■ Australia
Nuclear waste may stay
The Australian government suggested yesterday it could reverse plans to send nuclear waste offshore, following reports that the plan was scuppered because of fears of toxic waste falling into terrorists' hands. "The reality is that Australia needs to find a site -- a very safe repository -- for its own nuclear waste and we'll be working towards that," Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane told ABC. "And I only hope we have the support of the [state] premiers in a sensible debate this time around." Several states have already refused to take the nuclear waste which is generated mostly from scientific and medical research. Australia has no nuclear power stations, although there has been increasing debate in recent weeks about a possible shift to atomic energy in order to counter global warming blamed on emissions from fossil-fueled fired power plants. Prime Minister John Howard's Cabinet is due to meet in Canberra today and the issue of the disposal of low and medium-level waste is thought to be on the agenda.
■ China
Typhoid seen in flood area
At least three people have died from typhoid in China amid seasonal flooding that has already killed more than 200 people. The three perished in the township of Taizhimiao and in the hardest-hit province of Hunan, where 75 people have died and 46 others are missing after three days of torrential rain. China Daily said authorities have stockpiled medicine and were offering free inoculations against typhoid and dysentery. Typhoid fever spreads when food or drink is contaminated by feces carrying the bacteria that cause the disease. It is common in the developing world, but is usually treatable with antibiotics.
■ India
Train derailment kills two
A speeding passenger train derailed in Madhya Pradesh yesterday killing two people and injuring 29 others, police said. The "holiday special" Chittorgarh-Mhow express jumped off the track a few kilometers short of Ratlam station. Three coaches and the engine derailed, a local government official told the PTI news agency. The train was on its way from Chittorgarh in Rajasthan, a popular tourist destination because of its palaces and temples, to Mhow in Madhya Pradesh.
■ Thailand
Buddhist beheaded in south
A Buddhist man has been beheaded in the south, police said yesterday, the fourth decapitation of a Buddhist since violence erupted in the region 18 months ago. Police found the body of the 59-year-old rubber plantation employee at his hut in Yaha district of Yala Province late on Sunday. "We believe it must have been the work of those militants," a police officer said by telephone.
■ China
Beijing to add more police
Beijing is to boost its police force by 10 percent to ease the burden on officers who were overworked and suffered from psychiatric and medical problems, state media said yesterday. Many of the capital's 63,500 police suffer from conditions such as high blood pressure and hyperglycemia due to their "unhealthy living and working habits," Xinhua news agency reported. "It should be a young and strong team but medical checkups in recent years show that policemen have a higher death rate than other groups," it said. Authorities were planning to hire 6,500 new officers. Beijing police are mainly engaged in handling criminal activities and handling hazardous substances, Xinhua said.
■ China
Students barred from cabs
A Shanghai taxi company has banned cabs with unlucky license plates from carrying students to college entrance exams this week. Dazhong, the city's largest taxi company, won't carry students in cabs whose license plate ends in the number four, which is pronounced in the Shanghai dialect the same as the word "failure." Many Chinese avoid four because it is pronounced the same as "death" in Mandarin. "Lots of parents refuse to take cabs with number plates which they consider unlucky," the Shanghai Youth Daily yesterday quoted Dazhong's boss as saying. "We've seen many of them get angry at us because we have used them to carry their children in past years," he said. About 130,000 students will take the three-day exam starting today, and 20,000 cabs have been booked to deliver them to the tests on time.
■ Australia
Roommate killed over noise
A man killed his roommate because she refused to turn off the TV or stereo as he was trying to sleep, a court heard yesterday. Jeffrey Dunn, 60, stabbed Jacqueline Dowd, 42, to death at their western Sydney home in March last year. Dunn pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter due to provocation, Australian Associated Press reported. Dunn said that he killed Dowd, who he had lived with on and off since 1996, because she refused to let him rest, the prosecutor told the court. "I tried to sleep and she turned the television on, then she turned the stereo on," the prosecutor said Dunn told police. "I said: `Look Jacqui if you don't shut up I'm going to kill you.'" The court heard that the pair, who were not romantically involved, both drank heavily.
■ United States
Cash brings out Deep Throat
The daughter of the former FBI agent who was revealed this week as "Deep Throat" has acknowledged that money played a role in the family's decision to go public. Mark Felt, 91, was the key source in the Washington Post's Watergate investigation that helped bring down then-president Richard Nixon. Felt stepped forward last week, ending a three-decade debate about the source's true identity. "He is relieved to get the secret off his chest," Joan Felt said of her father in an interview published Sunday in The Press Democrat. Joan Felt, 61, told the newspaper there were many reasons her family wanted to reveal the elder Felt's role in Watergate after three decades, but added, "I won't deny that to make money is one of them."
