■ Indonesia
Bombing suspect arrested
Police yesterday announced that they have detained a man who may be one of the masterminds of the suicide bombing at the Australian Embassy that killed nine people and injured nearly 180. Police chief General Dai Bachtiar told reporters that authorities on Wednesday stopped a man who fits the description of Noordin Mohamed Top, one of two Malaysian fugitives believed to have orchestrated the Sept. 9 attack. The man was detained at an airport. Noordin and fellow Malaysian militant Azahari bin Husin are allegedly top leaders in the al-Qaeda-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been blamed for a string of terror attacks.
■ Hong Kong
Sea god idol stolen
Someone stole a sea god idol from a Hong Kong temple, stumping investigators who said it had little monetary value but that such a theft is traditionally seen as inviting bad luck, a newspaper reported yesterday. The small, gold-covered statue of sea god Hung Shing Kung was reported missing on Wednesday after a caretaker at the Shau Kei Wan temple briefly left it unattended, the South China Morning Post reported. Several other statues not covered with gold were still on the main altar of the temple, the newspaper said. Police said the stolen statue had been valued at HK$1,000 (US$130).
■ Fiji
Reward for missing divers
The family of one of two divers who disappeared at sea near Fiji in a scenario eerily reminiscent of the plot of this summer's shark movie Open Water have offered a reward for information, local media reported yesterday. American Dan Granier, 54, and Australian Danielle Gibbons, 27, disappeared on Sept. 1 in waters off the town of Rakiraki on the northern coast of Fiji's main island of Vanua Levu. The Gibbons family offered a 10,000 Fiji dollars (US$5,400) reward for information leading to discovery of the two. The family said they had consulted a psychic who said that Danielle was on an island shaped like a horse-shoe.
■ Indonesia
Man arrested over pills
Police arrested an Australian man on the tourist island of Bali as he allegedly tried to send home more than 20,000 tablets of ephedrine -- a key ingredient in the production of methamphetamine, a police spokesman said yesterday. The 37-year-old man, identified as Christopher Currel, was arrested on Wednesday as he tried to send the chemical from a courier company on the island, police said. The tablets were hidden in six flower pots and were to be sent to an address in Darwin, Australia. The suspect could face a maximum 15-year jail sentence under Indonesia's health laws. Possession of the chemical is not a crime under narcotics laws.
■ Australia
New walking record set
An Australian yesterday claimed the record for walking the farthest distance in the shortest time. Deborah de Williams, who is 1,000km short of becoming the first woman to walk around Australia, told well-wishers in Sydney that she had trudged 15,644km in 343 days, breaking the 1994 mark set by fellow Australian Nobby Young. The Melbourne businesswoman made headlines earlier this year when thieves broke into her support vehicle and stole four pairs of boots and a digital camera with memory cards that contained evidence of the journey. De Williams is hoping to raise A$250,000 (US$187,000) for a children's telephone counselling service.
■ United Kingdom
Officers need more training
Traffic snarled for several kilometers on a highway in northern England on Wednesday after four police cars collided with each other and blocked the road, apparently during a training exercise. Three officers suffered whiplash while another -- who had to be cut out of his vehicle -- was more seriously injured, although there were no immediate details. No other vehicles were involved, and the police cars did not appear to have been on their way to help out at another accident. "As far as we are aware only police vehicles are involved, no members of the public," a spokeswoman for Lancashire Police said. "At this stage we think the vehicles were involved in some sort of training exercise but we have yet to have that clarified."
■ Lebanon
Some Syrian troops leave
An undetermined number of Syrian military units withdrew from Lebanon into Syrian territory early yesterday, after leaving their positions south of Beirut, Lebanese police said. A convoy of about 60 buses transporting soldiers, as well as trucks carrying their belongings, crossed the Masnaa border post at 5am, police said. They did not specify how many soldiers had actually returned to Syria. There were no tanks and just one large piece of artillery equipment in this first withdrawal from Lebanon, officials said. Syrian troops on Wednesday had for the second day continued to redeploy some 3,000 troop units from locations around Beirut.
