■ 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.
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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