■ Japan
Iraqi debt relief offered
Japan is willing to forgive the "vast majority" of its Iraqi debt if other Paris Club creditor nations do the same, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement yesterday during a visit by US envoy James Baker. Iraq owes Japan US$4.1 billion, but that number reaches an estimated US$7.76 billion when late penalty fees are included. The US has been encouraging creditors to assist Iraq by relieving part of its crushing debt. Baker, who has already won agreements on Iraqi debt relief from several European nations, met early yesterday with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi amid reports that Tokyo was considering some relief.
■ Indonesia
Bomb suspects face life
Indonesian prosecutors yesterday demanded that two Muslim militants be sentenced to life imprisonment for helping assemble two bombs that blew up in a nightclub district on Bali island last year. Abdul Ghoni and Syawad, alias Sarjio, are accused of violating anti-terror laws that carry a maximum penalty of death. Both remained silent during separate hearings at the Denpasar District Court. Prosecutors told the court that both men took part in planning meetings ahead of the bombs that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, on Oct. 12 last year.
■ The Philippines
Senator joins race
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's most bitter political rival filed his application yesterday to run in next year's presidential election, in a candidacy that has split the opposition and could mar its chances of beating Arroyo. Senator Panfilo Lacson is the first to file a candidate's certificate in a campaign that already includes declared candidates Arroyo and Fernando Poe Jr., an action film star and opposition newcomer who has been garnering strong voter support in opinion polls. Accompanied by hundreds of followers, Lacson filed his certificate at a jam-packed Elections Commission office, vowing to halt crime, fight corruption and revive the country's shaky economy if he is elected.
■ India
Rats safe from ratcatchers
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has a rat department that feeds on an annual budget of 7.8 million rupees (US$173,000) but doesn't catch any rodents, it was reported yesterday. Not many people know about the rat department's existence. Those who are in the department are clueless about the number of rats in the city or what is being done about them, the Times of India newspaper reported. Some civic officials smelt a rat after going through the MCD's annual accounts. They noticed the rat department spent only 50,000 rupees (US$1,100) on anti-rodent drives. The rest of the budget was spent on salaries, the report said.
■ Australia
Asylum seekers join fast
The number of asylum seekers hospitalized due to a protest fast at a Pacific island detention center has risen to 18, an increase of seven over the past three days, officials said yesterday. The hunger strikers are being treated at a hospital near the camp on the island of Nauru, where they began refusing food three weeks ago to protest Australia's refusal to accept them as refugees. A spokeswoman for the Australia's Immigration Department said the patients have been rehydrated and offered food.
■ United States
More bodies found in mud
Authorities on Sunday found the bodies of five more people caught in a mudslide that engulfed a church camp on Christmas, and urged people in mountain areas scorched by fall wildfires to prepare for heavy rains that could trigger more devastation. Two children washed away from the St Sophia Camp were found tangled in debris in a cement catch basin in downtown San Bernardino. Two women and a man were found closer to the camp. The grim discoveries brought the total number of bodies recovered from the Greek Orthodox camp to 12, with a baby boy and a teenage boy still unaccounted for.
■ Chechnya
Rebels kill five Russians
Five Russian soldiers were killed and six wounded in a series of attacks on military positions in the republic of Chechnya, an official in the Kremlin-backed Chechen administration said Sunday. Chechnya's separatist rebels open fire daily on Russian military positions in the republic, including checkpoints. In all, positions were fired on 15 times over the past day, the official said on condition of anonymity. In the republic's capital Grozny, a Chechen policeman's corpse was found on Sunday morning, the official said. Chechens who work with the Russian forces or civil administration are often targeted by rebels. Also Sunday, Apti Khakiyev, the deputy interior minister of Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya to the west, was killed when his car came under fire.
■ Mauritania
Former president sentenced
A Mauritanian court on Sunday convicted former president Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah of plotting to overthrow the current head of the northwest African state and handed him a five-year suspended jail term. Ould Haidallah, who had vehemently denied planning the ouster of President Maaouiya Ould Taya while running in a controversial election against him last month, was also ordered to pay 400,000 ouguiyas (US$1,550). He said he planned to lodge an appeal with the supreme court.
■ Italy
Smoky bars could go
The smoke-filled bar may soon be a thing of the past in Italy. Since yesterday, more than 200,000 bars and restaurants are subject to a new rule that requires designated smoking areas to be sealed off from the rest of the premises and equipped with powerful ventilators. Owners have 12 months to comply, or face heavy fines and temporary closure. A second rule, starting on New Year's Day, blocks vending machines from operating between 9am and 7pm. In the future, the machines will only accept purchases from customers with an electronic identity card proving they are not
under-age.
■ Guatemala
Berger takes the lead
A pro-business former mayor of Guatemala City had a strong lead over a center-left engineer who billed himself as the candidate of the poor late Sunday in a presidential run-off election marred by low voter turnout. With 71 percent of the votes counted, conservative Oscar Berger had 55.9 percent, compared to 44.02 percent for his opponent, Alvaro Colom. Berger served as mayor of Guatemala City from 1990 until 1999 and garnered 29 percent more votes in the capital than his opponent, according to initial results released by the election commission.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CARTEL ARRESTS: The president said that a US government operation to arrest two cartel members made it jointly responsible for the unrest in the state’s capital Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday blamed the US in part for a surge in cartel violence in the northern state of Sinaloa that has left at least 30 people dead in the past week. Two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan in what appears to be a fight for power after two of its leaders were arrested in the US in late July. Teams of gunmen have shot at each other and the security forces. Meanwhile, dead bodies continued to be found across the city. On one busy street corner, cars drove
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
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