■ Afghanistan
Bomb kills police chief
A senior police official was killed in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad yesterday when a bomb attached to his office chair exploded, doctors said. Haji Ajab Shah was killed at the police headquarters of the city, the capital of Nangarhar Province, as the workday began. "His body is in the morgue," said a doctor at the hospital to which Shah was taken. The attack was the latest incident in a wave of violence in the run-up to landmark elections in September, most of which has been blamed on remnants of the ousted Taliban regime and their Islamic militant allies including al-Qaeda.
■ China
Radiation gadget missing
Hundreds of police in Shanghai were searching yesterday for a small cylinder containing a gamma-ray apparatus capable of transmitting fatal doses of radiation, Chinese state press reported yesterday. The 10kg box containing the instrument used to perform industrial radiography on construction sites disappeared early Saturday after a company driver parked a car carrying the cylinder outside his flat, the Shanghai Daily said. When he returned, the canister clearly marked with a radioactive sign, was missing. Press reports said a two day-search in the city's northern Jingshan district had yet to yield results.
■ Indonesia
Potholes cause protests
Indonesian residents protesting at the state of their street have planted banana trees and released catfish in its huge potholes, a report said yesterday. "We want this street to be immediately repaired," Pos Kota newspaper quoted protester Otong Sasmita as saying. He said Perjuangan avenue in Bekasi just east of Jakarta was used by heavy vehicles serving a nearby industrial center and had been potholed for years. Protesters have released baby eels and catfish in water-filled potholes and planted scores of banana trees in others.
■ China
Tycoon gets 6-year term
A real estate tycoon once ranked as China's 11th-richest man was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison on charges of fraud and stock manipulation. Zhou Zhengyi (周正毅) was sentenced by the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate Court, the official Xinhua News Agency said. A court spokesman declined to confirm the report. Zhou was ranked in 2002 by Forbes Magazine as number 11 in its list of China's wealthiest people. It estimated his fortune at that time at US$320 million. He made millions running restaurants and shops before branching out into property development, but ran afoul of regulators and was arrested in September. It wasn't clear if time Zhou has already spent in jail would be counted toward the sentence. There was no word on whether Zhou would appeal.
■ Malaysia
Whipping demos halted
In the face of public condemnation, Malaysia has suspended a nationwide program to hold whipping demonstrations in primary schools, news reports said yesterday. The road show of sorts, which was aimed at reducing the rate of serious juvenile offences like rape and drug trafficking, will continue to be held in secondary schools for older students, said deputy internal security minister Chia Kwang Chye. Chia said the government would also conduct a study to decide whether the program should be abandoned or changes made should be made to it.
■ United States
Last Civil War widow dies
Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died on Monday in Alabama, ending an ascent from sharecropper's daughter
to the belle of 21st-century Confederate history buffs. She was 97, dying nearly
140 years after the Civil War ended. Her marriage in the 1920s to Civil War veteran William Jasper Martin and her longevity made her a celebrated final link to the old Confederacy. After living in obscurity and poverty
for most of her life, in
her last years the Sons of Confederate Veterans took her to conventions and rallies, often with a small Confederate battle flag in her hand. "I don't see nothing wrong with the flag flying," she said frequently.
■ United Kingdom
Britain backs PRC on arms
Britain is likely to back anticipated moves by some EU nations to end a 15-year-long ban on arms sales to China, a report said late Monday. Britain is expected to line up alongside France and Germany in arguing that the restrictions, imposed after the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, should be ended, the Times said. However any moves would most likely come to nothing as the US would oppose the move and could even block European nations which sell arms to China from having access to US military technology, the newspaper said yesterday.
■ Bosnia
Blood to identify victims
Teams are to be sent across Europe to collect blood samples from relatives of victims of the 1990s conflict in the former Yugoslavia in
a bid to identify some 25,000 people still unaccounted for. Thousands of bodies have been exhumed from about 300 mass graves in Bosnia alone, but most have yet
to be identified. Launching
the drive on Monday, the International Commission
on Missing Persons said it would use missing persons' associations and cultural clubs to try to track down expatriate families scattered across Europe.
■ Georgia
Troops sent to border
Hundreds of Georgian troops were deployed at
the border of South Ossetia yesterday after the leader
of the pro-Russian separatist region vowed to fight back if invaded. In a show of force amid rising tensions, Georgia sent in troops to the border of the breakaway region
on Monday. Russian peacekeepers are patrolling
inside South Ossetia where
most people hold Russian passports. Military sources said some 400 interior ministry troops had been sent to Georgia's trading posts with South Ossetia
and that their main task was
to stamp out illegal trade.
But Georgia has agreed to withdraw some of the troops after reaching an agreement with South Ossetia's Russian authorities.
■ Portugal
Seven on trial over abuse
Seven people, including one of Portugal's top TV personalities, were ordered on Monday to stand trial for sexually abusing children at an orphanage, Lusa news agency said, but charges were dropped against a former minister. The case has riveted the Iberian nation since allegations of sexual abuse surfaced in late 2002. The allegations have centered on a Lisbon orphanage run by the Casa Pia child-shelter system, which cares for thousands of children nationwide. Six men and one woman will
be tried, Lusa said. Charges were dropped against former Cabinet minister Paulo Pedroso and another suspect.
■ United Kingdom
Cheese pursuit injures 21
It is perhaps a mark of Britain's proudly-worn reputation for eccentricity that one of its least-heralded yet highly dangerous sporting events sees competitors risk life and limb in the name of dairy produce. In all, 21 people were hurt during Friday's annual cheese rolling race at Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire, central England, where competitors pelt recklessly down a steep slope in pursuit of a 32kg cheese. The rewards for such peril are, of course, minimal. The winners receives the by-now rather dented cheese, while the runner-up gets ?5 (US$9) and third place secures a princely ?3 (US$5.5). Yet modern-day winners can count themselves lucky. From 1941 to 1954, when Britain faced food rationing during and after World War II, competitors raced for a wooden cheese containing just a piece of the real stuff inserted into a small hole.
■ Russia
Kremlin gets imperial mark
The ultimate endorsement a company can have may well be the coat of arms of the ruler on your product. In a bid to immerse itself in the commercial age, the Kremlin has started offering its emblem and the chance to be known as an official supplier to the Russian elite to certain favored products. By the end of the year select goods will be allowed to carry a small crest bearing the red, white and blue of the Russian flag and the Kremlin's golden gate and eagle. They can also say they have been "admitted for use in the official residence of the president of the Russian Federation, `the Moscow Kremlin.'" The move to create a Kremlin crest of approval similar to the Queen of England's will intensify suggestions that Vladimir Putin's administration is becoming more like its tsarist predecessors rather than a democratically elected state.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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