan Manuel Oliva said one police officer was wounded in the shootout in Guanajuato. The group was allegedly working for the Zetas, a gang of assassins tied to the Gulf cartel. The country is suffering a wave of gang violence that has killed more than 10,800 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and launched a military-led crackdown on drug traffickers.


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