■ Hong Kong
Detained politician released
A Hong Kong democrat arrested in China last year for allegedly sleeping with a prostitute has returned home after more than five months in a Chinese jail, media reports said yesterday. Democratic Party member Alex Ho returned to Hong Kong late Friday, the <
■ Kashmir
Civic poll begins
Voting began in Indian Kashmir Saturday in the first civic polls in 27 years amidst tight security after Moslem militant groups called for a boycott and threatened violence. Violence in the northern Indian state has increased steadily in the run-up to the local body elections. On Thursday militants lobbed grenades at a group of candidates filing nomination papers, injuring 26, in Pampore near capital city Srinagar. On Jan. 18 militants shot dead Noor-ud-Din Sherwani, a candidate from the Congress Party, which heads India's federal government and is a coalition partner in Kashmir's state government.
■ China
Nine die in explosions
Explosions at three fireworks factories in northern China killed a total of nine people, a news report said Saturday, as producers rushed to fill orders for firecrackers to celebrate the Lunar New Year next month. The blasts occurred Thursday and Friday in three cities, all in Hebei province south of Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency said. China suffers hundreds of deaths a year in fires and explosions in fireworks factories, despite a safety crackdown launched in the industry following a series of disasters in 2001. Fatalities usually surge as workshops rush to fill orders for the Lunar New Year holiday.
■ Australia
Gang leader mourned
Hundreds of leather-clad riders followed the coffin of an Australian motorcycle gang leader at his funeral in Perth yesterday. Les Hoddy, founder of the Gypsy Jokers, died of a heart attack last week. The limousine carrying his body was followed by representatives of other gangs linked to dealing in drugs and running protection rackets like the Rebels, the Veterans, God's Garbage and Club Deroes. A political row blew up in Perth last week when it was learned the police had granted mourners permission to ride without helmets and had arranged for traffic lights to be on green when the cortege passed through the suburb of Midland.
■ Singapore
Man chops off finger for cash
An Indian national who deliberately chopped off half of his index finger to get compensation was sentenced to three months in a Singapore jail, news reports said yesterday. Ramasamy Subramaniyan, 44, was found guilty of making a false workmen's compensation claim, <
■ Pakistan
Muslims attack newspaper
Dozens of Islamic militants attacked the offices of Pakistan's largest newspaper and an affiliated television station early yesterday, burning furniture and breaking windows before fleeing, police and an editor said. Chanting slogans "God is Great," the attackers threw stones and entered the offices of the Jang newspaper in the southern city of Karachi at about 2am yesterday, said Mushtaq Shah, a senior police official. Shah Rukh Hassan, Jang's managing editor, said the attackers also damaged the offices of the company's private Geo television, which is housed in the newspaper building. Nobody was hurt in either attack.
■ United Kingdom
Pony takes shopping trip
Shoppers at one British supermarket were astonished to find a pony alongside them browsing the shelves, a report said. The Daily Express reported yesterday that customers at a Cardiff branch of Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, were joined by a stray Shetland pony which had escaped its nearby paddock. Like any regular shopper, the pony made its way up and down the aisles of the Pengam Green store, then trotted in the direction of the vegetable counter. Alert staff attempted to scare it away from the carrots and other fresh produce but the plan backfired as the pony homed in on the cereals.
■ Pakistan
Blast ruptures gas pipeline
A powerful explosion ruptured a section of a state-owned gas pipeline in eastern Pakistan, disrupting the supply but injuring no one, a spokesman said. The explosions occurred near Patoki, a town about 130km south of Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, said Abdur Rashid Lone, spokesman for the Sui Northern gas company. No one claimed responsibility, but Lone termed the attack an act of terrorism. "Definitely, it was an act of terrorism because it is not so easy to blew up such a main pipeline without using explosives," he told reporters. He said the company was assessing the damage, and gas supplies to affected areas would be restored soon.
■ Kenya
Church `regrets' gay bishop
Anglican archbishops from Africa, Asia and Latin America said an apology from the US Episcopal Church does not go far enough to heal the rift among Anglicans over the consecration of the denomination's first openly gay bishop. The Anglican Communion, the internation-al association of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England, fears its unity is threatened by deep disagreements over homosexuality. Conservative clerics from Africa, Asia and elsewhere have harshly criticized the US branch's move on the gay bishop.
■ Paris
Muslim militants detained
A suspected recruiter of young Muslims for combat in Iraq and a man identified as a volunteer allegedly plotted attacks against French or foreign interests in France, the prosecutor's office said Friday. Under questioning, the two men "evoked the possibility of actions in France without identifying precise targets," a statement by the prosecutor's office said. The statement was released shortly after the men, of North African origin, were placed under investigation, a step short of being charged, as part of an investigation into alleged networks suspected of dispatching combatants from France to Iraq.
■ United States
Cubans cross to Florida
Around 30 Cubans, including a baby, were in US Border Patrol custody Friday, after reaching a small island off the Florida coast, some 130m from Key Largo. The migrants were said to be in "good condition." It was unclear whether the Cubans arrived under their own steam, or if smugglers brought them to the US. Television images showed them sitting or lying on the ground, apparently exhausted after the crossing. US policy lets Cubans who make it to land remain here and request asylum, while those intercepted at sea are deported back to Cuba. In 2004, US authorities intercepted 10,696 would-be migrants at sea, the most since the 1994 Cuban boat people crisis, according to Coast Guard figures.
■ United States
Teen hacker sentenced
A US judge on Friday sentenced a teenager to 18 months in jail for creating and spreading a variant of a virus that wrought havoc on up to 50,000 computers around the world. US District Judge Marsha Pechman showed mercy to Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, and sentenced him to 18 months behind bars and to 10 months of community service for propagating the MS Blaster Internet worm in 2003, which infected computers and then commanded them to attack a Microsoft Web site. Citing parental neglect and psychological problems, Pechman gave Parson a much lighter penalty than the sentence of 10 years in prison and a US$250,000 fine that he could have received had he not pleaded guilty. "I know I've made a huge mistake and I hurt a lot of people and I feel terrible," Parson said, apologizing to Microsoft.
■ Peru
Bank guard robs ATM
A private bank guard in Peru was accused of the theft Friday of 1 million soles (US$307,000 dollars) that he was supposed to place inside an automated teller machine, radio reports said. Witnesses said the man arrived at the teller with two other guards. He waited for his two fellow guards to step off the armored vehicle used to transport the cash, grabbed the bags of money, jumped off the other side and into a passing car. Police mounted a search for the employee of Hermes S.A. security firm.
■ Mexico
Bomb goes off at Wal-Mart
A small explosive device was detonated Friday in the parking lot of a shopping center in northern Mexico City. Nobody was hurt in the explosion at the store operated by Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, but police rushed to the scene after another bomb, which had not exploded, was found in the same place. The city's government secretary, Alejandro Encinas, said the explosive devices were homemade and no one had immediately claimed responsibility for planting them.
■ Brazil
Girl from Ipanema's not fat
When the New York Times implied that the girl from Ipanema was getting fat, it triggered a firestorm of protest and investigations of the overweight beachgoers photographed by the newspaper. The local press discovered that the chubby women photographed in swimsuits on fashionable Ipanema Beach were not Brazilian, but European tourists. The Times said on its Web site that it regretted "that the nationalities of the women in the photo were not verified." The image of the tall, tanned beauty was immortalized in the 1960s bossa nova hit composed in Rio, The Girl from Ipanema.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
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
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