■ Vietnam
Train crash kills at least 13
The death toll from a train accident in central Vietnam climbed to 13 yesterday and dozens of injured passengers were still being treated in hospital, state television and doctors said. Railway officials said traffic would resume by midday, a day after a north-south express train derailed in Thua Thien-Hue province, 650km south of Hanoi. Two of the train's 13 carriages were flung from the track. Nine people were killed instantly, four died en route to hospital and about 100 passengers were injured, state-run Vietnam Television reported yesterday. It had earlier put the toll at 11. Doctors at key hospitals in the nearby cities of Hue and Danang told reporters a total of 55 passengers had been admitted for treatment.
■ North Korea
Leaders warn of `actual war'
The government warned yesterday that annual US-South Korean military exercises due to start this week and designed to deter any military threat from the Stalinist country could turn into "an actual war." The North's Cabinet newspaper, Minju Joson, said the week-long military maneuvers beginning on March 19 in South Korea should be called off. "There is no guarantee that the large-scale joint military exercises will not go over to an actual war," the newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
■ China
Capital to put a lid on theft
Beijing is testing a new kind of manhole cover to put a lid on rampant theft, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday. Missing manhole covers are a hazardous fact of life on the sidewalks and roads of Beijing where they are stolen to be sold as scrap for a couple of dollars each. "The new manhole covers will be made of non-metal materials with no recycling value," Wang Xin, spokesman for the city's utilities management department, was quoted as saying. Beijing has more than 600,000 manhole covers across the city owned by 18 companies. "Approximately 240,000 manhole and street-drain covers were stolen in Beijing in 2004," Xinhua said.
■ Australia
Parents try to kill children
A Singaporean couple were to appear in a Sydney court today on charges of attempting to murder their two daughters with 120 cold and allergy pills each. The two girls, aged six and seven, have been taken off life support and did not suffer any brain damage, Westmead Children's Hospital said yesterday. Overdoses of antihistamines can cause coma and death. The father, aged 35, and mother, aged 36 -- both Singaporean nationals -- were refused bail when they appeared in a Sydney court Saturday charged with attempting to murder their children. "Yesterday morning, about 120 tablets were given to the children," prosecutor Keren Bayley told the court.
■ Australia
Ingrid still poses a threat
Tropical cyclone warning remained in force for the north coastal city of Darwin yesterday despite meteorologists downgrading the strength of a storm due to hit outlying islands overnight. Cyclone Ingrid swept its way through Croker Island earlier Sunday, with winds of 290km an hour uprooting trees and damaging buildings and cars. The storm was later downgraded from a maximum category five to a four and was about 160km northeast of Darwin and moving west at about 12km an hour, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
■ Germany
Hitler removed from list
Adolf Hitler has been removed from the list of honored citizens in the Bavarian town of Lindau, 72 years after the Nazi dictator rose to power. The municipal council voted unanimously at a meeting Tuesday to remove Hitler's name. The elected officials agreed it was "absurd" to keep Hitler on an honor roll. The city became aware that Hitler's name was still on the list during a project to create a plaque with the names of distinguished citizens. Hitler was born in Austria and it was in Bavaria that he first built up the Nazi political power base.
■ Malawi
Ghosts spook president
Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has temporarily moved out of his 300-bedroom state mansion, claiming it is haunted by ghosts. A presidential aide said that Mutharika had asked the clergy to pray to "exorcise evil spirits." Another aide said that the president hears footsteps and strange noises in the presidential suite in the dead of night. Nobody else, including First Lady Ethel and the president's bodyguards, hear anything, the aide said. "Sometimes the president feels rodents crawling all over his body but when lights are turned on he sees nothing," he said. It has been decided that the 71-year-old president would sleep at another state house in Mtunthama, and just work at the presidential mansion.
