■ India
Pakistan `violates' ceasefire
The Indian army said yesterday that Pakistan had violated a 14-month-old ceasefire between the nuclear-armed rivals after mortar bombs were fired across the military line dividing Kashmir, wounding
a girl. Pakistan denied the charge, which is nevertheless the latest in a string of setbacks to a slow-moving peace process between the rivals. The Indian army said the wounded girl had to be treated in hospital after 15 mortar bombs were fired late on Tuesday from Pakistani territory into Poonch district, 250km north of Jammu, the winter capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir state.
■ Thailand
Elephants get toilet-training
Having taught Thailand's elephants to paint, dance and play musical instruments, their Thai handlers are now toilet-training the beasts, media reported yesterday. Handlers -- known as mahouts -- have installed giant human-style toilets at a camp in the northern city of Chiang Mai to try to rid the tourist attraction of unsightly droppings, according to the Nation newspaper. Some seven elephants at the privately run camp beside Chiang Mai Zoo are being trained to sit like a human on the giant white toilets, which can be flushed by pulling on a rope with a gentle tug of the trunk, the daily said.
■ Australia
Kids spill beans on `reality'
Australia children filming what's claimed to be the world's first reality television show for their age group yesterday spilled the beans on their supposed fly-on-the-wall survivor series. It's all staged, one of eight Camp Orange contestants blurted out. Twelve-year-old "Andrew" told Australia's AAP news agency that the "worst thing has been doing takes over and over for the camera again."
So much for reality. Camp Orange is the work of Australian pay TV channel Nickelodeon and is being filmed on Milson Island in Sydney. The premise is that four teams of two compete while they tackle giant swings and spooky paths during a week away from home. The show airs next month.
■ Japan
Court compensates Koreans
Japan's government must pay damages to a group of ageing South Koreans who were forced to labor in Japan during World War II, a court ruled yesterday. In a rare ruling for forced wartime laborers from the Korean peninsula, the Hiroshima High Court in western Japan overturned a March 1999 lower court ruling and ordered the government to pay the 40 plaintiffs ?1.2 million (US$11,740) each in compensation. The South Koreans had demanded a total of ?440 million from the government and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd for being forced to work at a Mitsubishi plant in Hiroshima and for being exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb dropped on the city.
■ Military Affairs
Fallon to head US forces
Admiral William Fallon has been selected by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to be the next head of the US Pacific Command, officials said on Tuesday. Fallon, a former vice chief of naval operations who now heads the US navy's Fleet Forces Command, would replace Admiral Thomas Fargo, who will retire at the end of next month. Rumsfeld's choice is subject to the approval of US President George W. Bush and the Senate, but both steps are considered formalities. Fallon would have responsibility for planning and operations in two of the world's most serious potential flashpoints: the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait.
■ France
Strike nearly halts service
French railway workers severely reduced train traffic yesterday due to a strike over working conditions, and the country geared up for separate protests by energy workers and hospital surgeons. It was the second of three days of industrial unrest which put the spotlight on discontent with President Jacques Chirac's conservative government as it prepares to relax the 35-hour work week introduced by the previous Socialist-led government. Commuters were left with just one intercity train running in four, one high-speed TGV in three and only 16-30 percent of suburban trains in the Paris area, railway operator SNCF said.
■ Morocco
Desert film studio opens
Morroco can now boast one of the world's largest film studios. Veteran Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis and Rome's famed Cinecitta Studios have teamed up to create CLA Studios, which stretches over 150 hectares with two shooting stages of 1,800m2 each. Bigger than any studio in Hollywood or Europe, the site will be able to accommodate two major movies a year, said Ismail Farih, spokesman for Morocco's private Sanam Holding, the third partner in the US$8.3 million project. The area in southern Morocco has provided backdrops to classic films including Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra and more recently Gladiator, Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great and Ridley Scott's latest film, Kingdom of Heaven.
