■ Iran
Seven police die in shootout
Bandits killed seven policeman and wounded nine in a gun battle on the country's lawless southeastern borders, the official IRNA news agency reported yesterday. Haydarali Nouraee, governor of the southeastern city of Zahedan, told IRNA the policemen were ambushed as they headed to arrest Derasheh Bakhsh, a prominent bandit leader who remains on the run. Iran is one of the world's key narcotics thoroughfares, carrying drugs to Europe from Afghanistan, which produces 85 percent of the world's opium. Some 3,300 Iranian forces have died in gun battles with bandits and traffickers since the 1979 Islamic revolution and the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan resemble a war zone, dotted with forts, trenches and ramparts.
■ Japan
Underwater volcano erupts
An underwater volcano has erupted near a remote Pacific island off southern Japan, spewing a column of steam 1,000m into the sky, Japan's Coast Guard said yesterday. The coast guard sent a plane to investigate the eruption about 1,400km south of Tokyo after it was spotted on Saturday by a member of Japan's armed forces stationed on the nearby island of Iwojima. The coast guard has issued a warning to shipping in the area and plans to conduct a further investigation today, a spokesman said.
■ South Korea
Police stop migrants, snakes
South Korean police, in an unusual joint operation yesterday, arrested six Chinese illegal immigrants and seized thousands of illegally imported snakes from the same boat. Police rounded up the six, all Korean-Chinese in their 30s, upon their arrival on the west coast and seized 133 10kg boxes of snakes from the boat. "The six were aboard the ship carrying thousands of snakes," said Min Chang-ki, an investigator with Taean marine police. "Two, who had been expelled before for illegal immigration, will be imprisoned while the other four will be repatriated soon after investigations."
■ Philippines
Luxury SUV explodes
A luxury sports utility vehicle exploded along a major highway in the Philippine capital yesterday, injuring four people, police said. Investigators immediately ruled out terrorism in the incident along EDSA highway in Manila's suburban city of Quezon, noting that personal grudge was emerging to be a motive. Senior Superintendent James Brillantes said Patrick Aguirre-Dy was driving the vehicle when it exploded just outside a shopping mall. Aguirre-Dy, his 55-year-old mother, and sister were able to flee the vehicle but suffered burns and bruises. Blast shrapnel also slightly injured the driver of a nearby car. Brillantes said the Aguirre-Dys were the wife and children of a Filipino-Chinese businessman who died in a similar incident last year.
■ China
Japanese tourism declines
The number of Japanese tourists to China has fallen sharply since the eruption of anti-Japanese protests, with travel firms expecting as much as a 60 percent drop during the upcoming holiday season. In a survey of six major travel firms on China-bound tourist figures, the Japan Association of Travel Agents found a significant drop in demand after April's anti-Japan rallies in China, the Sankei Shimbun daily reported.
■ United Kingdom
Napoleon learned English
Former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was desperate to learn English after surrendering to the British, an exhibition opening Thursday at the National Maritime Museum in London in London is to show. Napoleon -- apparently eager to learn English to find out what the British press was writing about him -- found progress hard going. While in exile in January 1816, Napoleon wrote: "My wife shall come near to me, my son shall be great and strong of he will be able to trink (sic) a bottle of wine at dinner I shall [toast] with him." Fondation Napoleon historian Peter Hicks said the French emperor steeled himself to the job in hand. "He was not necessarily anti-English," Hicks added. "He had to fight because it was the enemy of France."
■ Russia
State may control alcohol
President Vladimir Putin yesterday called for greater state control over the Russian hard alcohol industry, decrying what he said was rampant production of poor quality alcohol that kills some 40,000 Russians annually. Putin said the government should make the alcohol industry a state monopoly. Alcoholism is widespread in Russia and is believed to be contributing to the drop in the country's life expectancy rate among men.
■ United Kingdom
Brown vows moral crusade
British finance minister Gordon Brown, declaring the fight against poverty "the greatest moral crusade of our times," vowed on Saturday to work for more debt relief, aid and trade reform for poor nations. He was speaking at a Christian Aid rally in Edinburgh."Ours must now become the greatest moral crusade of our times," Brown said, adding there could be no justice for the poor while rich countries subsidized their agricultural products, giving poor states no chance of competing with them. "This is more than a week's work at the G8. It is a lifetime's work across the world," he said.
■ United Kingdom
`Congestion charge' levied
Hoping to drive even more cars off the road, the capital is raising its "congestion charge" to eight pounds (US$14.16) today, up from the previous five pounds (US$8.85). Drivers who pay for a month or more in advance get a 15 percent discount. Transport for London, the body responsible for the capital's transportation system, says the five pound charge has reduced the number of vehicles on the road by 15 percent, cut accidents and curbed pollution. "Obviously traffic has eased," said self-employed parcel delivery man Gary Rickwood. "But it's a lot of money ... It's not like I'm socializing; I'm trying to work."
■ Saudi Arabia
Alleged top al-Qaeda killed
A man believed to have been a senior member of the al-Qaeda terror network was shot dead by Saudi Arabian security forces in Riyadh Sunday, the Saudi Interior Ministry said. Younis al-Hiary was killed in clashes that took place during raids on two houses in the eastern part of the Saudi capital. Al-Hiary, 36, was a Moroccan citizen and was on a recently released list of most- wanted terror suspects in Saudi Arabia. Saudi forces took into custody three other suspects during the raids but did not release information on their identities. Six security force personnel were injured in the clashes. The kingdom last week released a list of 36 men wanted in conjunction with terrorist activities.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘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
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
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