■ Philippines
N Korea sold arms to rebels
North Korea sold some 10,000 rifles to the largest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines from 1999 to 2000 and
also tried to export small submarine vessels, a Japanese newspaper said on Monday. The arms deal between North Korea and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
came to light after security authorities seized documents from the MILF in November, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, quoting a southeast Asian security source. The paper said the transaction was conducted mainly in Malaysia, with a North Korean arms dealer signing a deal with a senior MILF member around mid-1999 to sell small arms to the Muslim rebels.
■ Philippines
Kidnap rate at 10-year low
Abductions in the Philippines fell to their lowest level for more than a decade last year, an anti-crime watchdog said yesterday, in apparent evidence that a government crackdown on kidnap gangs was working. The Citizens Action Against Crime said
all but one of 94 people kidnapped last year was released safely after payment of ransoms worth millions of dollars. One abductee was found murdered last month.
A total of US$750,000 dollars was paid to kidnap gangs last year, the second lowest since 1993, the agency said, citing its own sources and monitoring.
■ Japan
Cakes hard to swallow
Officials have urged the ageing nation to cut their rice cakes before eating them after three elderly people choked to death on the
New Year's delicacy. Tokyo residents aged 75, 79 and 80 died of suffocation and 27 others were hospitalized over the holiday weekend after failing to swallow down the thick white cakes known as mochi, the fire department said yesterday. "Some of them are still in serious condition after eating mochi," a fire department spokesman said. "We are calling on people, especially elderly residents,
to cut mochi in small pieces when they eat it," the spokesman said. During New Year, one of Japan's biggest holidays, families traditionally cook ozouni soup, which is made of vegetables, with the sticky rice cakes inside.
■ Afghanistan
Another US soldier killed
A US soldier was killed and three others wounded in an ambush yesterday in eastern Afghanistan, the second fatality suffered by US forces in the country in as many days, the US military said. Two improvised bombs exploded and militants then shot at US troops in the early morning attack in Kunar province, near the town
of Asadabad, military spokesman Major Mark McCann told reporters. He said it was unclear whether the soldier was killed by
the blasts or the ensuing gunfight. McCann was also unable to say if the attack was launched by Taliban militants who are known to operate in the area.
■ Vietnam
Customs officers busted
A court has found 26 customs officers at the country's biggest southern border guilty of corruption and extorting money from traders in a massive smuggling case, state media said yesterday. The officers were from Moc Bai checkpoint bordering Cambodia, the Phap Luat newspaper said. Their sentences ranged from prison terms suspended for nine months to four years in jail, it said. They were charged with turning a blind eye to the smuggling activities of a privately owned trading company, and with helping the company under-report the quantity of goods imported into Vietnam from Cambodia to avoid taxes.
■ Chechnya
Grenade explodes in Grozny
A hand grenade exploded at a market in the Chechen capital, injuring six people, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday. Three Russian soldiers, two Chechen policemen and a civilian were injured in the Sunday night blast at the Severny market in Grozny. Russian forces poured into Chechnya 10 years ago in a bid to crush separatists. The troops withdrew after a devastating 20-month war that left Chechnya de facto independent, then returned in fall 1999 after rebel attacks in Dagestan and apartment-building bomb-ings in three Russian cities including Moscow.
■ United Kingdom
Centenarian wins own bet
A British man celebrated his 100th birthday more than ?7,000 (US$14,000) the richer on Sunday after placing a bet 10 years ago -- on his own long life expectancy. Arthur Best bet he would reach the age of 100, which he did on Sunday, and as well as his special congratulatory telegram from the Queen he had his winnings on the 66:1 wager to enjoy. A birthday party was thrown in his honor in the town of Shrews-bury in eastern England to which the guard of honor of his old regiment with which he served in India and Burma was invited. Britons who go in for betting usually bet on football match results or racing, although somebody currently has a bet placed, also at 66:1, on Prime Min-ister Tony Blair growing a moustache.
■ Saudi Arabia
Prince sponsors twins' op
A medical team of 50 in Saudi Arabia started complex surgery early yesterday to separate a pair of Polish conjoined infant girls who share a lower spine and intestines, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. The twins, 13-month-old Daria and Olga Kolacz, have undergone medical tests for the past 20 days at King Abdul-Aziz Medical City for the National Guard in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to confirm that a safe sepa-ration was possible. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah offered to pay medical and travel expenses for the twins and their mother, Wieslawa Dabrowska, after being informed of the case by a Saudi doctor, who learned about the twins from an Internet discussion forum.
