■PAKISTAN
Sunni politician slain
The leader of a banned Sunni Muslim militant party was shot dead yesterday in an apparent sectarian attack, police said. Ali Sher Haideri, chief of the Millat-e-Islamia (Nation of Islam) Pakistan, was returning home in Khairpur, 240km northeast of Karachi, after a public gathering when gunmen ambushed his car, police said. “He was killed along with one of his companions who was driving the car, while one of the six attackers was also killed when his guards returned fire,” Pir Muhammad Shah, Khairpur’s chief of police said by telephone. Millat-e-Islamia was officially banned in 2003 though it has continued to operate. Party officials blamed Shiites for Haideri’s death.
■JAPAN
Nationalist tries hari-kiri
A right-wing nationalist stabbed himself in the stomach outside parliament yesterday in an apparent suicide attempt by ritual disembowelment, police said. The 39-year-old man, who survived, had demanded that lawmakers visit Yasukuni shrine, a local broadcaster reported. “He carried a warning letter against parliament members,” a Tokyo police spokesman said, adding that the man had said he was a member of a right-wing nationalist group. The man stabbed himself in the stomach with a short Japanese sword with a blade about 20cm long, police said.
■MALAYSIA
Test pilot killed in crash
A British pilot killed in a fiery crash was an aviation entrepreneur conducting a test flight of his Jetpod “flying taxi,” the Star daily reported yesterday. Michael Robert Dacre, 53, died on Sunday when the prototype aircraft crashed and burst into flames shortly after take-off from a landing strip in Taiping, police said. The paper said Dacre was an inventor and the managing director of British-based Avcen, which planned to have the “Jetpod” eight-seater flying taxi in production by next year. The Jetpod was designed to have a cruising speed of 550kph, be quieter and quicker than a helicopter, and require just 125m to take off and 300m to land.
■NEW ZEALAND
Inept thief leaves name
A man his name and contact details with a music shop in Christchurch before robbing it and fleeing. The man — a regular customer of the store — grabbed handfuls of banknotes from the till with four surveillance cameras trained on him, the shop’s manager told the Press newspaper. The manager said the shop clerk had been distracted by another customer, but two other people witnessed the theft on Friday. Just minutes before the robbery, the man had approached the clerk, saying he wanted a copy of Pink Floyd’s album The Wall held for him and leaving his contact details.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Minister met Qaddafi’s son
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson met Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam Qaddafi on the Greek island of Corfu shortly before reports the Lockerbie bomber was to be freed on compassionate grounds, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The two men spoke briefly about the bomber, who was jailed for at least 27 years for the 1988 bombing. They met as guests at a villa, the paper said, while Mandelson was on holiday. “There was a fleeting conversation about the prisoner; Peter was completely unsighted on the subject,” a spokesman for Mandelson said, adding the minister had no involvement in any decision by Scotland over the future of the bomber.
■RUSSIA
Two air force jets collide
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