■ Singapore
Former PM's wife ill
The wife of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew suffered a stroke in London on Sunday and is being treated in a hospital there, Lee's press secretary announced yesterday. Kwa Geok Choo, 83, is in stable condition and improving, the spokeswoman said. Kwa left Singapore with her husband on Oct. 14 for visits to Berlin, Paris and London. They had been scheduled to return to Singapore today. Their oldest son Lee Hsien Loong, the deputy prime minister, has been picked to become Singapore's next prime minister. Lee Kuan Yew was prime minister for 31 years.
■ Indonesia
Snakes to tackle rat plague
Fed up with traditional methods that have failed to contain a plague of rats wreaking havoc in local rice fields, Jogjakarta is to take on the pests with the most dangerous predator of all: Mother Nature. Three hundred 2m-long pythons and five pairs of owls will be released into fields in next week, according to officials. "The rats are causing such problems we don't know what else to do," said Ahmad Yulianto, of the local agriculture and forestry office."This is our way to restore the balance of nature so we can all live in harmony."
■ China
Space plans expanded
Basking in glory after its first manned space launch, China has set its sights on putting three people into space for a week, the China News Service said yesterday. A space official who worked on the Oct. 15 to Oct. 16 voyage that made China only the third country to rocket a person into space, said preparations were under way for the next in the Shenzhou, or "Divine Ship," series, the semi-official news agency said. The Shenzhou VI was expected to blast off within the next two years, it reported. The Shenzhou V, carrying astronaut Yang Liwei, circled Earth 14 times during a 21-hour trip.
■ Solomon Islands
Australian troops pull out
Australia and New Zealand have started withdrawing troops from the Solomon Islands as a multinational peacekeeping mission restores law and order in the South Pacific island nation. Australia sent 1,400 military personnel to the Solomons in July as part of an Australian-led 2,225-strong force of soldiers and police from six regional nations to stop the lawless state from spiralling into anarchy. Defense Minister Robert Hill said yesterday substantial progress had been made, although there was still work to be done, and 800 Australian military personnel would return home by early December. "Significant work still needs to be done and there will be a military force there for some time of the appropriate size to give support to the police in their leadership of this particular mission," Hill told parliament.
■ Indonesia
Alleged terror leader on trial
An Afghan-trained Indonesian militant who allegedly headed the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group goes on trial today for hiding suspects in last year's deadly Bali bombings. The trial of Abu Rusdan, a 53-year-old Islamic cleric, could provide key information about the state of JI after recent arrests of several key operatives, including its alleged field commander Hambali. The indictment against Rusdan alleges he was named JI's chief in a ceremony at a hillside villa close to Jakarta soon after the arrest of his suspected predecessor, Abu Bakar Bashir, in October last year, said his lawyer Mohammad Mahendratta.
■ Colombia
Rebels agree to proposal
Colombia's ELN rebels have agreed to release seven kidnapped foreign tourists starting next week if one of their jailed leaders is allowed to a join a UN and church delegation to receive the hostages, a negotiator said on Monday. The National Liberation Army (ELN) said it was willing to hand over the first of the hostages to a commission of UN and Roman Catholic Church representatives plus two ELN leaders, one of them still in jail, a church official said. In a four-point statement given to the priests, the ELN said it "accepted the proposal of the church to free the foreigners it was holding." The hostages were seized on Sept. 12, from among a group of tourists trekking to the 3,500-year-old ruins of Colombia's Lost City.
■ Iran
Hard-liner implicated
Iran's reformist-dominated parliament yesterday implicated hard-line Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi in the death of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist who died in custody in July. Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian of Iranian origin, died on July 10, about three weeks after being detained for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during protests. An intelligence agent is charged with her alleged beating death. The parliament criticized Mortazavi for accusing Kazemi of spying for foreign intelligence agencies, lacking official permission to work and announcing the cause of her death as stroke. A presidential-appointed committee later concluded she died of head injuries sustained while in custody.