■ United Kingdom
Hoax e-mailer charged
Police in London charged a 40-year-old Lincolnshire man on Sunday in connection with a series of hoax e-mails sent to friends and relatives of people missing since the Asian tsunami a week ago claiming they were dead. The e-mails -- which purported to be from the "Foreign Office Bureau" in Thailand -- were sent to people who had placed appeals for information on a Web site set up by Sky News television. The man, charged with "malicious communication and causing a public nuis-ance," was to appear before court yesterday, police said.
■ Italy
Mafia war flares up again
Two suspected gangsters were murdered, a third was shot and seriously injured and a bystander was caught in the crossfire as a Mafia war that took more than 100 lives last year flared up in the southern Italian city of Naples. In the first killing of the new year, Crescenzo Marino, 70, whose two sons were reported to belong to the dissident group, was shot and killed by two gunmen as he parked his automobile in a deserted street near his home, police said. A short while later, gunmen murdered Salvatore Barra, 30, another member of the secessionist group, in a bar on the outskirts of the city.
■ United States
Shirley Chisholm dies
Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the US Congress and an outspoken advocate for women and minorities in the House of Representatives, died Saturday near Daytona Beach at the age of 80. She ran for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1972. "Women have learned to flex their political muscles. You got to flex that muscle to get what you want," she said during her presidential campaign. In her book, Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men."
■ United States
Lawmaker Matsui mourned
Robert Matsui, a Japanese-American Democratic representative in California, 63, passed away at Bethesda Naval Hospital on Saturday after losing a battle with myelodysplastic disorder. A third-generation Japanese-American, Matsui was six months old when his family were taken from their home and interned by the US government at Tule Lake camp in California, following the Japanese 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1988, he shepherded the Japanese-American Redress Act through Congress, in which the US government formally apologized for the internment program and offered compensation to its victims.
■ Argentina
Club fire sparks outrage
Grieving families buried victims of the nightclub fire that killed at least 188 people and injured more than 700, while protesters marched in anger over suspicions that some of the packed club's emergency exits were locked. The fire was this country's worst in recent memory and more than 200 riot police stood guard at city hall and the nearby presidential palace after 2,000 protesters marched from the charred nightclub to a main downtown square -- the seat of local and national power. The club's owner, Omar Chaban, was under arrest and expected to face a court hearing.
■ Mexico
Indian leaders take town
In the Michoacan town of Paracho, Indian leaders wearing ski masks took to the streets on horseback to announced they planned to establish a government loyal to the Zapatista rebels that will govern independently from municipal authorities headed by new Institutional Revolutionary Mayor Medardo Alejo. The uprising was an attempt to stop the swearing-in ceremony of new Mayor Eliseo Reyes of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. At least 150 supporters of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party threw rocks, used metal poles to fight with police and set fire to parked cars on Saturday in San Blas Atempa in Oaxaca state. They seized the city hall and briefly held 39 people hostage, authorities said Sunday.
■ United States
Do martians do windows?
Scientists are mystified by what has been cleaning the solar panels on one of their two rovers on Mars at night. It is as if a team of elves has been at work dusting off the panels, which supply the rover Opportunity with electricity. The NASA experts' leading theory is that Opportunity is being put through a kind of Martian "car wash" caused by whirling dust devils. Opportunity and the rover, Spirit, landed at different sites on Mars, but have different solar wattage rates.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
‘TOXIC CLIMATE’: ‘I don’t really recognize Labour anymore... The idea that you can implement far-right ideas in order to stop the far right is nonsense,’ a protester said Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched through central London to protest against the far right, weeks ahead of local elections and six months after Britain saw one of its largest far-right demonstrations. Organized by hundreds of civic groups, including trade unions, anti-racism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, Saturday’s Together Alliance event was billed as the biggest in UK history to counter right-wing extremism. A separate pro-Palestinian march had also converged with the main rally. While organizers claimed 500,000 had turned out in total, the police gave a figure of about 50,000. Protesters carrying placards with slogans such as
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