■ China
Five to die for oil theft
A Chinese court has sentenced five farmers to death for stealing crude oil from a pipeline that ran through their county, the government said yesterday. They were convicted on charges of damaging a flammable and explosive substance. The official Xinhua News Agency said 12 other farmers who helped steal the oil were given sentences ranging from 3 years to life in prison. China enforces the death penalty for numerous crimes, including many that are economic and nonviolent. The farmers in Henan's Puyang County were caught drilling holes in the oil pipeline in late 2002 and early last year, and the court said they stole oil worth 977,000 yuan (US$118,000).
■ Sri Lanka
Rebels kill own rebels
Tamil Tiger rebels yesterday gunned down seven members of a breakaway group and a government soldier near Colombo, police said. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam killed the men at a "safe house" of the breakaway faction of renegade commander V. Muralitharan, they said. Police said a soldier believed to be a military intelligence officer was also killed in the attack. Karuna led a rebel split in March and went underground five weeks later after disbanding up to 6,000 combatants. Since then clashes between the two groups have undermined peace negotiations.
■ Hong Kong
Fraud probe targets media
Hong Kong anti-corruption officers said yesterday they have raided several newspapers and arrested six people including a journalist in connection with a fraud probe involving a listed company. The Independent Commission Against Corrup-tion searched at least six news-papers Saturday, including the South China Morning Post and Apple Daily. The operation was in response to the naming in the media of a woman who, in court proceedings, claimed she was being held by the commission against her will. She was among nine people arrested two weeks ago for inflating a company's share price.
■ Vietnam
UN `wrong' on asylum
Vietnam yesterday criticized the UN refugee agency, accusing it of luring ethnic minority people to Cambodia from Vietnam's troubled Central Highlands with offers of asylum. In an interview with the state-controlled Vietnam News Agency, foreign ministry spokesman Le Dung said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had ignored warnings against its "wrong activities." He also criticized the agency for continuing to aid the fleeing minority people, who are known as Montagnards, despite Vietnam's claim that they were illegal immigrants and not political refugees. The UNHCR could not be reached for comment. The Christian Montagnards fled after Vietnamese security forces put down protests against religious persecution and land confiscation.
■ Malaysia
Mediums seek crash site
Malaysian authorities have enlisted the help of witch doctors to search for seven people missing since their helicopter was feared to have crashed in Borneo jungle nearly two weeks ago, a report said yesterday. The Sunday Star said several mediums and local witch doctors have been granted access to the village of Bario to give "readings" to locate the helicopter that vanished July 12 with five officials and two others.
■ United Kingdom
Top spy sacked
A senior intelligence official has been dismissed after publicly accusing British Prime Minister Tony Blair
of misleading the public
over Iraq's alleged weapons
of mass destruction, the Sunday Times newspaper said. John Morrison lost his job as chief investigator for the Intelligence and Security Committee after criticizing Blair in a TV interview, the newspaper said. Morrison had told how intelligence officials reacted in disbelief to Blair's claim that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the UK. "When I heard [Blair] using those words I could almost hear the collective raspberry going up around Whitehall," Morrison said in the interview.
■ United Kingdom
Diana `took every penny'
Princess Diana "took every penny" of Prince Charles' private fortune when the couple divorced in 1996,
just a year before her death, Charles' former financial adviser told the Sunday Telegraph. Geoffrey Bignell, who handled Charles' investments for 11 years, revealed he was effectively out of a job after the settlement, as the prince, who he described as "very unhappy" at the outcome, had nothing left. Although precise details were not revealed, Diana reportedly received a lump sum of ?17.5 million (US$32 million) and an allowance for her private office.
■ United Kingdom
Smoking ban to phase in
British Health Secretary John Reid has ordered Britain's publicans and restaurateurs to draw up plans to phase in smoking restrictions across all their premises as the
first step towards a blanket national ban. The dramatic ultimatum -- made in private to leading representatives
of the leisure industry last
week -- confirms that the government is genuine in
its desire to ban smoking
in public places. The phased strategy draws its inspiration from Norway, where the government started phasing in smoking restrictions in the late 1980s, stipulating that 25 percent of all tables in bars and restaurants must be
non-smoking. Over the next
15 years it increased the percentage, first to 50 percent, then 75, and finally to a full ban last month.
■ Turkey
Three arrested over crash
Turkish authorities pressed criminal charges against three crew members of a derailed express train that killed 37 people, but the government faced criticism for pushing through the high-speed rail project despite concern over the country's aging tracks. The derailment on Thursday in northwestern Turkey was among the
worst train accidents in the country's history. Three crew members -- the chief of the train and its two engineers -- were arrested late on Friday in connection with the accident, a local police official said on Saturday.
■ France
Mowing down the enemy
A group of self-styled Green vigilantes said they planned to hold a "Mowing Day" yesterday and deal a deathblow to tests of bio-engineered food crops. Led by Jose Bove, the farmers' union activist who helped
to demolish a partially built McDonald's restaurant in 1999 to protest US trade policy, the "Mowing Brigade" said on Saturday they
were angry the government approved tests of genetically modified (GM) food
crops despite clear public sentiment against them. Several hundred of the group's members were expected to hold the protest on one of the fields where GM crops are being tested.
■ United States
Clarke faults findings
Former White House anti-terrorism chief Richard Clarke on Saturday faulted the Sept. 11 commission's findings as soft and uncritical and said its proposed changes would have had little effect on the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. "Among
the obvious truths that
were documented but unarticulated were the facts that the Bush administration did little on terrorism before Sept. 11, and that by invading Iraq the administration has left us less safe as a nation," Clarke wrote in an article in Sunday's New York Times.
■ United States
Ethics probe over leak
The Justice Department has referred to the Senate Ethics Committee an investigation into whether a Republican senator or his staff leaked classified information, indicating that criminal charges are highly unlikely,
a federal law enforcement official said. The referral Thursday means that it is now up to the ethics panel
to decide if any action is warranted against Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama. The investigation concerned the 2002 disclosure to news reporters of two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency a day before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Those messages contained the words "the match begins tomorrow" and "tomorrow is zero day."
■ United States
Bush has slim electoral lead
John Kerry narrowly trails President George W. Bush
in the battle for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, as he makes his case at the Democratic National Convention this week to topple the Republican incumbent. Tall hurdles remain in his path, including Electoral College math that favors Bush. "It's a tough, tough map. I think it's going to be a close race," said Democratic strategist Tad Devine, who helped plot former vice president Al Gore's state-by-state strategy in 2000 and plays the same role for Kerry. With three months remaining, Kerry has 14 states and Washington, DC in his column for 193 electoral votes. Bush has
25 states for 217 votes, according to a press analysis.
■ United States
Bush to go after strong pot
New super-strength marijuana readily available on US streets is prompting the White House to change direction in its war against drugs. Research from the government-sponsored Marijuana Potency Project claims today's cannabis is more than twice as strong as in the mid-1980s. Now US President George W. Bush, who had already promised a more aggressive campaign against substance abuse, has ordered that resources be allocated to fighting so-called "soft" drugs instead of concentrating on harder forms, such as heroin and cocaine.
■ United States
Final `Star Wars' film set
The Star Wars science-fiction film series will conclude next year with Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, production company Lucasfilm said Saturday. The firm of series originator George Lucas announced the title at a sci-fi convention. The movie, scheduled for release in May of next year, will show the final transformation of Anakin Skywalker from talented, impetuous young Jedi knight to Dark-Side villain Darth Vader.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
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