■ China
Campus murder probed
Police arrested a 21-year-old medical student of China's elite Peking University in connection with the stabbing death of a fellow classmate. Police arrested An Ran on Saturday just hours after the body of his classmate Cui Peizhao, 21, was found in a blood-spattered hospital stairwell. Cui was doing an internship at the Beijing Millennium Monument Hospital as part of his degree. The two were believed to have been feuding over a woman. The suspect allegedly surrendered a knife and a pair of gloves used in the killing.
■ China
Two Tibetans die of plague
Two Tibetans have died from the plague after eating rodent meat, but health authorities have said the situation is under control. The two were part of a group of five from Tibet's Zhongba county who fell ill after eating meat from the rodent species marmot earlier this month. After they fell ill, health officials in Tibet sought to determine who they had been in contact with in an effort to prevent an epidemic from breaking out. The health ministry reported the incident to the WHO Saturday morning and later the same day issued a statement saying the situation was under control.
■ Malaysia
Five-day work week to begin
The government will examine the number of public holidays in the country as civil servants prepare for the introduction of a five-day working week. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said the country's 14 holidays, in addition to the five-day week to start on July 1, were excessive and would make workers less competitive. The government announced in May that it would cut down the five-and-a-half-day working week which includes Saturday mornings, saying that the move would increase family-bonding and boost domestic tourism. But Najib said the five-day week would not reduce workers' total hours, as civil servants would have to work longer hours each day.
■ Thailand
UN team to visit
A team of UN experts will gather in Thailand this week to discuss ways the Southeast Asian nation can strengthen its ability to fight terrorism. The team is on the five-day visit to Bangkok starting today, and will include experts from Interpol, the World Customs Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The visit comes after the experts made similar trips to Morocco, Kenya and Albania earlier this year to help the countries develop better anti-terrorism capabilities in compliance with a UN resolution.
■ Pakistan
PM refutes bin Laden rumor
President Pervez Musharraf dismissed as "speculation" claims by senior US officials that they know where al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is hiding. "Any talk about his whereabouts is mere speculation," Musharraf said. "Some are saying that bin Laden is in Pakistan, and what I want to tell them is: Please come and tell us where he is. Anyone can say that he [bin Laden] is anywhere, so why talk about his presence here [in Pakistan]?" US and Afghan officials have previously said they think bin Laden and other al-Qaeda kingpins are hiding out in the mountains on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. On Thursday, US Vice President Dick Cheney said he had "a pretty good idea" of where bin Laden was hiding, echoing comments by Central Intelligence Agency director Porter Goss, who said he had an "excellent idea."
■ Germany
Communist state yacht sold
It was once used by Germany's former communist elite to entertain such honored state guests as Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Now the East German state yacht Ostseeland has been sold for between 700,000 euros (US$847,000) and one million euros (US$1.2 million) to a businessman in Dubai, the weekly Bild am Sonntag reported yesterday. Hamburg boat broker Jan Bueltmann sold the 61m-long yacht -- a converted minesweeper -- to the United Arab Emirates on behalf of its Turkish owner. "A wealthy businessman wants to make changes to it and use it privately", Bueltmann said.
■ Israel
China arms deal cancelled
Israel has bowed to US pressure to cancel an arms deal with China and will impose tighter controls on its weapons exports in general, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported yesterday. The dispute with the US centers on Israel's sale of Harpy attack drones and other advanced technology to China which the Pentagon fears could tilt the balance of power and make it difficult to defend Taiwan. Agreeing to US demands, Israel will not return Harpy spare parts that China sent to their Israeli manufacturer for upgrading, Haaretz said.
■ Kenya
Home-made liquor kills 36
Eleven more people died overnight from drinking home-made liquor adulterated with deadly methanol, bringing the death toll to 36, Kenyan health authorities said yesterday. At least 59 people were still being treated in Machakos District Hospital, 60km southwest of Nairobi, and nine others have been transferred to the capital's Kenyatta National Hospital in critical condition, district medical officer Wako Dulacha said by phone. Police said the adulterated liquor, called chang'aa was consumed in massive quantities in a bar at the trading post of Makutano, about 30km south of Nairobi. They were still searching for the owner of the bar, who had gone missing. Methanol is used in industry as a solvent or antifreeze.
