■ Japan
Manifesto backs pullout
The main opposition Democratic Party yesterday pledged to pull Japanese troops out of Iraq when their mandate expires in December and improve tattered ties with Asian neighbors if the party wins an election next month. The stance is outlined in the Democrats' new policy manifesto. "Rebuilding ties with China is one of the most vital issues for Japan's foreign policy," the Democrats' manifesto said.
■ China
University plundered
Several people were injured when a university campus in northwestern China was ransacked by more than 100 thugs armed with metal bars, axes and knives, state media reported yesterday. The attack on Shaanxi Province's Xian Township and Village Enterprise University lasted two hours on Sunday, the Life Daily newspaper reported. When the attackers had left, eight people had been injured, and more than 30 offices and dormitory rooms had been damaged. Robbery was the most likely motive for the attack, the paper said.
■ Philippines
Dengue fever alert issued
The Philippine health department has declared a nationwide dengue alert to bolster efforts to fight the mosquito-borne virus following a spike in new cases, an official said yesterday. The official said that 14,142 cases of dengue fever were reported from Jan. 1 to Aug. 11 -- a 23 percent rise from the same period last year. He said the outbreak had been confined to three areas: Zamboanga, a village in Manila's suburban Quezon City and a town in Nueva Ecija province.
■ China
More flooding kills 14
Torrential downpours and severe flooding have killed at least 14 people in northern and central China and left scores missing. Most heavily hit was Liaoning Province, where 10 people were reported dead and 46 were severely injured. Another 35 were missing. By Monday more than 19,080 houses were destroyed and 188,000 people made homeless had been relocated. "This flood was the most serious since 1995," said a water official surnamed Zhang, who added that the rain had stopped and officials were concentrating on disaster relief. The downpour has dumped 150mm of rain on the city since Friday.
■ Australia
Five busted in pension fraud
Five men will be charged with over a A$150 million (US$115 million) fraud involving the public service pension scheme. The money was unlawfully transferred from the multi-billion dollar Commonwealth Super-annuation Scheme to banks in Greece, Hong Kong and Switzerland on Dec. 24, 2003. A total of A$147 million has been recovered and the remaining A$3 million has been restrained, subject to court proceedings in Hong Kong. All five men have been questioned over conspiracy to launder money, which carries a maximum jail term of 25 years. JPMorgan is the custodian of the fund.
■ Hong Kong
Disneyland rehearses debut
About 5,000 visitors were invited to try out the rides at Hong Kong Disneyland yesterday as the park launched into final rehearsals before its Sept. 12 opening. All rides, parades, restaurants and shops were to be fully operational as the park kicked off a month of rehearsals that will continue until Sept. 8. Up to 30,000 visitors a day will be admitted to the park during the period. Public transport to and from the park also began operating yesterday, providing six bus routes and 1,400 car parking spaces. A special Disney train service also started running.
■ China
Gay studies class a hit
A university in Shanghai is offering China's first class on homosexuality and gay culture, and several hundred students have applied for the 100 openings. Sun Zhongxin, one of the course's instructors at prestigious Fudan University, said, "I used to teach gender studies for undergraduates and found they were very interested in the topic of homosexuality. The class is full but more students are still applying." Another instructor, Gao Yanning, said, "We will give students an equitable judgment on homosexuals and help eliminate students' discrimination." Gays were strongly persecuted after China's 1949 communist revolution, condemned as products of decadent Western and feudal societies.
■ Thailand
TV used to curb violence
Free cable TV is being dished out in its restive Muslim south in the hope that sports coverage such as English Premiership soccer will calm tensions. Interior Minister Kongsak Wantana said yesterday an initial batch of 500 televisions would soon be installed at village tea shops. "Televisions and sports will help liven up the region. Most children love watching sports on TV, but they can't afford that at home. So we are giving them what they love, hoping it can help solve the problem," Kongsak said. He is an avid golfer and a soccer player. Thailand has tried a range of measures to curb violence, including lavish promises of development aid, martial law, and an airdrop of millions of paper birds.
■ Afghanistan
Troops killed in crash
Seventeen Spanish troops were killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan yesterday. The helicopter went down south of Spain's base at Herat. The cause was unknown. Spain said in June it was sending an extra 500 troops to Afghanistan to boost security ahead of elections there next month, adding to 500 it already had there. The crash would be the second air disaster for Spanish troops in Afghanistan: in 2003, a plane bringing 62 Spanish peacekeepers back from Afghanistan crashed in Turkey, killing all on board.
