■ Thailand
Rare giant catfish caught
Fishermen caught a 293kg catfish that may have been the world's largest freshwater fish. The Mekong giant catfish was netted by villagers in a remote part of northern Thailand, the National Geographic Society said in a statement. When wildlife officials caught wind of the catch they urged the villagers to release the adult male so that it could spawn, but it later died and was eaten. The fish was the heaviest recorded since Thai officials started tracking the species in 1981 and may be the largest freshwater fish ever discovered. The Mekong giant catfish -- which shares the title of largest freshwater fish with a close relative, the dog-eating catfish -- was listed as critically endangered in 2003.
■ China
Factory standoff ends
Hundreds of people from Jianxia village, Zhejiang Province, have held a battery factory hostage, complaining that it is poisoning their children. About 600 people took control of the Zhejiang Tianneng Battery company and barricaded about 1,000 workers inside. But a promise made yesterday afternoon by factory managers to stop production and carry out investigations helped defuse the tense five-day standoff. "Most people have started to go home after negotiations with officials and police and the factory will stop production for 15 days," said said a resident surnamed Huang in the village. Four people were hospitalized after factory workers and villagers fought each other, he said.
■ China
Ban on sexuality issued
A university has stirred up a controversy by issuing explicit regulations banning student sexual activities. "The discovery of escort girls, mistresses, gigolos; anyone caught having a one night love affair, will result in expulsion from the university," a regulation by Chongqing Normal University said. It was unclear if the rule targeted commercial sex only, or if it was meant as an outright ban on all sexual activities by students. The regulation was made in accordance with rules on "harming the image of the university" and put up in classrooms on the school campus in May. Students complained that the terms used in the regulation were not clearly defined and near impossible to prove. Although some universities now allow students to marry, many ban sex on campus.
■ Thailand
Cop kills three, then self
A policeman killed three people following a traffic dispute before turning the gun on himself in front of stunned onlookers. Sergeant Visit Parami, 46, shot a driver and two passengers in a remote district of Chiang Mai Province after they ignored an order to stop. He then shot himself in the head. Two of his victims died at the scene and the third died in the hospital. He was trying to issue them a ticket and they quarrelled for some five minutes before the policeman pulled his gun and shot the three before shooting himself.
■ Hong Kong
Street cafes `untouristy'
Tourism officials are refusing to promote Hong Kong's famous street cafes, saying they do not want to give the city an unhygienic image. The Hong Kong Tourism Board was asked to consider promoting the cafes -- "dai pai dong" -- to help stop them from disappearing amid rapid urban development. The cafes serve up cheap food like noodles and congee with customers sitting on plastic chairs in the open air to eat it. Assistant Commissioner for Tourism Winnie Chung said "We don't want tourists to feel Hong Kong isn't a clean place."
■ United Kingdom
Britain trained Uzbeks
British military advisers trained Uzbek troops in "marksmanship" shortly before a massacre in which hundreds of people were killed. The training was part of a larger programme funded by Britain despite concerns expressed by the British Foreign Office at the time over the Uzbekistan government's human rights record. A group of Uzbek military cadets were given a "coaching course" in marksmanship by British soldiers in February and March this year. In May, Uzbek forces massacred up to 500 men, women and children in the town of Andijan.
■ Iran
Love at center of row?
Perplexed by the vitriol of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's attacks on Iran, one lawmaker believes he has uncovered the secret of her enmity -- that she was spurned by an Iranian boyfriend at college. "The reason that the US secretary of state attacks Iran is because she had her heart broken by a young man from Qazvin while they were students," a confident Shokrollah Attarzadeh was quoted by the ISNA agency as saying. Somewhat mysteriously, he added: "This is the result of an investigation by a woman MP, who cannot be named."
■ United States
Cult leader may get death
The tyrannical father of an incestuous clan should be put to death for killing nine of his children in a grisly mass murder last year, a California jury recommended Wednesday. The jury of seven women and five men decided that Marcus Wesson, 58, should be executed for his crimes, after nine hours of deliberations over three days in the central California town of Fresno. The same panel found Wesson guilty of the first-degree murder of nine of his children, who he was accused of shooting in the eye in the family's home in Fresno on March 12 last year.
