■UZBEKISTAN
Doctors’ travel restricted
A think tank said authorities in the Central Asian nation have restricted doctors’ freedom to travel abroad. The Expert Working Group said on Friday that officials had established strict requirements for medical personnel wishing to leave the country, even if it is for personal reasons. The non-government group said physicians would have to submit a report on their activities while overseas within three days of their return. It said failure to do so would risk incurring strict punitive measures and a travel ban. Restrictions on doctors’ exposure to foreign expertise is likely to further hinder the authoritarian republic’s troubled health care system.
■CHINA
More dying from pollution
Progress in hauling hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty over the past 15 years has come at a cost of environmental damage that remains a major peril to health, a review published in The Lancet said on Friday. Air pollution is widely to blame for 1.3 million premature deaths a year from respiratory disease, it said. Outdoor air pollution cost a typical Chinese city around 10 percent of its GDP in 2000 because of the toll in death and sickness, review said. The bill is predicted to range from eight to 16 percent by 2020, depending on future technology and policies. As for water pollution, only half of the nation’s 200 major rivers and less than a quarter of its 28 major lakes and reservoirs are deemed suitable for use as drinking water after treatment, the journal said.
■PHILIPPINES
Guerrillas kill soldier
Communist guerrillas attacked a military post in the south, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the army said yesterday. Members of the New People’s Army also ransacked the armory, carting away 38 high-powered firearms during the attack in North Cotabato on Friday, regional army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said. Cabangbang said the attack could have been connected to the national elections in May.
■INDIA
Intruders killed: military
Frontier guards shot dead two intruders attempting to sneak into the country from Pakistan with counterfeit banknotes, a paramilitary spokesman said on Friday. Border Security Force spokesman Sandeep Sharma said troopers recovered fake Indian currency with a face value of 6.5 million rupees (US$141,000) after shooting two of the three intruders on Thursday in Punjab state. Sharma said the soldiers killed two intruders while the third escaped back into Pakistan. The central bank last year said the face value of fake notes detected or seized in the country in recent years had tripled and blamed Pakistan as the source.
■CHINA
Baby traffickers arrested
Police have arrested eight people for allegedly trafficking babies in Fujian Province, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The eight were caught over the last three months and are accused of buying and reselling at least 12 infants from the neighboring province of Jiangxi, Xinhua reported. Three of the suspects confessed they had bought two baby girls from Jiangxi for 10,000 yuan (US$1,465) each and had planned to sell them for 15,000 yuan each, police said. Investigations show the child trafficking ring had smuggled 11 girls and one boy, most of the baby girls from parents in the rural countryside where boys are preferred. Police have rescued five of the smuggled babies and are searching for the rest.
■IRELAND
Sports fans score victory
Thirsty sports fans have won one battle in a clash between religious customs and the new habits of the post “Celtic Tiger” era — and they have the T-shirts to prove it. A judge granted an exemption to pubs in the western city of Limerick from the usual prohibition of alcohol sales on Good Friday, the day commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, to allow drinking during a match of two provincial rugby teams. After Thursday’s court ruling, traders in Limerick quickly put T-shirts on the market with slogans like “Officially bigger than the Catholic Church: Munster Rugby” and “Mass will now take place at Thomond Park,” referring to Munster’s stadium.