■ United Kingdom
Nursing home investigated
A coroner is to investigate the deaths of 16 elderly residents at a private nursing home after health British officials warned that events there raised "serious concern." The home came to the attention of officials after a resident choked to death. Officials then found that 28 of its residents had died in one year, 2002. In the previous two years, only nine deaths had occurred. The two doctors who run the home are both facing an investigation. The report of the initial inquiry into the home found that, while there was no suggestion that residents were harmed deliberately, some patients were not given "the appropriate drugs, at the appropriate dosage, at the appropriate times," and may have been overused as a method of restraint.
■ Saudi ArabiA
Stomach yields toothbrush
A medical team on Tuesday removed a toothbrush that had been in a man's stomach for 22 years, a medical official at the King Abdel Aziz Hospital in Taef, west of the Saudi kingdom, said. The 70-year-old unidentified man, had swallowed the toothbrush 22 years ago without realizing it, as he had not experienced any pain until a few days. A hospital official said the surgery for toothbrush removal was successful.
■ Italy
Pope gets a Ferrari
Pope John Paul got a flame red Ferrari from the Italian world championship racing team -- a model of one, that is -- for having what they said was the inside track on the roads of humanity. Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher and the rest of the Ferrari team met the Pope in the Vatican's frescoed Clementina Hall to give him the 1:5 scale model of the car that won both the championship and constructor titles last year. Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo told the Pope Ferrari wanted to honor him.
■ Canada
Man chokes son's coach
A father, upset that his 9-year-old son was benched during a hockey game, allegedly choked the team's coach in a fit of rage, Toronto police said on Monday. The father, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, allegedly grabbed the coach after the boy was kept on the bench during Sunday's game. "Several attempts were made by witnesses to stop the attack, but they were unable to before the victim collapsed to the floor," police said. The mother of an 11-year-old was banned from Toronto-area arenas last year after exposing her bra and shaking her breasts in an apparent attempt to intimidate the opposing team.
■ United States
Beer vendor fined US$60m
A jury awarded US$60 million to the family of a girl paralyzed in a car wreck caused by a drunken football fan. Ronald and Fazila Verni were headed home from a pumpkin-picking trip in 1999 with their 2-year-old daughter, Antonia, when their car was hit by a truck driven by Daniel Lanzaro, 34. Antonia was paralyzed from the neck down. Lanzaro, whose blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit, is serving a five-year prison term for vehicular assault. The family sued Aramark, the Giants Stadium concessionaire, claiming vendors sold beers to Lanzaro even though he was clearly drunk and that Aramark fostered an atmosphere in which intoxicated patrons were served.
■ United States
Cop busted for perjury
An undercover agent, Tom Coleman, whose testimony sent dozens of black people to prison on bogus drug charges was ordered to serve 10 years of probation for a single perjury charge. The jury in Lubbock on Friday acquitted Coleman of testifying falsely in a 2003 hearing that as a sheriff's deputy he never stole gasoline from county pumps. Coleman arrested 46 people, most of them black, in a small, mostly white farming community. He worked alone and no drugs were ever found, but 38 defendants were convicted or reached plea deals. Governor Rick Perry pardoned 35 of the defendants in 2003, after an investigation into the drug cases was launched amid charges they were racially motivated.
■ United States
`Survivor' faces tax reality
Richard Hatch, the first winner of the US TV series Survivor, is facing his toughest challenge yet. Hatch failed to report the US$1 million he won on Survivor, federal prosecutors said as they charged him with filing false tax returns. The 43-year-old Hatch, whose brash strategizing propelled him to victory in 2000's Survivor series on CBS, is charged on two counts in a lawsuit filed in US District Court. Prosecutors said Hatch not only failed to report his US$1 million winnings in federal tax returns but also left off more than US$300,000 that a Boston radio station paid him to co-host a program in 2001.
■ United States
Evolution at issue
A school district in Pennsylvania and another in Georgia have pressed ahead with challenges to teaching evolution in their public schools, offering a different approach called Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design posits that life is so complex, a creator had to be behind it, a position that critics say has no basis in science. The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are suing the school board on behalf of 11 parents to force it to rescind its decision.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
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