■ THAILAND
Martial law for two districts
The government imposed martial law in two Muslim-dominated districts in the south yesterday, a day after Islamic separatists staged a new show of strength with bombings that blacked out a provincial capital. General Khwanchart Klaharn said announced that martial law was being declared in two districts of Songkhla province, which is next to the three provinces where an insurgency has flared since January last year. ``Now, the insurgents have used the districts of Chana and Thepha in Songkhla to hide weapons used to instigate violence and also extend violent attacks to the area,'' he said.
■ JAPAN
US wants relocation funds
The US has asked Japan to provide more than ?320 billion (US$3 billion) to cover the costs of relocating thousands of US Marines from Okinawa to Guam, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday. The newspaper said the US gave Japan a cost estimate of US$3 billion to US$3.5 billion to move the troops and construct new facilities in Guam. Japan has promised to try to meet the US funding request, the paper said, with negotiations between to continue over the exact amount.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Activists barred for summit
Authorities will bar about 1,000 foreign activists from the country and keep 350 under close surveillance during APEC meetings to prevent protests, police said yesterday later this month in Pusan."We are taking these steps as a security precaution for APEC," a police official said. There are still likely to be heated protests. Thousands of farmers plan to stage rallies against measures to liberalize agricultural trade, representatives said.
■ THAILAND
Dutch gangster murdered
A Western man gunned down a well-known Dutch underworld figure in the resort of Pattaya, police said yesterday. John Mieremet died after being shot in the neck on Wednesday by two Western men who walked into his office, said police Colonel Waratchai Sriratanvuth. The two men were identified as Westerners by Mieremet's Thai wife, the officer said. He said the killing may have been because of a personal or business conflict.
■ JAPAN
Blog poisoner caught
A 16-year-old girl was arrested for trying to kill her mother with rat poison and keeping an Internet blog narrating how her condition deteriorated, news reports said on Wednesday. The girl reportedly kept animal body parts in her bedroom. "Mother has been sick since yesterday, having a rash all over her body," the Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted the girl as writing on August 19. Police found that the blog matched the illness of her 47-year-old mother, who was in critical condition at a hospital, the reports said.
■ CHINA
Graft list to be published
A list of names of people who give bribes will be printed and made available to the public starting from next year in a move to fight corruption, a newspaper said yesterday. It will provide details of people who have offered bribes since 1997, the China Daily said, citing a report in the Procuratorial Daily. The move follows a pilot scheme begun last year that banned building contractors who appeared on the list from bidding for new projects. The maximum penalty for taking bribes is death. Last year prosecutors charged 1,952 people with offering bribes, the report said. Government officials are required to report any gifts they receive worth over 50 yuan (US$6).
■ UNITED STATES
Thieves pinch leg
Callous thieves broke into the home of a teenage amputee and made off with the girl's artificial leg, her family said on Wednesday. California schoolgirl Melissa Huff, 16, was horrified to find that the heartless burglars had not only stolen a haul of loot including cash and valuables, but had also helped themselves to her leg. Melissa lost her right leg two years ago when a driver lost control of his car and ploughed into her in front of her Los Angeles school. Although she has other replacement legs, the prosthetic device that the burglars took was a special shock absorbent "sports leg" that allowed her to play softball. "That's my favorite leg," she said.
■ UNITED STATES
Halloween drunk arrested
A partygoer dressed as "Belligerent Drunk Man" was a hit at a Halloween bash until he started acting the part. Wearing a blue sweatsuit, a belt of beer can pop-tops and a Superman-style emblem on his chest reading "BDM," William Griffin, 26, got into a fight on Sunday morning at an apartment complex, authorities said. Joseph Gilliam, 37, dressed as the Green Lantern, tried to break up the fight but ended up pushing a sheriff's deputy. Both men were arrested and charged. Not that the deputies didn't appreciate Griffin's outfit. "It was the funniest, if not the most original costume I've ever seen," Deputy Glenn Ward said.
■ SPAIN
Autonomy on the table
Parliament voted early yesterday to accept for discussion a controversial plan for more autonomy for Catalonia, which defines the wealthy northeastern region as a nation within Spain. After more than 10 hours of debate, parliament voted 197-146 to send the Catalan autonomy statute to its constitutional committee, where it is expected to be debated and amended over the next two months. All "no" votes came from the opposition center-right Popular Party, which said the plan was unconstitutional and a threat to Spanish unity.