■ United States
Racers nabbed by police
Washington State Patrol troopers pulled over Porsches, Ferraris and even a Lamborghini on Interstate 5 this weekend as more than 50 drivers, many in luxury cars, set out on a five-day rally that involves driving from city to city to collect poker cards. The 2005 Players Run began in Seattle and has stops in Ashland, Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego en route to Las Vegas. Police said some participants were clocked at more than 193kph on the Seattle-to-Oregon leg. Drivers veered between lanes, followed too closely and otherwise drove aggressively, forcing troopers to stop all traffic on the freeway with a rolling road block necessary to pull over the vehicles.
■ United Kingdom
Highway charge proposed
The government, is seeking support to legislate for the world's most ambitious road-charging scheme to avert the prospect of "complete gridlock" on Britain's highways. Under the proposal, drivers will have to pay up to ?1.30 (US$2.36) per mile for each car journey. They will be monitored by satellite, with variable rates levied according to the time, type of road and location. To mitigate the blow, there would be reductions in fuel tax and vehicle excise duty, although transport secretary, Alistair Darling has refused to say whether the overall tax burden on motorists would rise or remain the same.
■ United States
Piano gold goes to Russian
Russia's Alexander Kobrin, 25, won the gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, a prestigious 17-day contest known for launching classical music careers. The silver medal on Sunday night went to Joyce Yang, 19, a native of South Korea. Sa Chen, 25, of China took third place. Each medalist wins US$20,000 in cash, three years of concert tours and career management and the opportunity to record an album. Kobrin also will perform internationally. Three other finalists -- Davide Cabassi, 28, and Roberto Plano, 26, both of Italy, and China's Chu-Fang Huang, 22 -- won US$10,000 as well as three years of tours and management.
■ Turkey
Earthquake injures dozens
A strong earthquake rattled eastern Turkey yesterday, slightly injuring 37 people and causing some damage to buildings, officials said. The quake measured 5.7 on the Richter scale and struck at 10:41am, said the Kandilli observatory in Istanbul. Its epicenter was in Karliova in Bingol province. Officials dispatched three search-and-rescue teams from neighboring Erzurum province to the affected area and Turkey's Red Crescent aid organization sent 109 tents and 750 blankets.
■ Israel
Violence erupts at holy site
Police stormed a disputed Jerusalem holy site yesterday, hurling stun grenades to disperse hundreds of Palestinian worshippers who threw stones at police accompanying a group of Jewish visitors. The confrontation came as Israel marked "Jerusalem Day," the anniversary of its capture of traditionally Arab east Jerusalem during the 1967 Mideast war.
■ Belgium
Apology made for remark
The government is trying to work its magic to soothe the anger of Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende after the Belgian foreign minister compared him to Harry Potter. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt apologized to his counterpart over the weekend for the remark made by his foreign minister, Karel De Gucht, who described Balkenende as "a mix between Harry Potter and a brave rigid bourgeois" with no charisma.
■ Russia
Expedition cut short
Harrowing conditions including unseasonable snowstorms and spring ice conditions have cut short an attempt by two US explorers at the first-ever summer crossing of the Arctic Ocean to highlight the threat of global warming. Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen, both of Grand Marais, Minnesota, were airlifted by helicopter from the ocean after battling the elements for 23 days. "We go forward eight miles and then we'd be drifted back 12," Dupre said.
■ Panama
Nautilus-like sub found
A British explorer has discovered an abandoned 19th-century submarine which might have been the inspiration for Captain Nemo's vessel Nautilus in Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. John Blashford-Snell found the cast-iron submarine, named Explorer, half-submerged in 3m of water off the coast of Panama. It was built in 1864, five years before Verne's classic adventure story was published, and it is thought that the French writer would have read about the sub's specifications. The 10m-long vessel was built by inventor Julius Kroehl for the Union forces in the US Civil War but it was not used. The Explorer was abandoned after all its crew died of what may well have been the bends.
■ United States
Scholars get into reality TV
Last night, ABC was to show the first of six installments of The Scholar, in which 10 high school seniors pursue a scholarship worth as much as US$240,000 by outsmarting one another before a panel of actual college admissions officers. That sum is intended to cover tuition, room and board at an Ivy League or comparable institution for four years, as well as incidentals like books and travel. In the first episode one boy, on the brink of tears, says he cannot bear to inform his immigrant parents that he has just lost an early round of the competition. Each contestant will walk away with a US$20,000 scholarship.
■ Canada
Hope for an Ebola vaccine
Scientists in Canada and the US may have found a way of containing the world's deadliest diseases. They report that new vaccines have proved 100 percent effective against infection from the Ebola and Marburg viruses in laboratory monkeys. Heinz Feldmann of the Public Health Agency of Canada, who reports with colleagues in Nature Medicine yesterday, said, "It will be some time before we can use these vaccines in the field, but ... we are getting closer."
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
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