■ The Philippines
Abu Sayyaf leader caught
A leader of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist group which kidnapped an American in 2000 has been captured by troops in the southern Philippines, the military said yesterday. Bindang Andang, a member of the band that held American Jeffrey Schilling on the island of Jolo for almost nine months, was captured at Tawi-tawi island while aboard a ferry late Friday. Schilling was lured into the Abu Sayyaf camp in the jungles of Jolo in August 2000 and was held for months until he finally escaped during a military assault on the kidnappers. Andang, who had a one-million-peso (US$17,770) bounty on his head, has also been linked to numerous kidnappings of Filipinos over the years including the abduction of 53 students and teachers in the island of Basilan in early-2000.
■ Thailand
Trips for tip-offs
Frustrated in its attempts to retrieve more than 300 assault rifles stolen by suspected Muslim extremists, Thailand's army is offering a free pilgrimage to Mecca for anyone who helps secure the weapons' return. Thailand's Fourth Army region, responsible for security in southern Thailand, announced Friday that anyone who helped recover the guns stolen in a Jan. 4 raid on an army camp in Narathiwat province would be rewarded with air fare for flights to Mecca for three people. Each pilgrim would also get 20,000 baht (US$500) in pocket money. Generous cash offers for the return of the guns have apparently had no takers, although a few weapons have been recovered. The sole reward handed out so far has been to an army dog who sniffed out a buried M-16 rifle and received a sack of dog food and an artificial bone. Violence in Thailand's south, generally attributed to Muslim militants, surged after the Jan. 4 raid, in which four soldiers were killed. More than 300 people have been killed since then.
■ Australia
Iraq handover planned
Australia will withdraw about 60 military air traffic controllers from Iraq next month after transferring responsibility for Baghdad's International Airport to civilian staff, Defense Minister Robert Hill said yestyerday. "The handover to the Iraqi civilian authorities marks an important step in Iraq's transition and reconstruction," Hill said. Australia will maintain the level of its overall deployment in Iraq, with an army training program extended by six months and with a medical team and a scaled-down air traffic control team introduced to keep its numbers up to about 850 personnel.
■ New Zealand
Hookers get work manual
The government, in taking steps to legalize prostitution, has now issued a guide for sex workers. The 100-page Occupational Safety and Health guide to safe sex practices has been launched on a government Web site with the caution: "Warning: this document contains sexually explicit material." The recommendations -- which the New Zealand Herald said yesterday will also be distributed to brothels and sex workers -- include detailed advice on safe sex practices such as the storage and handling of sex toys and disinfecting equipment. Employers are also asked to ensure condoms in a variety of shapes and sizes are always available, and to provide beds that support the back for a variety of services to be performed without strain or discomfort.
■ Libya
No troops, Qaddafi says
Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi has urged fellow Arab and Muslim nations not to send troops into Iraq, the official news agency reported yesterday. "Arab and Muslim troops should not be sent to Iraq unless the occupation forces with-draw," JANA quoted Qaddafi as saying in a statement. He also said that a UN resolution was also needed to sanction sending these troops to the war-torn Arab country. Saudi Arabia has suggested dispatching Arab and Muslim troops to Iraq.
■ Ivory Coast
Peace deal reached
The rival factions in the Ivory Coast conflict reached a new peace deal late on Friday designed to end the power struggle that has divided the country for nearly two years, officials said. The agreement was reached during marathon talks brokered by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a dozen African presidents at a seaside hotel in the Ghanaian capital Accra. Diplomatic officials and politicians from various sides said the accord sets out a timeline to bring the opposition back into a power-sharing government and begin disarmament.
■ Iraq
Protest pleases kidnappers
The kidnappers of four Jordanians in Iraq promised on Friday to release them yesterday because their relatives and others staged an anti-American demon-stration as demanded of them, the brother of one of the hostages said. The kidnapping became known Tuesday when Dubai Television broadcast a videotape showing four men holding their identification cards. A man off-camera said "all Muslim and Arab nations, especially those neighboring Iraq" should not cooperate with the Americans. Mohammed Abu Jaafar, whose brother Ahmad is being held, said late Friday that he received a call from one of the pur-ported kidnappers, who said they were pleased by the television pictures of the protest.
