■ Hong Kong
Boy survives six-story fall
A four-year-old boy survived a six-floor fall yesterday after being left at home alone by his mother in their high-rise apartment. The boy climbed out of a window while his mother took his older sister to school. The mother said the boy had been asleep when she left him. She found him lying outside the apartment block when she returned, a police spokesman said. The boy's condition was described as stable and he did not appear to have suffered any serious injuries.
■ Pakistan
Quake toll rises to 24
The death toll from an earthquake that hit northern Pakistan over the weekend has risen to 24 as authorities struggled to clear blocked roads to carry out relief efforts, state media reported yesterday. Tents, food and medicines were rushed to the disaster area, but snow-fall and landslides have blocked the roads, an official said. The quake, measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale, was followed by an aftershock measuring 5.5. The epicenter was 200km northeast of Peshawar, seismologists said. Residents spent the night under open skies in extremely cold weather as the quake damaged hun-dreds of buildings, witnesses said.
■ Japan
Cult's offices raided
Some 200 police yesterday launched raids nationwide on offices of the Aum Shinrikyo sect responsible for the 1995 Sarin gas subway attack, ahead of the verdict in its founder Shoko Asahara's marathon trial. The Public Security Inves-tigation Agency raided 11 offices and exercise halls
run by the cult, now called Aleph. It was the largest raid on the cult since it was relaunched "as a new religious group" in 2000. Asahara has been on trial for more than seven years as
the alleged mastermind of Aum attacks, which resulted in the deaths of 27 people. He is accused of master-minding crimes including the Tokyo subway attack which killed 12 people and injured thousands and the murder of the entire family of an anti-Aum lawyer in 1989.
■ New Zealand
PM slams opposition
Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday that the main opposition leader would divide the country "down the middle" with his bid to abolish policies that he says favor the indigenous Maori. Last month, National Party leader Don Brash said if he came to power he would eliminate preferential treatment for the Maori by abolishing the seven parliamentary seats set aside for them and removing race-based laws set down to protect Maori. Brash's policies "will pit rich against poor and white against brown if it ever got traction," Clark said. She said some of his claims were "absolute fiction," while others "are outright lies and some are outright hypocrisy."
■ Bangladesh
Strike shuts down country
A third general strike in less than a week shut businesses and schools yesterday as the Awami League, the main opposition party, turned up the pressure on Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia's government to step down. Authorities deployed hundreds of extra police and paramilitary troops in the capital Dhaka and in the port city of Chittagong to try to avert violence. Witnesses said police detained about 40 protesters during raids in and around the league's main party office. Business leaders say each day of production lost to strikes costs the country at least US$60 million.
■ Germany
Police create SMS dragnet
German do-gooders seeking to help crack crimes will henceforth be able to communicate with police via mobile telephone text messages, Interior Minister Otto Schily announced Sunday. "The SMS can be of invaluable assistance in hunting down missing persons, in particular children," Schily said in a statement. Civilian informants could now also help police track down fugitive prisoners or criminals, the statement said, adding that the service was the first of its kind in the world. Police SMS messages requesting help will be sent to civilians who have volunteered for the program and are registered in an official directory. Professionals who have contact with the public, like taxi drivers and public transport workers, for instance, would be particularly helpful, the ministry said.
■ United States
Students plan readathon
A college drama group with a soft spot for William Shakespeare began a marathon session on Sunday evening to read all the legendary playwright's works in 24 hours. Unabridged. The Wellesley College Shakespeare Society is hoping their efforts will land them in the Guinness Book of Records as the first to read the works in such a short time. The reading was to include 39 plays, 154 sonnets and at least five poems from sunset on Sunday to sunset yesterday.
■ Serbia
Political deadlock ends
A six-week political deadlock in Serbia appeared to end on Sunday with two parties agreeing to join a minority coalition despite probable support from a group led by jailed ex-leader Slobodan Milosevic. Monarchists and liberals agreed separately at the weekend to join a three-party coalition led by the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) of former Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, a moderate nationalist seen as a likely new prime minister.
■ Russia
More survivors `unlikely'
Emergency workers digging through the wreckage of a collapsed Moscow swimming pool gave up hope of finding more survivors early yesterday, with at least 25 people confirmed dead and up to 13 bodies believed to be still in the ruins. The ministry for emergencies said that workers had stopped looking for survivors from the Transvaal Park watersports center, where the massive roof collapsed onto bathers on Saturday evening. Interfax news agency quoted the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzkhov, as saying that between nine and 13 bodies were believed to be still under the wreckage. The emergencies ministry earlier said that 24 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage since the collapse, and one person taken out alive had since died in hospital.
■ Israel
Settlers hold protest march
Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip staged a show of defiance Sunday against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to uproot them, staging a march to Jerusalem and standing by plans to build three new settlements. Meanwhile in Gaza City, more than 150 Palestinian journalists observed a one-day strike to protest recent physical attacks to which they have fallen prey. The settlers plan to converge on Sharon's official Jerusalem residence late tomorrow, where they hope to be joined by hundreds of right-wing supporters.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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