■ Philippines
Typhoon claims 23 lives
The death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year rose to 23 yesterday, as rescue workers rushed to clear landslides and send food and medicine to isolated areas, disaster officials said. Thousands of people were displaced by typhoon Mindulle, which packed winds of 190km per hour and gusts of up to 230km per hour as it swept past the northern region of the main Luzon island. Crop and infrastructure damage was estimated at US$9.8 million, mostly in rice- and corn-growing areas in Cagayan Valley region.
■ Indonesia
Officials want terror suspect
Indonesia wants to interrogate top regional terror suspect Hambali and told US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday that its appeal for access to the suspect -- who is in US custody -- is more urgent following the recent arrests of six militants here. Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda made the request at a meeting with Powell on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in Jakarta, Indonesian officials said. Powell said US authorities would consider the request, according to foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa. Hambali allegedly was the operations chief of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, blamed for the 2002 nightclub bombings on Indonesia's Bali island.
■ Hong Kong
Man requests alien ears
A young man in eastern China is having plastic surgery to make his ears look like an alien's, a news report said yesterday. The man from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, went to doctors saying he was unhappy with the shape of his ears and wanted pointy ears like a creature from another planet. Doctors tried to talk him out of the idea but he insisted on going ahead with the plastic surgery, according to the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily newspaper. He told surgeons he plumped for the alien look because he wanted to have "a more interesting shape" to his ears, the newspaper said.
■ South Korea
Peddler flogs fake Viagra
Counterfeit Viagra made in North Korea has turned up on the streets of South Korea, where police detained a man for peddling a bogus version of the pill. Police officers in Seoul said yesterday they were holding Bu Hyun-shik, 52, after confiscating close to 3,000 pills that they said Bu claimed were made in North Korea. "The pills are white, round and wrapped in aluminum foil," as opposed to the blue oval shape of Pfizer's erectile dysfunction medication, police said. Viagra is sold in pharmacies in Seoul at about 15,000 won (US$13) a pill, triple Bu's price tag of 5,000 won.
■ Turkey
Bomb kills three
Three people were killed and 15 injured yesterday when a car bomb exploded in eastern Turkey as the provincial governor drove by, Anatolia news agency reported. Van governor Hikmet Tan, who escaped unhurt, told NTV television that a car bomb had exploded in the center of the town as his official convoy passed by. A second bomb was defused shortly afterwards, police spokesman Ramazan Er said in Ankara. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the region has long been a battleground between security forces and secessionist rebels.
■ United Nations
Money needed for HIV
The world will need between US$5.1 and US$5.9 billion to meet a UN target to ensure that 3 million poor people get access to anti-HIV drugs by the end of next year, experts say. The estimate comprises drugs, medical support and administrative and logistical costs, they say. The so-called Three by Five initiative was launched by the WHO and the specialist agency UNAIDS in September last year. Its focus is on low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Africa, which are bearing the brunt of the global AIDS pandemic but cannot afford antiretroviral drugs.
■ India
Blame it on Vishwakarma
India's railways minister has absolved himself of blame for accidents plaguing the world's largest train network, saying the fate of its 13 million daily passengers rested with the Hindu god of machines, Vishwakarma. "Indian Railways is the responsibility of Lord Vishwakarma," Laloo Prasad Yadav said, as quoted yesterday by The Times of India newspaper. "So is the safety of passengers. It is his duty, not mine. I have been forced to don his mantle," the mercurial minister said.
■ Australia
Slime hides soft hearts
Some species of leeches brood like birds and mammals, carrying their newborns and nurturing their young. The Australian leech is the first known example of an invertebrate caring for its young into maturity, said biologist Fred Govedich at Monash University. "Although the word leech is often considered synonymous with selfishness and exploitation, many leeches are devoted parents," Govedich said yesterday. A study has found the leech carries its young for up to six weeks after hatching, gathers food and protects them from predators. The leeches also gather in groups of up to 50 and will provide food to others' young. "It is fascinating that an invertebrate is displaying vertebrate-like parenting," Govedich said.
■ Italy
Teens forced off scooters
An estimated 400,000 Italian teenagers were forced to hang up the keys to their scooters and walk on Thursday when a new law came into force making it illegal for them to drive without a permit. Previously anybody was allowed to drive a scooter with an engine of up to 50cc from the age of 14 without so much as a license or a driving lesson. Under the new law, people under 18 have to take classes in the rules of the road and pass a written test. Motor organizations and teenagers have complained there has not been enough time to complete the courses and the tests.
■ United States
Army warms to medallions
The Army has reversed a decision and will continue
to help a nonprofit
group distribute honorary medallions that cite a Bible verse. Fallen Friend, which since 1995 has distributed nearly 2,000 medallions to survivors of those killed in the line of duty, had been told by the Army in May that it could no longer help forward the medallions because
the inscription "John 15:13"
was inappropriate and might offend some families. The verse, which itself is not on the gold-colored medallion, reads, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
■ United States
US pulls out UN personnel
The US military will pull
tiny contingents out of two
UN peacekeeping missions because US forces are
no longer exempt from international prosecution
for war crimes, a Pentagon spokesman said. A seven-person team will be removed from the UN mission keeping the peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and two liaison officers will be taken out of the UN mission in Kosovo, spokesman Larry Di Rita said. "It was determined ... that the risk was not appropriate to our forces, and so they were withdrawn," Di Rita said. Four personnel assigned to the Ethiopia-Eritrea mission will leave immediately and three others will depart once replacements are found, he said.
■ United States
Bases ban soda cans
As part of a summer promotion, some Coke
cans contain cell phones
and global positioning chips,
but officials at some military installations voiced concerns that the cans could be used
to eavesdrop, and said they
are instituting protective measures. Coca-Cola says such concerns are nothing but fizz. Asked if Coke would curtail the promotional campaign because of the alleged security issues raised, spokesman Mart Martin said, "No. There's no reason to." Winners activate the device by pushing the button, which can only call Coke's prize center, he said. "It cannot
be an eavesdropping device,"
he said. Nonetheless, military bases are restricting the cans.
■ Iraq
Murder probe held over
Proceedings against a
US captain charged with murdering an Iraqi follower
of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been postponed while his division redeploys to Germany, the US military said yesterday. "The Article 32 investigation will reconvene in Germany in late July," the military said in a statement. Captain Rogelio Maynulet of the 1st Armored Division was charged on
June 12 with murder and dereliction of duty for the suspected killing of a follower of al-Sadr, the statement
said. On May 21, Mohammed al-Tabtabai was arrested as he headed to Najaf, 160km south of Baghdad.
■ United Kingdom
Bonnie and Clyde ride again
British police are hunting for a couple who held up a string of banks by posing as a
knife-wielding raider and his helpless female hostage, a report said yesterday. The duo, dubbed a British Bonnie and Clyde after the famous US gangster couple of the 1930s, have robbed at least six banks in the past six weeks, the Times said. The crimes have all begun with the man bursting into a bank and grabbing what appears to be a random female customer -- his accomplice -- before holding a knife to her throat and demanding that staff hand over money. Police said they had not ruled out
that the pair, described as possibly being of Eastern European origin, might even be a mother-and-son team.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
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