■ Isreal
Army battles guerrillas
An Israeli army force clashed yesterday morning with a Lebanese guerrilla force along a disputed portion of the Israel-Lebanon border, Israel Radio reported. Israeli reports said one guerilla was injured. There were no immediate reports of any casualties to Israeli troops. The clash took place in the Shebaa Farms area, where on Wednesday guerrillas from the Hezbollah group shelled an Israeli army outpost; killing one Israeli soldier. Lebanon's pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement was believed to be responsible for yesterday's shelling near the outpost overlooking the Lebanese village of Kfar Chouba.
■ United Kingdom
Good student kills parents
A highly intelligent British student who created a fantasy life pleaded guilty Wednesday to bludgeoning his elderly parents to death, then using their credit cards on a £30,000 (US$54,000) spending spree. Brian Blackwell admitted two counts of manslaughter at Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England. Retired accountant Sydney Blackwell, 72, and his wife Jacqueline, 61, an antiques dealer, were found dead at their home in the affluent village of Melling, northwest England, on Sept. 5. Prosecutors said Blackwell created a fantasy life, claiming he was a professional tennis player and hiring his girlfriend, Amal Saba, as his manager. After killing his parents, he took Saba on vacation in the US, running up a bill of around £30,000.
■ United States
Fewer watch Bush's speech
US President George W. Bush's address urging Americans to stand firm in Iraq drew the smallest TV audience of his tenure, Nielsen Media Research reported on Wednesday. The Tuesday night speech at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina averaged 23 million viewers combined on the four major US broadcast networks and three leading cable news channels that carried the speech, Nielsen said. That number was 8.6 million viewers below Bush's previous low as president, his Aug. 9, 2001 speech on stem-cell research, which was carried on six networks. Even Bush's last prime-time address, his April 28 speech on Social Security overhaul, drew more viewers, 32.7 million.
■ United Kingdom
Parent killer gets life in jail
Student Brian Blackwell was jailed for life on Wednesday after he admitted bludgeoning his parents to death, then using their credit cards on a ?30,000 (US$54,000) spending spree. Blackwell, who had just received top grades on school exams and was accepted to a university, admitted two counts of manslaughter at Liverpool Crown Court. Sydney Blackwell, 72, and his wife Jacqueline, 61, were found dead at their home in the affluent village of Melling on Sept. 5 last year. After killing his parents, Blackwell took his girlfriend on a vacation in the US.
■ United Kingdom
Methodists bless gay unions
The Methodist church on Wednesday became the first big Christian denomination in Britain to offer the prospect of blessings services for same-sex couples. Although adamant that such services would not be regarded by the church as marriages, officials admitted that they could well be seen as such by the couples themselves. The annual Methodist conference voted unanimously to continue its "pilgrimage of faith" toward gay people. There are 300,000 Methodists in Britain, making it the country's third-largest denomination. The conference voted for its faith and order committee to research guidelines to offer ministers on how to respond to requests to conduct prayers or services of blessing for same-sex couples.
■ United States
Stray plane triggers alert
A private plane strayed into restricted airspace over Washington on Wednesday evening, prompting security agents to move President George W. Bush to a safer location and causing the evacuation of the US Capitol, officials said. It was the second time in less than two months that a security scare involving a private plane prompted authorities to evacuate the Capitol complex and take extraordinary security precautions at the White House. The plane was intercepted by military and homeland security aircraft about 13 km from the capital. Officials said it appeared the wayward aircraft strayed into restricted airspace around 6:30pm to avoid bad weather.
■ France
Separatists convicted
A court handed down jail terms ranging from two to 20 years on 14 of 15 Basque and Breton separatists charged with stealing a huge haul of dynamite, which experts say was used in car bomb attacks that killed 18 people in Spain. Ten suspected members of the Breton Revolutionary Army and five from the Basque group ETA went on trial in Paris on June 1, accused of having taken nearly 9 tonnes of dynamite, 6,500 detonators and 10km of fuse in a raid on a depot in Brittany in September 1999.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS