■ South Korea
New finance minister named
A veteran trade expert was named finance minister yesterday with the brief of ensuring policy remained geared towards nurturing a recovery in domestic demand in Asia's third-largest economy. Han Duck-soo, a 55-year-old Harvard graduate with fluent English, said there would be no drastic policy changes, Yonhap news agency reported. "I believe I was appointed to keep and successfully realize the policy that former deputy prime minister Lee Hun-jai has established with effort," it quoted him as saying after his appointment by President Roh Moo-hyun. The job comes with the post of deputy prime minister. Lee resigned a week ago after media reports that he and his wife had earned millions of dollars from land deals. Lee has denied any wrongdoing.
■ Sri Lanka
Thousands protest over aid
A strike gripped Trincomalee yesterday as thousands of residents protested the slow distribution of tsunami relief aid, police said. The multi-ethnic coastal town was at a virtual standstill with transport brought to a halt by protesters blocking the main entry points, a police official in the area said by telephone. The protesters are demanding speedy government aid for the thousands of residents who survived the Dec. 26 tsunamis that killed nearly 31,000 people and left a million homeless. The police official said the main protest was called by the minority Tamil community while the second largest minority, the Muslims, were staging a strike in nearby Kinniya, while Sinhalese also staged a smaller demonstration.
■ Australia
Dog stays loyal to death
An elderly man will be buried with his loyal dog after the animal spent almost a week guarding the deceased's body and appeared too miserable to live after being removed from his master. The RSPCA in Queensland state said that Jess, a cattle dog cross estimated to be about 12 years old, would be put to sleep and later cremated and buried with his owner. The dog was found lying across the body of his 74-year-old owner who died in his Brisbane home. The animal protection society was called in when the dog attempted to shield the dead man from ambulance officers who had come to take the body away.
■ Australia
Dolphins get new protection
Alarmed by reports of humans "chasing" dolphins, authorities have closed an anomaly and given dolphins the same protection from pesky swimmers that is already accorded to whales. The New South Wales government has ruled that swimmers should stay at least 30m from dolphins, porpoise and dugongs -- just as they are required to with whales. Boats will have to keep 30m away from dolphins, but 100m from whales. The changes are a response to concerns that there is too great a temptation for cruise boat operators to encourage interaction with dolphins.
■ Vietnam
Man fined for prank calls
A young man, excited by owning his first mobile phone, has been fined for making more than 200 prank calls to a fire department in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang, police said yesterday. Tran Minh Hai, a 24-year-old street candy vender, was seized and fined US$250 on Friday. Hai said he made the calls just for fun because it was the first time he had owned a hand phone, the police said. "He drove our firemen crazy as they sent personnel and equipment to the places and then realized there was no fire at all," the police said.
■ Italy
Il Duce's daughter banned
Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Italy's wartime fascist dictator, was branded a cheat at the weekend when electoral referees barred her from contesting an election, having decided that hundreds of the signatures she had needed to allow her to stand had been faked. Among the allegedly counterfeit endorsements was that of the actress Ornella Muti, who on Sunday denied having approved Mussolini's candidacy. Judges charged with scrutinising the list that her party presented said other supposed signatories were found to be dead, or to have been born on Feb. 31.
■ Austria
Snowslides kill three
Three people died on Sunday as hundreds of avalanches went off across Austria, authorities said. Several other people were injured in the weekend snow slides, while some people caught in avalanches escaped unharmed. Most of the slides did not catch any people. A German man was found dead after he and his son were swept away by an avalanche as they were skiing on Sunday in the resort of Saalbach in the Salzburg province, a provincial police spokesman said. A Czech man was killed on Sunday in a separate snow slide near the resort of Bad Gastein, also in the Salzburg province, police said. Also on Sunday, an avalanche on the Grossglockner swept away two Hungarian backcountry skiers.
■ United States
Five-letter word for winner?