■ Nigeria
Boat capsizes; 92 missing
Up to 92 people were missing and feared dead after a boat capsized on a river in northeast Nigeria where 30 people died last week. Heavy rain has caused flooding and swollen rivers over large parts of Africa's most populous nation. "At about 3pm an engine boat carrying 102 persons capsized ... only 10 persons were rescued," Nigerian TV said, giving no further details. About 30 people drowned last week when the bridge on which they were standing to watch the overflowing Jalingo river collapsed.
■ Russia
Diseased birds destroyed
Russia said an outbreak of bird flu in Chelyabinsk was dangerous to humans as teams of sanitary workers destroyed birds to prevent the westward spread of the deadly virus across its territory. The H5N1 strain of bird flu is behind the outbreak in Chelyabinsk, a city in the Ural mountains, the Emergencies Ministry said yesterday, adding that no cases among humans have been confirmed in Russia. "Anti-epizootic and anti-epidemical measures are being taken to prevent the spreading of the infection among domestic birds and to exclude the possibility of the infection moving to humans," it added. Russia is battling to contain a bird flu outbreak which has killed more than 11,000 birds countrywide.
■ Russia
Cows to get stoned
Russia's long winter will just fly by for a herd of Russian cows which will be fed confiscated marijuana over the cold months. Drug workers said they adopted the unusual form of animal husbandry after they were forced to destroy the sunflowers and maize crops that the 40 tonnes of marijuana had been planted among, the Novye Izvestia daily reported. "There is simply no other way out. You see, the fields are planted with feed crops and if we remove it all the cows will have nothing to eat," a Federal Drugs Control Service spokeswoman for Sverdlovsk said. "I don't know what the milk will be like after this."
■ Panama
Canal plans finished
The Panama Canal celebrated its 91st birthday on Monday as officials concluded plans for its expansion to accommodate an ever-increasing number of large cargo ships. Between October last year and July, more than 10,600 heavy-cargo ships passed through the canal, while the waterway saw more than 4,700 Panamax ships, wide vessels that clear the sides of the locks by mere centimeters, the Canal Authority said. Experts have said the canal, which was inaugurated on Aug. 15, 1914, is operating nearly at full capacity and is in danger of becoming obsolete without modernization. Approximately 40 ships pass through the canal daily, with each vessel taking about eight hours to cross from one ocean to the other.
■ Iraq
Murder in Abu Ghraib?
A detainee was killed in a suspected homicide at Abu Ghraib prison, the US military said yesterday. The 20-year-old man was found unconscious by fellow inmates in the prison on Monday, the military said in a statement. He was taken to a US military hospital and pronounced dead. The military did not state a cause of death for the man. His name and nationality were not revealed. The military said an investigation was underway. No suspects were named in the brief statement. Officials have said there are nearly 10,000 people detained in US military prisons in Iraq. Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq are the two largest military prisons in the country.
■ Canada
`Leave Iraq,' PM warns
An Iraqi-Canadian businessman kidnapped in Baghdad earlier this month was killed despite efforts to pay a ransom, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said on Monday. Martin warned all Canadians in Iraq to leave the country as he condemned the murder of Zaid Meerwali, 32, who was kidnapped from his Baghdad home on Aug. 2. "Canada vehemently condemns this barbaric crime. Any Canadians in Iraq should leave. The situation remains volatile and the Government of Canada cannot provide consular assistance to Canadian citizens in distress," he said. Meerwali, who held dual Iraqi-Canadian citizenship, returned to Iraq from exile after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003. His kidnappers demanded a US$250,000 ransom, according to his family. His nephew offered them US$200,000, but after not hearing back from them, he circled area hospitals and made the grim discovery that his uncle had been killed.
■ United States
Imam to be deported
An Islamic cleric being held by immigration officials agreed on Monday to be deported, a week after federal investigators accused him of planning to set up a religious school in Lodi, California where recruits could be trained to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, will be deported to Islamabad, Pakistan, for overstaying a three-year visa that allowed him to work in the US as an imam. At a hearing at an immigration court on Monday, Judge Anthony Murry, who said last week that Ahmed posed "a flight risk and a danger to the community," ordered him deported. Ahmed was arrested in June as part of a federal investigation into possible terrorist connections between al-Qaeda and members of a mosque in Lodi.
■ United States
Protester's spouse splits
The husband of Cindy Sheehan, the California woman camped outside US President George W. Bush's Texas ranch to protest the war in Iraq, has filed for divorce, she said on Monday. Patrick Sheehan filed to dissolve his marriage with Cindy Sheehan on Friday, Aug. 12, in Solano County Superior Court in northern California. Cindy Sheehan said in a statement that she and her husband decided to divorce before she began her encampment in Crawford, Texas. "Grief pulls families apart, but my decision to seek justice for my son's death and prevent other mothers from having this heartache has nothing to do with our decision to end our marriage," the statement said. She said her husband supports her but "hasn't chosen a public quest for answers."
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
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