■ Australia
Police make huge drug bust
Australian police seized over 5 million ecstasy tablets weighing more than a tonne and valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, in the country's largest-ever ecstasy drug bust, federal officials said yesterday. Four men were arrested after police discovered the ecstasy hidden inside a shipping container of ceramic tiles that arrived in the southern city of Melbourne from Italy on Tuesday. Federal Agent Mike Phelan said authorities received a tip-off about the illicit cargo well before the ship arrived. A customs X-ray examination later revealed the tablets hidden in cavities around some of the boxes of tiles, he said.
■ Bangladesh
Rescuers near to giving up
Rescuers all but gave up hope of finding 121 missing workers from a collapsed garment factory as the official death toll climbed to 44 with nine more bodies pulled from the rubble. A boiler blast on Monday brought the nine-story building down on top of nearly 300 workers at Spectrum Garments Factory near Savar, 32km northwest of Dhaka. "We have found nine more bodies and it'll be a miracle if we find any survivors," a police official said on condition of anonymity. The corpses were recovered after cranes removed huge concrete slabs, he said, adding it could take another week to clear the tonnes of rubble.
■ China
Obesity blamed on diet
China now has some 18 million obese adults, and 64 million adults may be at risk of cardiovascular disease because of poor dietary habits and lack of exercise, a study published today in The Lancet says. The figures are extrapolated from an in-depth survey of nearly 19,000 people aged 35 to 74, randomly selected from 20 rural and urban areas in China. The volunteers were weighed, their corpular fat measured and their blood monitored for pressure, glucose and cholesterol. Extrapolated for the country's population of 1.3 billion, the results indicate that 137 million Chinese are overweight, and 18 million of them are obese.
■ Afghanistan
Boy dies despite surgery
An Afghan toddler sent to the US for surgery to repair a life-threatening heart condition died in his father's arms yesterday, just two days after his return home. He had been treated at a children's hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. The child and his father had stayed in Indianapolis with a member of the Rotary Club, which helped cover the estimated US$100,000 cost. Only Wednesday, he and his father were escorted by US troops back to their family tent in the muddy refugee camp next to an Afghan military barracks. More than 100 adults and children from the camp were waiting, and applauded wildly when the boy's father emerged from a pickup truck clutching the boy.
■ Ireland
Man dies in gang hit
A lone gunman killed a Dublin man, shooting him five times point blank in the head, police said yesterday, in the third suspected gangland killing this month in the Irish capital. Although Ireland is statistically among the safest countries in Europe, it suffers from periodic spasms of bloodletting within its criminal underworld, particularly in Dublin and the southwest city of Limerick. Police handle about 30 to 40 murders a year in this country of 4 million. They said a man in his 20s was shot while sitting in a car, while his attacker escaped on a motorcycle that was later found torched.
■ United Kingdom
Police seize terror gear
Police yesterday said they seized terrorist equipment from Protestant extremists in Northern Ireland. The seizures came during raids on Thursday night on several homes in the north coast village of Bushmills, which is home to the world-famous whiskey distillery of the same name. Officers said they found ingredients for explosives, a pistol, balaclava masks and combat clothing but made no arrests. Two outlawed anti-Catholic groups, the Ulster Defense Association and Ulster Volunteer Force, have been observing a joint cease-fire since 1994 after combining to kill more than 900 Catholics.
■ United Kingdom
Family under pressure
Relatives of a Belfast man slain by Irish Republican Army (IRA) members accused IRA supporters on Thursday of threatening to force them from their homes. A public campaign for justice being waged by the five sisters and fiancee of Robert McCartney -- who was fatally stabbed on Jan. 30 outside a crowded Belfast pub -- has put the IRA and its allied Sinn Fein party on the defensive for weeks. Paula McCartney, one of the sisters, said she was confronted at the door of her home on Wednesday night by a sister of a Sinn Fein member allegedly involved in the killing of her brother. The victim's fiancee, Bridgeen Hagans, said she received similar threats.
■ United States
Baseball spat turns deadly
A 13-year-old California boy was charged with murder on Thursday for a fatal attack with a baseball bat on a 15-year-old who had apparently teased him about losing a baseball game. The Los Angeles District Attorney's office said the teen, whose name was being withheld, was to make his first court appearance in juvenile court yesterday. Jeremy Rourke, 15, died on Tuesday night after the final game of the Pony League season in the desert city of Palmdale, 50km north of Los Angeles. Witnesses said the two boys were standing in line at the snack bar when an argument broke out. According to coach Tony Trevino, "one boy lost his composure, got his bat out and hit the other two times, once in the knee, once in the head."