■ Portugal
Police chief burgled
The head of Portugal's police force was unfazed after his gun and two gold cuff links were stolen from his apartment in central Lisbon earlier this week, a daily newspaper reported Friday. Adelino Salvado told the newspaper 24Horas that the burglary, which occurred when he stepped out to have coffee, was "a fact of life ... It is something that happens constantly to one in every 1,500 citizens," he said.
■ Great Britain
Sorry, Italy, about the pork
Italy's ambassador to London succeeded Friday in getting withdrawn a public service poster on the grounds that it was offen-sive to his countrymen and libellous of their food. The poster was aimed at stamp-ing out the widespread habit of passengers on the capital's underground system of eating during their journeys, a practice many of their fellow tra-vellers dislike because of the smell. The offending poster showed an Italian charcutier (pork butcher) sitting in an underground train surrounded by Parma hams and Italian salami sausages. Ambassador Giancarlo Aragaona conveyed his "disappoint-ment" to London mayor Ken Livingstone and the poster was withdrawn. The underground authorities apologized to the Italian community and the manu-facturers of the pork products concerned.
■ United States
Top scientist arrested
A genetic scientist known as the "father of gene therapy" was arrested on Friday and charged with molesting a girl from when she was 10 years old, prosecutors said. Police arrested University of Southern California gene therapy pioneer William French Anderson, 67, after prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against him late on Thursday. Deputy District Attorney Catherine Brougham said the alleged crimes took place at Anderson's home. Anderson is charged with one count of continuous sexual abuse of the child over four years and five counts of committing lewd acts on the girl, who is now 17.
■ United States
Karaoke can be bad for you
Two people were killed and another injured early on Friday when an argument between two men escalated into gunfire in a karaoke club in Flushing, New York, police said. The argument began at 2:15am in the Red Rose nightclub. One man, Chan Quin Zou, 32, of Manhattan, was killed when the second man fired several times at him. Zou was hit four times, with one of the bullets also hitting a waitress in the leg, Detective Kevin Czartoryski said. A fifth bullet hit a second waitress in the head; she died at a nearby hospital. On Friday, detectives combed through the club, finding blood-stained napkins on the stairs, carpeted in purple with pink luminescent designs.
■ United States
Singer got Hilton tattoo
Paris Hilton left a permanent impression on ex-boyfriend Nick Carter -- literally. When the couple got tattoos together three weeks before their breakup late last month, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, 24, got ``Paris'' tattooed on his wrist, People magazine reported. Carter wouldn't say what Hilton had tattooed, but the pop star says he's harboring no regrets about the untimely ink: "No [I don't regret it], because I love her. She'll have a place in my heart, always." Hilton, 23, is speaking about the breakup as well. The hotel heiress-reality TV star told Us Weekly she decided to end it while having her makeup done at a photo shoot, but only after getting her psychic's opinion.
■ United States
Thief publicly punished
A woman who stole US$4.52 worth of fuel was ordered to stand outside the gas station wearing a sandwich board sign that declared: "I was caught stealing gas." Sherelle Purnell obeyed the court order, although by the time she arrived 90 minutes late to her Friday sentence, the crowd of people that gathered to watch her had dispersed. "There were parents who came with their children, wanting to teach them a lesson," said Jan Phipps, manager of Gordy's Tiger Mart, which pushed for the unorthodox punishment. Purnell, 18, who was caught on tape speeding away from the gas pump, walked along the convenience shop's grassy storefront as passing drivers honked horns and made catcalls.
■ United States
US opposes representation
The Justice Department said in a federal court filing on Friday that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who were seeking to file petitions challenging their detentions were not entitled to access to their lawyers to do so. The department said the prisoners were not entitled to see their lawyers because they were foreigners held outside the jurisdiction of the US. The government argued that despite the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling on June 28 that Guantanamo prisoners could challenge their detentions in federal courts, the prisoners still did not enjoy the rights provided by the Constitution.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
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
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