The bookish world of crossword puzzle aficionados has a fresh-faced new champion. Tyler Hinman, 20, became the youngest champion in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament's 28-year-history Sunday after beating 450 competitors. "I can't even celebrate," said Hinman, a college student. "I'm not old enough to go to a pub and drink myself stupid." Hinman said he will spend his US$4,000 prize money on tuition. "We thought it was a good way for him to learn vocabulary, then he started constructing puzzles and getting them accepted for publication in the New York Times," said his mother, Krista.
■ United States
Toddler shoots toddler
A two-year-old was shot by his four-year-old brother, who may not have known the difference between a real and toy gun, police said. The two-year-old, who suffered a single gunshot wound to the temple, was in critical condition Saturday night at Ben Taub Hospital. The shooting occurred Saturday afternoon at a home in southwest Houston. Police Sergeant Cameron Grysen said the boys had been arguing when the two-year-old threw a toy at his brother. The mother thought the boys had returned to their room, but they had instead gone to her room, where the older boy took a loaded gun from the woman's purse.
■ Netherlands
Huge fight starts on plane
Eight passengers aboard an aircraft traveling from Gerona in Spain to Rotterdam have been arrested following a fight between two groups over a woman, Dutch police said yesterday. A "massive fight" had broken out on the Luxavia flight that landed Sunday evening after one of the passengers apparently molested the woman, police said. "The fight broke out apparently because someone in one group touched up a woman in the other group of passengers," a police spokesman said.
■ United States
Killer `angry about sermon'
A gunman who opened fire at a crowded church service in a Wisconsin hotel, killing seven people, including the pastor and his son, was a congregant who may have been angry about a sermon, police said on Sunday. The gunman, who also wounded four others attending the Living Church of God service on Saturday before shooting himself in the head, was identified by police as 44-year-old Terry Ratzmann of New Berlin, Wisconsin. Police said Ratzmann attended the church, which has met regularly at the Sheraton Hotel in Brookfield 16 km west of Milwaukee for the past several years. He fired a total of 22 shots into the crowd of about 50 to 60 people, police told reporters.
■ Uae
Pregnant maid to be whipped
A housemaid was sentenced to 150 lashes in the for getting pregnant out of wedlock, the local newspaper Gulf News reported. A Sharia, or Islamic Court, official quoted by the newspaper said the maid's UAE national sponsor filed a case with police accusing her of committing adultery and being pregnant. Her case, in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, one of the seven sheikhdoms that make up the UAE federation, was referred to the public prosecution department and she was ordered to take a pregnancy test, which came back positive. The news report did not say if the lashes would be administered during her pregnancy. The lashes would be done in two stages and she will then be deported, said the report. The maid, whose nationality was not given, refused to reveal the name of the child's father.
■ United Kingdom
Scientists find dyslexia gene
Welsh scientists claim to have discovered a gene they believe to be one of the causes of the reading disorder dyslexia. The gene -- KIAA0319 -- was found by a team of researchers led by Julie Williams and Michail O'Donovan at the department of psychological medicine at the Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff. They analyzed 300 families, in each of which at least one child had the disorder. Williams said the discovery could help in a better understanding of "one of the great mysteries of neuroscience" -- how people actually process language.
■ United States
Officer on trial for Iraq killing
The platoon leader accused of ordering soldiers to force two Iraqis into the Tigris River at gunpoint was set for his court-martial to begin Monday. Army 1st Lieutenant Jack Saville is charged with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and making a false statement. The 25-year-old West Point graduate faces a maximum penalty of 29 years in military prison if convicted. He is accused of ordering troops to push two curfew violators into the river near Samarra early last year, resulting in the drowning death of Zaidoun Hassoun, 19.
■ The Vatican
Pope back in Vatican
Pope John Paul II returned to the Vatican late on Sunday, ending an 18-day stay at Rome's Gemelli hospital during which he underwent throat surgery which leaves him breathing with a tube in his neck. Looking tired and drawn, but in reasonably good form, the 84-year-old pope blessed and waved to hundreds of pilgrims who cheered and applauded as his cavalcade, flanked by police motorcyclists, wound its way through northern Rome and back to the Vatican. Groups of people clapped and cheered as the cavalcade passed by, some shouting: "Long Live the Pope."
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
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
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