■ United States
Lasers to warn pilots
The federal government has deployed a ring of laser warning lights around the capital and will activate it next month to alert pilots who stray into restricted airspace, Norad and the Federal Aviation Administration announced on Thursday. Hundreds of pilots violate the rules every year. The warning lights, controlled by the military, are designed like anti-aircraft guns, tracking aircraft by using radar. They flash three times a second -- red, red again and then green.
■ United States
Bush far from sexy: poll
He may be leader of the free world but an international survey of women makes certain that US President George W. Bush is far from being the sexiest man alive. In a recent online poll conducted by Esquire magazine, 11,000 women in 15 countries were asked to rate Bush's sex appeal on a scale of one to 10, and he failed to register much more than a two. Women in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands were the harshest judges, giving him an average rating of 1.4 each. Indonesian women were the most generous, giving him an average score of 2.2 while Americans rated him a 2.1
■ Canada
Food officials ban toy guns
The government said on Thursday it was ordering the recall of 21,000 Chinese-made toy guns because they contained soil which could contaminate crops and forests. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said each rifle contained a bag of soil used as a weight. "The soil may spill out and release destructive insects, microscopic worms, fungi or bacteria that could spread into Canadian crops and forests," it said in a statement. "We didn't expect plant protection problems from toy guns," said agency spokesman Alain Charette.
■ Canada
Smuggler denied sanctuary
A court has declined to give sanctuary to China's most-wanted man, Lai Changxing (賴昌星), although the ruling appeared to leave open the possibility for further appeals. Chinese authorities claim Lai is the mastermind behind a network based in Xiamen, responsible for smuggling as much as US$10 billion worth of goods into the country with protection from corrupt officials. Lai and his family arrived in Canada with his family in August 1999 after fleeing China by way of Hong Kong.
■ Iraq
Murder sparks prison riot
The murder of a prisoner at a US-run prison triggered a fight between detainees that left 12 injured, the second riot at the jail in two weeks, the US military said yesterday. The fight broke out on Thursday night and was confined to detainees at Camp Bucca just outside the port city of Umm Qasr, the military said in a statement. "The guards regained control of the compound and immediately began rendering medical treatment to 12 other detainees who were injured during the fight," said the statement.
■ United States
Marriage licenses retracted
The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday nullified nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples by Multnomah County, saying a single county couldn't take such action on its own. The court said while the county can question the constitutionality of laws governing marriage, they are a matter of state-wide concern so the county had no authority to issue licenses to gay couples.
■ United States
Duck detail gets tricky
Officials bolstered security on Thursday for a duck nursing eggs near the White House to protect her from protesters at a global economic summit beginning yesterday. Officials are concerned protesters could disturb the mallard hen, who is incubating nine eggs at the foot of a tree on the sidewalk in front of the Treasury Department. The duck laid her eggs on top a mound of mulch at the foot of a freshly planted sapling earlier this month and the ducklings are expected to hatch at the end of this month.
The pledge by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to “work, work, work, work and work” for her country has been named the catchphrase of the year, recognizing the effort Japan’s first female leader had to make to reach the top. Takaichi uttered the phrase in October when she was elected as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Many were initially as worried about her work ethic as supportive of her enthusiasm. In a country notorious for long working hours, especially for working women who are also burdened with homemaking and caregiving, overwork is a sensitive topic. The recognition triggered a
Tropical Storm Koto killed three people and left another missing as it approached Vietnam, authorities said yesterday, as strong winds and high seas buffeted vessels off the country’s flood-hit central coast. Heavy rains have lashed Vietnam’s middle belt in recent weeks, flooding historic sites and popular holiday destinations, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Authorities ordered boats to shore and diverted dozens of flights as Koto whipped up huge waves and dangerous winds, state media reported. Two vessels sank in the rough seas, a fishing boat in Khanh Hoa province and a smaller raft in Lam Dong, according to the
‘HEART IS ACHING’: Lee appeared to baffle many when he said he had never heard of six South Koreans being held in North Korea, drawing criticism from the families South Korean President Lee Jae-myung yesterday said he was weighing a possible apology to North Korea over suspicions that his ousted conservative predecessor intentionally sought to raise military tensions between the war-divided rivals in the buildup to his brief martial law declaration in December last year. Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of imprisoned former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s ill-fated power grab, Lee — a liberal who won a snap presidential election following Yoon’s removal from office in April — stressed his desire to repair ties with Pyongyang. A special prosecutor last month indicted Yoon and two of his top
The Philippines deferred the awarding of a project that is part of a plan to build one of the world’s longest marine bridges after local opposition over the potential involvement of a Chinese company due to national security fears. The proposals are “undergoing thorough review” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which acts as a lender and an overseer of the project to ensure it meets international environmental and governance standards, the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways said in a statement on Monday in response to queries from Bloomberg. The agency said it would announce the winning bidder once ADB
RSS