■ Afghanistan
Taliban leader arrested
Afghan security forces arrested a senior Taliban commander along with two other fighters in a raid on a village home in southern Afghanistan, an official said yesterday. Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, reportedly a former inmate at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was arrested late Saturday night in Pishi village in the southern province of Uruzgan, said Jan Mohammed Khan, governor of Uruzgan. Khan said the arrest came after authorities received intelligence information that Ghaffar was hiding in the village and was planning an attack against the government.
■ Singapore
Droppings annoy residents
A barrage of daily droppings from thousands of migrating swallows has many Singaporeans carrying umbrellas, wearing caps and covering window ledges with netting, but the feathery visitors are not to be harmed, bird groups said yesterday. For three months a year, the yellow barn swallows from China and Siberia flock to an area of agricultural activities, taking up residence in trees, "dive-bombing residents with their droppings and driving them crazy with their loud incessant cawing," according to The Sunday Times.
■ Japan
LDP official indicted
A former key man in Japan's long-ruling conservative party was formally charged in a money scandal yesterday on the eve of a reshuffle of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government. The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office indicted Kanezo Muraoka, 73, who reportedly handled funds for the biggest faction in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He was not held in custody. The indictment was not expected to weaken the power base of Prime Minister Koizumi, who belongs to a smaller LDP faction and who has criticized the old-style money politics of the party.
■ China
Dog helps curb trafficking
An animal charity active in China hopes sniffer dogs will provide part of the solution to the rampant trafficking of endangered species for food, medicine and other uses. Animals Asia plans to showcase the achievements of Simba, the world's first "detective dog," specially trained to find smuggled animal products, at the Oct. 2 to Oct. 14 conference on the Con-vention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Bangkok. Simba, who will not travel to Bangkok, worked with South Korean customs officers for four years in Incheon, where he found bear bile products, deer musk, seal penises, and four live monkeys, the Hong Kong-based charity said.
■ India
Fishermen to respect whales
Fishermen from western India who once slaughtered whale sharks by the thousands have pledged to respect and save the endangered "gentle giants" of the sea, following a sustained awareness campaign and the intervention of religious leaders. For more than a century, whale sharks the world's largest living fish have visited the warm waters off western Gujarat state to breed. Often after travelling nearly 13,000km, the highly-migratory species would be killed for its meat, liver, skin and fins. Between April-July commercial harvesting would reach its peak with 2,000 whale sharks killed in India annually, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
■ United Kingdom
Bigley appeals continue
Britain is doing "whatever we can" to seek the freedom of a hostage held in Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Saturday, but he indicated no shift in the government's refusal to negotiate with the kidnappers. Kenneth Bigley, 62, and two US colleagues were kidnapped from their home in Baghdad last week. Both Americans have been beheaded, and gruesome videos made by the kidnappers have appeared on the Internet. A British Muslim delegation arrived in Baghdad on Saturday night, hoping to persuade the kidnappers to free Bigley.
■ France
Newspapers in crisis
Faced by a collapsing readership, plummeting advertising revenue and new competition from free-sheets and the Internet, France's national newspapers are going through their worst crisis in decades and fears are growing that closures may be inevitable. Nearly all the great Paris titles -- including Le Monde, Liberation, France-Soir and L'Humanite -- are reporting severe financial difficulties. "The general picture is extremely depressing," said Marc Baudrillet of media consultants Strategies. "All the big dailies are seeing drastic falls in circulation. Everywhere there is talk of job losses -- or worse."
■ United States
Stevens stopped by mistake
An incident this week in which British former pop star Cat Stevens was deported from the US to London as a "no-fly" terrorist risk was caused by a spelling error, Time magazine reported on Saturday. Stevens, 57, had taken the name Yusuf Islam and converted to Islam. He had been traveling from London to Washington on Tuesday when his flight was diverted and he was detained on "national security grounds" and summarily put on a plane to London, according to US security officials. Time, in its on-line edition, quoted aviation sources with access to the "no-fly" list as saying there is no entry on the list under the name "Yusuf Islam," but that there is a "Youssouf Islam" on the list.