■ United States
Man kills two over high bill
Apparently enraged by a high electric bill, a man killed his roommate and her daughter and then told police, "I did something bad," the New York Daily News reported Monday. The murder took place in a Brooklyn apartment Sunday night when the man, Albert Clarke, used a pipe to bludgeon to death the woman he was living with. He then fatally slashed the throat of her 11-year-old daughter as she was sleeping. Police said Clarke turned himself in after the bloodshed.
■ France
Muslim cola pitched for fast
A new cola drink was launched on Monday in France -- but much of the target market will not be able to drink it during the daytime for the next month. The drink, named Salam Cola after the Arabic word for peace, was put on the market in time for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, during which observant Muslims do not eat, drink or smoke during the day. It is produced in bottles in the north of France and in cans in the Netherlands and has been on sale in Belgium for the last six weeks.
■ Germany
Bishops aid abortion group
Half of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops are secretly funding counsellors who indirectly help women have abortions, according to the TV show Report Mainz. German law requires women to undergo counselling before having an abortion and diocesan officials were used to counsel women intending to have abortions. Critics claimed the church was thus enabling abortions and under pressure from Pope John Paul, the advice services were closed in 1999. The TV show said 15 dioceses were funding the lay Catholics' organization Donum Vitae, which provides anti-abortion advice and practical assistance. The group said it has to accept that some of its clients will take the decision to abort.
■ Zimbabwe
News bosses imprisoned
Zimbabwean police on Monday charged four directors of the Daily News, an independent newspaper critical of Pres-ident Robert Mugabe's government, for publishing without a license, the paper's legal adviser said. The charges came after police arrested and charged Washington Sansole, one of the paper's directors in the second city of Bulawayo on Sunday. He was released on Monday following a high court order. However the four Harare-based directors were due to spend Monday night in police cells after being charged. The charges follow the publication on Saturday of the Daily News, six weeks after it was shut down by the authorities.
■ United Kingdom
No arms deal for election
Northern Irish assembly elections will go ahead without an agreement on arms decommissioning, Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble said Monday, the BBC reported. Talks on decommissioning reached a stalemate last week after the UUP rejected an IRA statement on disarmament, saying it lacked clarity. The IRA, the paramilitary arm of Sinn Fein, has refused to detail what weapons it is putting out of use. Crisis talks were held over the weekend between both sides and Trimble said that progress had been made but it was not enough to reach a firm resolution before elections scheduled for Nov. 26.
■ United States
The joy of spider sex
A study of spiders shows female wolf spiders will eat strange-looking males that try to mate with them, but spare and even hook up with familiar-looking males. The findings provide not just an interesting insight into spider behavior, but may help explain actions by "higher" animals, said arachnologist Eileen Hebets of Cornell University. "The female is using earlier experience that is going to affect her mate choice later," Hebets said. "It is reasonable to expect that is a common thing in other animals." The female can choose to mate, to run away or to eat her suitor. Sometimes she eats the hapless male after mating, Hebets said.
■ Germany
Phony cop on the beat
German police arrested an escaped convict after he posed as a traffic policeman in a stolen car, authorities said. "He had a blue roof light and stop signs in the car and said he'd made 130 euros [US$153] carrying out routine traffic controls," said a police spokeswoman in the eastern town of Bernau. A quick check revealed the 33-year-old bogus policeman was already wanted by a prison in Hanover where he had failed to return from home leave the week earlier. Police said he now faces the prospect of another sentence for usurpation of office.
■ Kenya
High school rampage
Kenyan students set fire to their school, ransacked kitchens and looted com-puters in a three-hour orgy of destruction after teachers banned video shows and disco activities, newspapers reported. Police using tear gas dispersed teenagers at the Kinyui Boys School in eastern Kenya after many of its 760 pupils went on the rampage on Saturday night in protest at the ban, which teachers said was designed to give them more time to study. "I wanted the Form Fours to have time to concentrate on exams," school principal Herman Kasini told The East African Standard, which carried pictures of a gutted dormitory and a collapsed corrugated iron roof.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
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