■ Thailand
Police issue piranha alert
Thai police have issued a warning that flesh-eating piranhas may be lurking in Bangkok's waterways. "Let me warn people who live by the river or canals to be careful when going into the water," said a police colonel, according to a report Sunday in the Bangkok Post news-paper. Although none of the fish, native to South Amer-ica, have yet been found in Bangkok's network of rivers and canals, authorities fear they could be there. Police raids on wildlife dealers illegally trading piranhas may have inspired others to release their stock into waterways, the paper cited a wildlife official as saying.
■ Thailand
Man overdoses on durian
An elderly man in northern Thailand died after eating a large amount of durian, a pungent but wildly popular fruit that can overheat the body's metabolism, a news report said yesterday. Thavin Chaiya, 68, purchased one of fruits on Sunday in Chiang Mai province and was feasting with friends on the durian's yellow flesh. Villagers were quoted by The Nation newspaper as saying Thavin suddenly called for water and then his eyes bulged and he fell to the floor and began convulsing. He died on the way to hospital. Medical officials said he was the second person to die from eating durian in the past month.
■ South Korea
Deceitful wife must pay
A court ordered a woman to pay her husband 50 million won (US$42,380) in com-pensation for having a baby with another man. The 26-year-old woman told her husband in February 2002 she was pregnant with his baby, and demanded that they marry. The man grew suspicious when relatives complained that the baby didn't look like him at all.
■ Saudi Arabia
Wife-beater sentenced
A husband who severely battered his wife, a popular TV presenter, has been sentenced to six months in jail and 300 lashes, a newspaper reported yesterday, after a national outcry in Saudi Arabia. Muhammad Bakar Yunus Al-Fallatta repeatedly smashed his wife's head into the walls and tiled floor and dumped her unconscious at hospital on April 4, Arab News said. Rania al-Baz, who suffered 13 facial fractures and is still having reconstructive surgery, agreed to have photographs of her injuries published in the press in a campaign to raise awareness of a kingdom-wide problem. Al-Fallatta was found guilty Saturday of severe battery after an attempted murder charge was dropped.
■ Pakistan
Security stepped up
Police stepped up security patrols yesterday while Islamic hardliners called for a nationwide strike after a leading pro-Taliban cleric was gunned down, touching off massive rioting by his followers. The situation was tense but there was no immediate outbreak of violence following a day of unrest that saw police fire tear gas and warning shots to disperse rioters who set fire to banks, shops, a police station and a KFC fast-food restaurant. Police formed a special task force to investigate the slaying of Nazamuddin Shamzai, a cleric in his seventies who had been a strong supporter of the Taliban.
■ Great Britain
Terror measures considered
Britain is considering radical anti-terrorism measures, including closed-door legal hearings overseen by "security-cleared" judges and restrictions on suspects, in in an attempt to tackle Islamic terror groups, according to a newspaper report yesterday. The ideas, part of a Home Office review launched in February, come amid growing concern that the 562 arrests under Britain's current anti-terror laws since the September 11 attacks in the US have led to only 14 convictions, the Financial Times reported. The closed-door hearings would be part of a two-tier trial system.
■ Great Britain
Bacteria could cure cancer
Genetically modified bacteria could provide a potent new weapon against cancer, scientists believe. Researchers have used engineered E.coli bacteria to wipe out a variety of cancer cells in the laboratory. They also succeeded in slowing down the progression of skin cancer in mice. The bacteria were used to smuggle a tumor-busting enzyme into cancer cells. Normally the enzymes would be barred from entering cells or broken down before they can take action. The researchers modified the bacteria to ensure they were harmless, and gave them the ability to penetrate cell membranes.
■ Malaysia
Woman dances on nails
An instructor of Indian traditional dance swirled and swayed on a bed of nails for more than 30 minutes in Kuala Lumpur, leaving her with slightly bloodied feet and claims to a record. S. Mathevi, in bare feet and traditional Indian costume, performed a dance called Baratham on a floor of about 10,000 nails in the central city of Ipoh to help raise awareness of the non-nail version of the art form. "I practiced dancing on hot sand four times a day for a month to strengthen the soles of my feet," said Mathevi, 25. "My tutor would also hit the soles of my feet with a stick for the same purpose."
■ Italy
Bush `normal': Berlusconi
US President George W. Bush is often misunderstood by those who do not know him personally and are unaware of his sensitive side, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in a television interview on Sunday. "He's a normal man, absolutely open to everyone's feelings. He's a family man, a husband, a father of two children who he loves very much. He's someone absolutely like us," Berlusconi, who revels in the role as Bush's closest European ally behind British Prime Minister Tony Blair, told RAI3's Telecamere. "He has very deep feelings, especially for the US victims [in Iraq] ... his pain is deep."
■ Spain
ETA fails to kill for a year
Spain on Sunday marked its first full year for more than three decades -- barring truces -- without a killing by the armed Basque separatist group ETA, as one of Europe's oldest and bloodiest terrorist groups was confirmed to be in serious decline. Not since the early 1970s, when the group was starting out during the Franco dictator-ship, have its attempts to plant bombs or carry out attacks failed so consis-tently. The only previous year-long gap in the killing came when ETA called a unilateral, but temporary, ceasefire in 1998. At its height, in the late 1970s and mid-1980s, it killed between 30 and 90 people a year.
■ United Kingdom
Bono planning Live Aid 2
Bono, lead singer of Irish rock group U2, is planning a second Live Aid concert, 20 years after the original charity extravaganza raised US$110 million for famine-hit Ethiopia, a British newspaper reported yesterday. The proceeds from Live Aid 2 would go to reducing the international debt of developing nations, The Sun tabloid reported. Bono, 44, is a long-time advocate for the cancellation of third world debt. U2 took part in the original 1985 Live Aid extravaganza, which was the brainchild of fellow Irish pop star Bob Geldof.
■ United States
Bush gets Saddam's gun
US President George W. Bush keeps in his White House offices a trophy of one his high points in the Iraq war -- the pistol that Saddam Hussein held when soldiers pulled him from his underground hideaway. Military specialists mounted the sidearm, and soldiers who helped in the deposed Iraqi president's capture presented it to the president, the White House said on Sunday. The president keeps the gun in a small study adjoining the Oval Office. Major-General Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said Saddam had the loaded pistol on his lap but didn't move to use it on Dec. 13.
■ Russia
Huge Tsar Bell rings again
Russia's largest church bell rang on Sunday in the sacred Orthodox town of Sergei Possad for the first time since it was torn down from its tower during a 1930 Stalinist purge against religion. The huge Tsar Bell, which is 4.55 meters high and weighs 72 tons, was hoisted into the tower of the Trinity St. Sergius monastery in April. It rang for 5,000 worshippers on Sunday at the monastery 35 miles northeast of Moscow. The bell was cast at a shipyard in Russian President Vladimir Putin's home city of St. Petersburg and bear the president's name in a centuries-old tradition that the tsar's name was engraved on the bell. Putin's administration has been criticized for its authoritarian tsarist nature.
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
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
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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