■ Serbia
Actors convince police
A group of Serbian actors filming a bank robbery scene played their parts so well that police mistook them for the real thing and hauled them off to a police station, a newspaper reported Wednesday. The crew was filming the robbery scene Tuesday on a street in Novi Sad, 50km north of Belgrade, as part of a project to be shown in a multimedia performance at the nearby Serbian National Theater. "We had just put black stockings on our heads and were carrying plastic handguns needed for the scene, when about 30 policemen surrounded us with pistols pointed at us," actor Aleksandar Gajin told the Vecernje Novosti newspaper. No amount of explaining could immediately persuade the officers that it was not an actual heist. Police confiscated the actors' toy weapons and the purported loot -- black plastic bags stuffed with newspapers -- and briefly interrogated the actors at a nearby police station, Gajin said.
■ Germany
Woman tramples art
Berlin police confirmed reports yesterday that a woman visitor to a controversial art exhibition had damaged two works of art in an apparent protest. The incident happened Wednesday on the first day of the exhibition of modern art of collector Friedrich Christian Flick, grandson of Nazi industrialist Friedrich Flick. The woman, whom a police spokesman said had a record of assault and damaging property, trampled on an art work until it was broken. She then proceeded to trample on another art work. A report in the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel said that the woman shouted after she had damaged the first art work, "Flick, now I forgive you". Opponents of the exhibition called the Friedrich Christian Flick collection tainted, arguing it had been acquired from money he inherited from his grandfather's fortune, made during the Nazi era.
■ Iraq
US troops attack Samarra
US troops sealed off the city of Samarra and called in air strikes yesterday, local officials charged, imperiling a fragile truce between rebels and the Americans. "The Americans have struck last night and this morning Al-Qadassiyah neighborhood with Apache helicopters. Three people were killed, including one old woman. Those three bodies were brought out from the wreckage," police chief Colonel Mohammed Fadel said. Twenty-one cars were burnt or damaged in the strikes, he added. The US military said fighting erupted around Samarra on Wednesday evening when their troops were ambushed from a mosque.
■ United Nations
Canada offers to aid Sudan
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin promised on Wednesday to help fund an African Union mission in Sudan's troubled Darfur region but he skirted the issue of whether what was happening there was genocide. "It is good that the international community is finally moving, but it has taken far too long," Martin said in a speech to the UN General Assembly as he announced Canada's support of C$20 million (US$16 million). "The Security Council has been bogged down in debating the issue," he said, referring to discussions about whether abuse by Arab militia on African villagers constituted genocide or a threat to international peace and security.
■ United States
`Stealth' dinosaur found
The strike would have come out of nowhere: One second the fish was swimming placidly, no danger in sight, a moment later it was lunch. Scientists have discovered what may have been one of the first stealth hunters, a long-necked swimming dinosaur that could sneak up on prey and attack without warning. The newly found reptile with fangs lived in a shallow sea in what is now southeast China more than 230 million years ago, the research team, led by Chun Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, reports in yesterday's issue of the journal Science.
■ Brazil
IAEA to inspect nuclear plant
Brazil has reached a deal with the UN atomic agency to allow inspections of its uranium enrichment plant that protect its nuclear technology, Brazil's ministry of science and technology said on Wednesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has insisted Brazil allow inspections of its uranium plant or stand in violation of international treaties to prevent the spread of material that could be used in bombs. Under the accord, the IAEA will not be allowed to make visual inspections of the centrifuges at the Resende plant in Rio de Janeiro state, a spokesman for the ministry said.
■ Mexico
Singer Trevi out of jail
Former pop phenomenon Gloria Trevi has been released from prison after nearly five years, cleared of kidnapping, corruption of minors, and complicity to rape charges. Trevi, 36, left the jail in Chihuahua on Tuesday night to the cheers of a small group of fans gathered outside. Former backing singer Karina Yapor, 21, who joined Trevi's troupe as a star-struck 12-year-old claimed Trevi lured her and other young girls into the group promising musical training. She says Trevi turned them into sexual slaves of her manager and former lover, Sergio Andrade. Judge Javier Pineda ruled on Tuesday that there was not enough evidence to support the charges against Trevi.
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Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
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