■ Philippines
Former hostage testifies
An American missionary kidnapped and held for more than a year by Muslim militants in the Philippines testified against her suspected former captors yesterday in an emotional return to the country. Gracia Burnham, whose husband Martin died in a rescue attempt by troops in June 2002, identified 6 out of 8 suspected members of Abu Sayyaf, which is linked to al-Qaeda, as having taken part in the kidnapping of 3 Americans and 17 Filipinos from a beach resort in 2001.
■ Japan
Fischer gets bigwig backer
An influential Japanese politician said yesterday he has volunteered to be Bobby Fischer's legal guarantor and urged immigration authorities to release the former world chess champion from an airport detention cell where he is being processed for deportation. Ichiji Ishii, a former deputy foreign minister and three-term member of Parliament, said he was volunteering to support Fischer "as a person who likes chess, and as a friend." Fischer was detained after trying to board a plane for the Philippines on July 13 with an invalid passport. "There is no danger of him hiding or disappearing," Ishii said.
■ Australia
Weeping statues are fakes
Two "bleeding and weeping" statues that drew thousands of the faithful to a Vietnamese church in this eastern Australian city are fakes, the Catholic Church said Thursday after investigating them. "The substance that seeped from the artifacts is very like one that is commercially available and it is possible that the substance was applied to them by human hands," Brisbane's Roman Catholic Archbishop John Bathersby said. The church investigation was ordered after thousands of people flocked to the Vietnamese Community Church in Brisbane, believing the statues were miracles.
■ Singapore
Regime shuns conformism
The Singapore government -- which has traditionally emphasized conformity -- is urging young people to rebel. Acting Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan on Thursday described conditions in the city-state as "over-protective" and said Singaporean youths should visit poorer neighboring states like Malaysia and Indonesia to broaden their horizons, the Straits Times reported. "I would prefer your generation to be rebellious," Khaw told a student group. "If you are just conforming to the social norms, then you are merely following our footpath, which may not be relevant to you." Few citizens speak openly about their views, as speaking up has sometimes met with stern official responses.
■ Germany
TV news quickly forgotten
The next time you watch the news on TV, just remember you are going to forget most of it. According to a study in Germany, most viewers completely forget what they see on the TV news the day before. Seven in 10 people in the survey had forgotten the most important political news item they had seen the previous evening. One top story on German TV news -- about a major company wanting to re-introduce the 40-hour week -- had been forgotten by 98 per cent of those surveyed. The news items people best remember are those with emotional content or which are accompanied by strong pictures, the TV program magazine TV Hoeren und Sehen reported.
■ United States
British MP snubbed
Organizers of the Republican National Convention in New York next month have banned a British Labour parliamentarian on the grounds that he is not conservative enough, British newspapers reported yesterday. "This is the first time this has happened and we are far from pleased," Member of Parliament Alan Williams, chairman of the British-American Parliamentary Group, said. "I find it singularly strange that Labour MPs can be welcomed on the floor of Congress but not at the Republican convention. They said they didn't want any politician who wasn't a conservative on the floor of the convention center," he added.
■ United States
Volcano warning
Noting a swarm of tiny earthquakes beneath volcanic Mount Spurr, scientists have warned that the volcano 130km west of Anchorage could erupt in the next few weeks. Eruptions most often follow a pattern of quakes, said geophysicist John Power of the US Geological Survey, one of three federal and state partners in the Anchorage-based Alaska Volcano Observatory. Power added, however, that the earthquakes will most likely end without an eruption. Mount Spurr was last significantly active in 1992. In an August explosion that year, it spread a thin layer of ash over Anchorage.
■ Canada
No need to strip for visa
The government is denying reports its visa officers are sifting through hundreds of nude photos from women hoping to enter the country to work as strippers and exotic dancers. But immigration officials admit they do require photographic evidence from applicants of their trade -- and say its all done to crack down on trafficking in women. In May, reports from Mexico said immigration officers were ferreting through pictures of strippers to ensure they were bona fide applicants. "We never, never ask for nude photographs," Immigration Canada spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said. "The applicants are asked to provide evidence that they are professional dancers," she said, adding that photos could be taken in clubs before a performance.
■ United States
Moore film shown near Bush
Hundreds of people gathered in a rural parking lot near US President George W. Bush's Texas ranch on Wednesday to watch Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, although the filmmaker canceled plans to attend. Sitting before a giant inflatable movie screen, filmgoers from across Texas booed and cheered as Moore's record-setting anti-war film satirically recounted Bush's controversial 2000 election and lambasted his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and his reasons for going to war in Iraq. Some at the screening booed and catcalled when Moore appeared in the film with his signature baseball hat and blue jeans.
■ United Kingdom
Cleaners tear down artwork
A British local council commissioned work from a local artist to brighten a pedestrian subway before mistakenly cleaning it off later the same day, thinking it was illegal flyer posting, a report said yesterday. Artist Tom Bloor spent nine hours pasting a collage of colorful pop art-style posters onto the subway in Birmingham, central England, as part of a visual arts festival in the city, the Daily Telegraph reported. The work was created with the blessing of the city council, which forgot to inform its cleaning division. After a complaint from a local resident, council cleaners ripped down the still unfinished artwork in the belief the posters were illegal advertising flyers.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two
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