■ Bangladesh Tornadoes kill at least 48 \n \nTornadoes tore through northern Bangladesh, killing at least 48 people, injuring hundreds and blowing away thousands of flimsy huts, the United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency reported yesterday. The twisters swept through nearly two dozen farming villages in Netrokona and neighboring Mymensingh districts on Wednesday night. Most people were home after celebrating the Bengali New Year's day, Pahela Baishakh, with colorful parades and fairs. UNB reported that least 36 people were killed in Netrokona, 130km north of the capital, Dhaka. \n \n■ Australia \nHoward queries court ruling \n \nPrime Minister John Howard yesterday questioned a court's decision to allow a 13-year-old girl who believes she is a boy to begin sex-change treatment. Howard, who describes himself as a social conservative, said he believed the Family Court might have gone too far in the case of the girl, known only as Alex. He said he was seeking further advice on what was a "very difficult, traumatic and sad situation." He did not say whether he would seek to have the decision appealed in a higher court. The Family Court ruled in favor of allowing Alex to undergo preliminary sex change processes after hearing she became suicidal at the onset of puberty and genuinely believed she was a boy trapped in a girl's body. \n \n■ Afghanistan \nTaliban mount attack \n \nGunmen killed a district police chief and eight Afghan soldiers in an ambush in a southern province, a senior official said yesterday, in an attack claimed by the Taliban militia. The assailants fired AK-47 assault rifles and heavy machine guns on two four-wheel drive vehicles carrying Yar Mohammed, police chief of Mizan district in Zabul province, and the soldiers around 10am on Wednesday. There were no survivors. "Taliban did this attack," said Zabul Governor Khyal Mohammed. He said one of the attackers had been killed when the soldiers fired back during the ambush. \n \n■ Australia \nFat guy outruns cops \n \nA chubby, barefoot Australian man outran police Wednesday when he bolted through security gates left open at the back of a court he was being led into, officials said. Security footage showed the overweight man dashing down a back lane in central Sydney pursued by at least four police and prison guards, two of whom tripped while giving chase. "There was about seven or eight fellows but they couldn't stop him. He was a big fellow, pretty strong, but he could run," witness Chris Swift said. Red-faced police and prison officials were left to blame each other for the security slip-up. \n \n■ Australia \nPM to ax Aboriginal body \n \nAustralia's top Aboriginal body will be abolished because it has failed to help the nation's impoverished indigenous population, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday. Howard said his government would introduce legislation dissolving the group next month. His pledge came less than three weeks after the opposition Labor Party said it would ax the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission if it wins elections expected later this year. "We believe very strongly that the experiment in elected representation for indigenous people has been a failure," Howard said. "We will not replace [this body] with an alternative body,'' Howard said. \n■ United States Muslim chaplain cleared \n \nThe US military dismissed convictions on Wednesday against a Muslim chaplain who was initially suspected of espionage at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects but found guilty only on lesser, sex-related charges. The appellate decision by Army General James Hill, the Southern Command chief who oversees US military operations at Guantanamo, wiped the slate clean for Captain James Yee, who ministered for 10 months to foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His decision ended what one of Yee's lawyers called a "hoax" case against the chaplain. Yee, 36, was found guilty last month of non-criminal charges of committing adultery and storing pornography on a government computer. \n \n■ United States \nHawaiians go dough-nuts \n \nApparently doughnuts can clog more than just your arteries. Hawaii residents love Krispy Kreme doughnuts so much that they often stock up at a new store in Maui before boarding inter-island flights back home, overloading airline luggage bins along the way. Hawaii's first Krispy Kreme store opened on Jan. 27 in Maui, less than a mile from Kahului Airport. Doughnut shops are sprinkled liberally across the Hawaiian islands. But the novelty of a major chain, combined with the widespread custom of omiage -- bringing gifts home to family and friends -- have given rise to the commuter doughnut. \n \n■ United Kingdom \n`Tooth Ferry' to the rescue \n \nA local councilor fed up with the exorbitant prices charged by Britain's dentists has come up with an alternative plan: he will ship people to France for cheap operations on what he is calling the "Tooth Ferry." Bernard Buckle, who represents Cowes on the Isle of Wight, has already gained interest from more than 20 people in his plan to organize a coach and ferry trip to Normandy in northern France. Buckle \nwas quoted yesterday as saying he felt that traveling to continental Europe was the only way for people on the Isle of Wight to receive affordable dental treatment. Britain's National Health Service does not offer treatment on the island. \n \n■ Germany \nSchroeder blocks thriller \n \nGerman Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has won an injunction to halt the sale of a crime thriller called The End of the Chancellor which featured a likeness of him in the hairs of a gunsight on its cover. The book tells the story of a German chemist who blames the government when his business goes bankrupt. His quest for revenge leads him to shoot the head of government -- never identified by name -- on the steps of Hanover train station. Hanover is Schroeder's home town. "We didn't really think too much about it and thought it was too unimportant," said Dietrich Reinhardt, the book's publisher. \n \n■ Macedonia \nPM wins voting round \n \nMacedonia's prime minister won the first round of this Balkan country's election to replace a president killed \nin a plane crash, unofficial results showed. With 80 percent of the vote counted in Wednesday's election, Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski had about 42.9 percent or about 332,000 votes. Sasko Kedev of the opposition VMRO party was next with 34.5 percent or about 267,000 votes. The two candidates will compete in a runoff in two weeks.
Two-year-old Xu Haoyang (徐灝洋) has likely just months to live — but the only medicine that can help his rare genetic condition is not found anywhere in China and closed borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic mean that he cannot travel for treatment. Instead, his desperate father, Xu Wei (徐偉), has created a home laboratory to create a remedy for the boy himself. “I didn’t really have time to think about whether to do it or not. It had to be done,” the 30-year-old said from his DIY lab in an apartment building in southwestern Kunming. Haoyang has Menkes syndrome, a genetic disorder
ANGER OVER PARTNERSHIP: After Ukraine purchased drones from a Turkish company, Russia asked Turkey ‘to deal as seriously as possible’ with its concerns over helping Kiev A Ukrainian soldier was killed by pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, the government said on Friday, as the West accuses Moscow of a troop buildup near Ukraine. Kiev’s army has been battling fighters in two breakaway regions bordering Russia since 2014, after Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russia of sending troops and arms across the border to support the separatists — claims that Moscow denies. Kiev’s military on Friday said that the separatists had targeted Ukrainian military positions with artillery and mortars. “As a result of hostilities, one serviceman was fatally wounded,”
BURNING, LOOTING: The demonstrators called for Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to step down over failure to deliver infrastructure, among other complaints Solomon Islands police yesterday fired tear gas in the capital, Honiara, as crowds of protesters set fire to buildings, including a police station, and looted shops in an eruption of anger at the government, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported. The protest was led by people from the Pacific nation’s largest island, Malaita Province, about 120km from the capital. They were demanding that Solomon Island Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare step down over failure to deliver promised infrastructure among other complaints, RNZ said. The protest began peacefully, but most schools and businesses in Honiara were closed by the afternoon as crowds tried to enter the
Tour guide Lai Chi Phuc has been counting down the days until travelers return to the white-sand beaches and thick tropical jungle of Vietnam’s Phu Quoc, a once-poor fishing island pushing to be Asia’s next holiday hot spot as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions ease. Yesterday, about 200 South Koreans were to arrive on the island, which lies a few kilometers off Cambodia in the azure waters of the Gulf of Thailand, after a vaccine passport scheme started this month in Vietnam. Far from a lazy beach break, their stay promises to be a whirlwind of action and entertainment as they shuffle between a
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