■ France
Oprah to boycott Hermes
US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is convinced she was turned away from a Hermes store in Paris because she is black and she plans to tell her millions of viewers about it, a spokeswoman said on Friday. Winfrey, who was recently named the most powerful celebrity in the US by Forbes magazine, has also decided to boycott the store. The luxury goods house issued a public apology on Friday after Winfrey called Robert Chavez, president of Hermes in America, to complain. Hermes said in a statement that Winfrey was denied entry on June 14 because she arrived after standard business hours and while a private PR event was being set up inside.
■ Jordan
`No way' to Saddam's play
Jordanian authorities have refused to license the printing of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's fourth and last play, Get out, you are cursed, which he reportedly wrote shortly before his ouster in April 2003, a local newspaper said yesterday. "Somebody has approached the Printing and Publication Department [PPD] for a licence to allow the printing of the play attributed to Saddam, but the PPD refused the request," the pro-government daily Al-Rai said quoting "well-informed sources."
■ United Kingdom
PM's son eyes Republicans
Prime Minister Tony Blair's son Euan is to take an internship with a leading US Republican Congressman, a newspaper reported yesterday. Euan Blair is to spend three months unpaid with the Republican majority on the House of Representatives Committee on Rules, the Sunday Telegraph revealed. He will reportedly be under the wing of Californian lawmaker David Dreier, the committee's chairman and a member of the lower House of Representatives for the Republican Party. The 21-year-old Euan, Blair's eldest son, is soon to graduate from Bristol University in southwest England with a degree in ancient history.
■ United States
Let us dance, suit demands
Despite living in a city renowned for its vibrant nightlife, a group of New Yorkers have deemed it necessary to embark on a legal battle to win the right to go out dancing. A group of social dancers, dance teachers and a dance club jointly filed a lawsuit Thursday in State Supreme Court that seeks to declare a city ordinance forbidding dancing in clubs without cabaret licenses as unconstitutional. The target of the lawsuit is the city's 1926, prohibition-era "cabaret laws," originally designed to control black speakeasies in Harlem. The laws limited the music that could be played and required ID cards and fingerprinting for everyone who officially worked in a "cabaret."
■ United Kingdom
Holidays for partying: survey
Young Britons on holiday shun local culture for booze, casual sex and fist-fighting, said an official British report revealed yesterday. The Foreign Office report, "Project Holiday," surveyed 1,000 tourists aged between 16 and 30 and laid bare the startling details of young Brits travelling abroad to "party hard and do things to excess." Gone are the days of sun, sea and sangria: bonking, brawls and booze are the new watchwords for young British visitors to foreign shores. Over one third of Britons surveyed reckoned holidays are all about hedonistic behavior. Of those, 75 percent were looking forward to excessive drinking, 28 percent craved a quick one-night-stand, eight percent were drug-crazed and five percent were on the look-out for a good fight.
■ United States
Person dies in shark attack
A young person was killed Saturday in a shark attack near a campground on the Gulf of Mexico, authorities said. "We have had a confirmed shark attack. The scene is still under investigation," said Darlene Drury, spokeswoman for South Walton Fire-Rescue. Area beaches were closed to swimmers immediately afterward. Details of the attack near Camping on the Gulf Holiday Travel Park in Walton County and the victim's name were not immediately released. Coast Guard spokesman Shawn McGivern in Mobile, Alabama, said authorities were trying to find the victim's relatives.
■ Georgia
Man held in grenade incident
A Russian soldier was arrested in connection with a hand grenade found near the podium where US President George W. Bush gave a speech last month, a TV report said. A senior Russian military official dismissed the report Saturday as false. Colonel Vladimir Kuparadze, deputy chief of the Russian military stationed in Georgia, said the Rustavi 2 TV report saying a Russian soldier was arrested while trying to leave Georgia shortly after the May 10 incident was false. "It's an invention," Kuparadze said.
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
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