■ SPAIN
Leonor to attend academies
Spain's new-born Infanta Leonor will study in the military academies of the army, navy and air force as part of her preparation for the role of queen, the daily ABC reported on Wednesday. Princess Letizia, wife of Crown Prince Felipe, gave birth early on Monday to the girl who is second in line to the throne after her father. Spain's head of state is also chief of the armed forces, and Leonor's preparation for queenhood will require her to study in the military academies like her father did. The number of female soldiers is on the rise, where they make up about 11 percent of the armed forces.
■ CLIMATE
Eruptions offset warming
Volcanic eruptions help to combat some of the effects of global warming by cooling the Earth and keeping a check on rises in sea level, scientists have discovered. Eruptions are known to have a cooling effect on the planet's atmosphere because the fine particles thrown up by the volcanoes linger in the air and reflect sunlight and warming infrared radiation. In a study reported in the journal Nature scientists found that the huge eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 led to a vast cloud of fine particles that triggered a dramatic cooling of ocean waters, equivalent to losing the amount of energy contained in more than 700 million tonnes of oil.
■ GERMANY
Navy bound for another year
The German government on Wednesday committed forces for another year to the US-led anti-terrorism Operation Enduring Freedom, a mission under which German ships patrol off the Horn of Africa. Outgoing Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Cabinet approved extending the country's participation until Nov. 15 next year, a government statement said. Parliament must approve the extension in a session to be held Nov. 8, a week before the current mandate expires. Both of Germany's biggest parties support the mission, launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, meaning the extension should pass easily.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Stamp branded `insensitive'
Britain's state-owned Royal Mail apologized on Wednesday after Hindus complained about a new Christmas stamp which depicts the image of a Hindu couple with a Christ-like baby. "The Royal Mail has apologized if people feel we have been insensitive," said company spokesman Patrick O'Neill. "It was not intentional. We wanted to look at the theme of the mother and child for this Christmas and how that theme is represented in international art." The image for the stamp, which has a face value of ?0.68 (US$1.20) -- the amount needed to send letters to the Indian sub-continent -- was sourced from a painting that hangs in a museum in Mumbai, India.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Nuclear attack possible
A chemical and biological terrorist attack was in prospect and a nuclear attack could not be ruled out in Britain, a former head of British intelligence said in remarks published yesterday. Sir Richard Dearlove, who retired last year as head of the Secret Intelligence Service, said the July 7 bombings that killed 52 London commuters did not amount to a "strategic terrorist event," the Daily Telegraph reported. Dearlove, who was taking part in a debate on terrorism arranged by the London law firm Ashurst, said the July attacks on three subway trains and a bus "bore the characteristic of a locally planned and carried-out event."
■ UNITED STATES
Man admits to mass murders
A man convicted of raping and murdering an Alabama woman has confessed to at least 12 more slayings in four other states, and may be linked to four more killings, authorities said on Wednesday. Alabama Attorney General Troy King branded Jeremy Bryan Jones "a monster who would kill without remorse." Jones, 32, of Oklahoma, faces a possible death sentence Dec. 1 for the killing of Lisa Marie Nichols, 44, in Alabama. During his trial last month, Jones maintained his innocence in the presence of his mother and girlfriend, but privately gave detectives details of the crimes, including victims' names and the locations of the killings, sheriff's Detective Paul Burch said.
■ ITALY
Forgeries made case for war
An aide to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and an intelligence director were to appear before a parliamentary commission yesterday to respond to allegations that Italy knowingly gave the US and Britain forged documents suggesting former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa. Cabinet Undersecretary Gianni Letta and Nicolo Pollari, the director of Italy's SISMI intelligence agency, will be questioned by members of a parliamentary commission overseeing secret services, said Micaela Panella, a spokeswoman for the commission.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Nauru said it would hold a referendum to change its official name, described as a colonial relic from a time when “foreign tongues” mangled the native language. Nauru would change its name to Naoero to “more faithfully honor our nation’s heritage, our language and our identity,” Nauruan President David Adeang said in a statement on Tuesday. The Pacific island nation’s native language is Dorerin Naoero, which is spoken by the vast majority of its approximately 10,000 inhabitants. “Nauru emerged because Naoero could not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues, and was changed not by our choice, but for convenience,” the government said in
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