■ Chile
Judge questions Pinochet
An investigative judge questioned former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for half an hour on Saturday to decide whether to indict him in one of hundreds of human rights cases stemming from his 1973-1990 rule. Pinochet, 88, told the judge he had no knowledge of the 19 leftist dead and disappeared in the "Operation Condor" case that is being investigated, a judicial system source said, on condition of anonymity. The source quoted Pinochet as saying Operation Condor, a coordinated plan by South American military regimes to track down and eliminate dissidents, was handled by mid-level officers in the military chain of command.
■ United Kingdom
Dylan memoir opened past
US rock and folk legend Bob Dylan says he was surprised by how much he could remember from 40-odd years of performing when wrote his memoirs. He told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that he wasn't sure how good his memory would prove to be as he started writing. "However, as I wrote, my memory seemed to unlock," said Dylan, 63, in his first interview with a British newspaper in 20 years. "I surprised myself with how much came back," he said. Dylan plans to mark the October 12 publication of Chronicles Volume One with a two-month concert tour.
■ United States
NY police seize bicycles
Although about 1,000 bicyclists on a mass ride moved peacefully through Manhattan on Friday night with just a small number of arrests, riders complained on Saturday that the police had seized about 40 bicycles at one location after sawing through locks that secured them to signposts and light poles. Many of the bicycles had been locked on East 36th Street by cyclists who said they became worried when the police arrested a few ride participants. But others may have belonged to people who had nothing to do with the ride, they said. The monthly ride, called Critical Mass, has been held in New York for the last several years to promote nonpolluting transportation.
■ United States
Illnesses differ by gender
Beyond the tired cliches and sperm-and-egg basics taught in grade school science class, researchers are discovering that men and women are even more different than anyone realized. It turns out that major illnesses like heart disease and lung cancer are influenced by gender and that perhaps treatments for women ought to be slightly different from the approach used for men. These discoveries are part of a quiet but revolutionary change infiltrating US medicine as a growing number of scientists realize there's more to women's health than just the anatomy that makes them female, and that the same diseases often affect men and women in different ways.
■ Iraq
Soldier gets jail for murder
A US soldier has been sentenced to 25 years in jail for the murder of an Iraqi National Guard soldier near Tikrit in May, the US military said in a statement yesterday. "Specialist Federico Merida pled guilty to murder and making false official statements during court martial proceedings," the statement said. He was also handed a dishonorable discharge and reduced in rank to private, the statement said. In a separate case last week the US military said two soldiers in Baghdad were under investigation for premeditated murder in the wrongful deaths of three Iraqis.
■ United states
Burial reef planned
As if shooting a loved one's ashes into space or pressing them into artificial diamonds were not sufficiently offbeat, relatives of the deceased now can have their ashes mixed into concrete to help form ocean habitats. A Georgia company has placed about 200 of the concrete cones, called "reef balls," in the ocean, mostly along the Gulf Coast. Last week, it interred cones filled with the ashes of several people about 11km off the shore as part of the Great Egg Reef. Don Brawley, an accomplished diver, came up with the idea of turning artificial reefs into memorials, and founded Eternal Reefs with George Frankel in 2001. Burying a loved one's ashes in a reef ball can cost US$1,000. Georgia-based Eternal Reefs also has two models for pets, for US$400 and US$500.
■ Spain
Firm sends final e-mail
E-mail from beyond the grave? Not exactly. But a Spanish Internet company is breaking fresh ground on the Web by offering people the chance to write one last e-mail, complete with video clip or photo attachments, and send it to loved ones, friends or even enemies after the person who wrote it is dead. "Most people leave notes behind in drawers or boxes knowing or hoping they will be found after they die. This is the same, but via Internet," said Alberto Iriarte, 33, director of Global Spectrum, the Pamplona-based company which runs the service.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
RSS