■NIGERIA
Pirates attack cargo ship
Pirates attacked a Turkish cargo ship anchored off the Nigerian coast, injuring three crew members, Turkey’s state-run news agency Anatolian reported on Friday. Eight to 10 pirates with automatic weapons boarded the Ozay 5 late on Thursday. They robbed the crew of money and cellphones but fled after the ship began making distress calls. The ship’s cargo was not damaged in the attack. Two of the injured crew were Turkish and one was Nigerian, Anatolian quoted the Turkish Maritime Undersecretariat as saying. Marauding sea gangs have attacked many ships off the east coast of Africa in recent years, winning ransoms of millions of dollars. Piracy is much less frequent in West African waters.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Oddest book title hailed
Defying grim predictions that the economic downturn would clobber specialist books, the annual contest for oddest title has had a bumper year, with the winner last year being named on Friday as Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes. The book won 42 percent of the vote run by TheBookseller.com to emerge a comfortable winner. The top six were as follows: 1. Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes 2. What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua? 3. Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich 4. Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter 5. Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots 6. The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
■UGANDA
King’s visit turns deadly
At least one person was killed and more than 100 others injured when a crowd rushed to glimpse the Bugandan king as he visited royal tombs destroyed in a fire, police and witnesses said on Friday. King Ronald Mutembi, was attending a ceremony to lament the destruction last week of a historic royal mausoleum in the capital. The blaze, whose cause is unknown, was followed by violence, heightening tension between the government and the powerful Bugandan kingdom. A police source said one person was killed in the crush while 140 were injured, 16 of them seriously.
■KENYA
Terror suspect released
An American man of Somali origin arrested in Kenya over suspicions of terrorism says police have released him along with two other men. Suleman Essa said Friday that police did not tell him why they arrested him on Thursday as he and the two others boarded a plane headed for Somalia. Police said on Thursday that Essa was on a terror watch list. Essa says he does not belong to a terrorist organization. He did not say why he and the others planned to go to Somalia. Essa said Canadian citizen Ahmed Ali Hassan and Kenyan citizen Muhammed Hussein Hash were also released on Friday.
■UNITED STATES
Pit bull attacks cop cars
A pit bull is on probation after ripping the bumper off a police car and chewing the tires on three other cars flat as two other dogs barked and wagged their tails, Tennessee media reported on Friday. The brown and white mixed breed named Winston spent two weeks locked up in the Chattannooga, Tennessee, animal shelter after the bizarre attack was captured on a police surveillance camera. His owners said they had no clue why he went wild that day, chewing through two fences and attacking four different cars. He’d never shown any aggression before that day, owner Nancy Emerling told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. A two minute police video posted on the paper’s Web site shows Winston yanking on the bumper of a police cruiser, refusing to let go as it drives slowly back and forth trying to dislodge the dog. The bumper eventually rips right off and a brown dog grabs hold of it as Winston bounds away tail wagging and then drops the white bumper on the pavement. The two dogs and a big black one which had been barking from the sidelines then chases the cruiser down the road.
■UNITED STATES
Fortune-teller convicted
A fortune-teller has been convicted on nine felony sex counts for convincing two teenage girls he could turn around bleak futures if they had sex with him. The Daily Breeze newspaper reports that jurors in Torrance, California, deliberated about a day before returning guilty verdicts on Thursday against 47-year-old Cesar Duran on charges that included forcible rape and lewd acts with minors. He faces up to 30 years in prison when he’s sentenced next month.
■UNITED STATES
Friend’s shooter jailed
A man who shot his friend in the head during a drug-fueled sex party in a “dungeon” has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Bruce Davidson, who was convicted of manslaughter, accepted responsibility at his sentencing on Friday and apologized to the family of Fred Wilson. Both the defense and prosecutors agree that there was no intention to kill, but prosecutors contend Davidson was responsible for ensuring a revolver was not loaded before putting it to Wilson’s head.
■MEXICO
Police search for escapees
Police were searching for two prison guards and 41 inmates who disappeared after a pre-dawn jailbreak on Thursday in the city of Matamoros across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Prison director Orlando Saucedo Pinto has been put on temporary leave as investigators review how the prisoners broke out, prison officials told a news conference. Prison staff are also being investigated, they said. All but three of the prisoners who escaped had been charged under federal law, but were being held at the state institution.
■UNITED STATES
Cabbie charged as terrorist
Federal prosecutors charged a Chicago cab driver on Friday with attempting to provide funds for explosives to al-Qaeda and discussing a possible bomb attack on an unspecified stadium this summer. Raja Lahrasib Khan, 56, a naturalized citizen of Pakistani origin, was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Khan spoke with another man identified in the complaint only as Individual B on March 11 and appeared to be talking about an attack on an unspecified stadium in the country, the complaint said.
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