■ West Bank
Hamas to enter election
Hamas, the major force behind a four-year suicide bombing campaign, decided to run in an upcoming parliamentary election, a move that could undermine Palestinian efforts to end violence, reform a corrupt government and renew peacemaking. Hamas has emerged as a key player in Palestinian politics. A victory by the militant group in the July 17 parliamentary vote -- ? to be held days before Israel is to begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip -- could be a deciding factor in whether the Israeli pullout leads to peace talks or a dead-end. Hamas political leader Mohammed Ghazal said the group would decide after the vote whether to join Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Cabinet and support peace talks with Israel.
■ Macedonia
Elections being held
Voters began casting their ballots yesterday in twice-postponed municipal elections, the last step in the Western-brokered peace agreement which ended seven months of fighting between government forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas in 2001. The vote had been postponed twice after protests over new decentralization laws introduced in August, which gave the ethnic Albanian minority more control over local affairs by changing electoral boundaries and elevating Albanian as a second language. A successful local election will strengthen Macedonia's bid to join the EU by the end of the decade.
■ Argentina
Pedophile deported
Argentina deported a German-born religious cult leader convicted of pedophilia to Chile, where he was the country's most-wanted criminal. Paul Schaefer, 83, was put aboard a plane in Buenos Aires, where he was joined by Chile's undersecretary for the Interior. Schaefer also faces charges in Chile of helping the secret police kidnap a political prisoner during the country's 1973-1990 military dictatorship.
■ United States
CIA operations probed
European authorities are investigating whether CIA agents broke local laws by detaining suspected terrorists on European soil and taking them to other countries where torture is practiced, the Washington Post reported yesterday. The CIA usually carries out such "rendition" operations with the help or blessing of friendly local intelligence agencies, but authorities in Italy, Germany and Sweden are questioning whether the practice is a violation of local sovereignty and human rights, the Post said. The CIA has kept details of rendition cases a closely guarded secret, but has defended the controversial practice as an effective and legal way to prevent terrorism, the Post said.
■ Iraq
US soldiers flouted rules
Bulgarian officials said Saturday that the US military had admitted that US soldiers did not follow the rules of engagement when they fired on a Bulgarian patrol, accidentally killing a soldier. The soldier, Junior Sergeant Gardi Gardev, was killed on March 4 south of Baghdad. On the same day, US soldiers in Baghdad fired on a car carrying the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, wounding her and killing an Italian intelligence officer. That case, which is under investigation, has drawn intense international scrutiny to the rules of engagement US soldiers operate under in Iraq. Last week, the Bulgarian defense minister, Nikolai Sviranov, said he believed that US soldiers had accidentally killed Gardev.
■ United States
Gunman kills 7 at church
A man opened fire with a handgun at a church service in a Wisconsin hotel on Saturday, killing seven people and wounding four before taking his own life, police said. Four victims and the gunman died at the scene and three others died later at a hospital. What prompted the violence at the Sheraton Hotel in Brookfield 16km west of Milwaukee during a regular service of the Living Church of God in a meeting room was still under investigation, Brookfield's police chief, Dan Tushaus, told reporters. He said the unidentified 45-year-old shooter "was either a member or somehow affiliated with the church" and that he entered the service while in session and began firing.
■ France
Terror suspects investigated
Authorities have begun criminal proceedings for suspected terrorist activity against two Frenchmen released from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, judicial officials said. One of the suspects, Ridouane Khalid, 36, was released under judicial watch, while the other, Khaled ben Mustafa, was being held by authorities, the officials said Saturday, on condition of anonymity. The two were placed under investigation -- one step short of being formally charged -- on Friday for "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise," the officials said.
■ Iran
Powerful temblor strikes
A powerful earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale hit the region of Saravan, close to Iran's border with Pakistan, state television reported yesterday. There were no casualties reported, although state television also said some of the houses were partly damaged, with some windows broken in the area, some 1,350km southeast of Tehran. "Up to now no casualty has been reported, we have already commissioned a helicopter to fly over the remote area of Hidouj, the epicenter," said local official Hojjat Ali Shayanfar.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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