■ Malaysia
Wen visits France
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) arrived in France yesterday for a four day visit that looks set to be dominated by trade issues, with a large order for Airbus airliners said to be in the offing. Wen started his visit in Toulouse -- headquarters to the European air consortium -- where French officials are hopeful he will announce plans to buy up to 120 medium-range A320 planes. The prime minister was to hold talks with President Jacques Chirac in Paris early today, followed by a meeting with his opposite number Dominique de Villepin where officials have said a number of commercial and economic accords will be signed. He also has a meeting planned with the business organization MEDEF and will fly to Marseilles to view the nearby site of the future experimental nuclear fusion reactor ITER, in which China is a partner.
■ Malaysia
Minister to court Chinese
Malaysia's Home Minister Azmi Khalid said yesterday he was about to depart on a trip to China aimed at repairing relations after outrage over the alleged humiliation of a Chinese woman by police there. Khailid, who was asked by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to make the urgent trip, will meet with Chinese officials today. The move follows the release last month of a video clip in which a woman believed to be a Chinese national is forced to strip and perform squats in front of a Malaysian policewoman. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei (武大偉) last Wednesday summoned the Malaysian ambassador in Beijing to protest over the treatment of Chinese citizens, and Beijing has called on Malaysia to ensure their safety.
■ Ukraine
Woman burns father to death
Police launched a search for a woman who allegedly splashed her sleeping father with gasoline and set him ablaze. The 72-year-old unidentified man in southern Johor state was rushed to a hospital following the incident on Saturday, but he succumbed to his injuries. A murder inquiry was underway. The man's 33-year-old daughter, who had a history of mental illness, left home immediately after the incident and could not immediately be traced. The victim's 68-year-old widow said her husband had quarreled with their daughter earlier in the week because she refused to take her medication.
■ Sri Lanka
Norway warns of escalation
The Norwegian-led international ceasefire monitoring mission overseeing the country's uneasy truce with Tamil Tiger rebels warned yesterday that escalating hostilities could cause "irreparable damage" to the country's peace process. "The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission has observed a dangerous trend of violence in the North and the East in the last few days resulting in a number of deaths and injuries of both civilians and security forces personnel," the mission's chief, Hagrup Haukland said. The mission made an appeal for all parties "to do their utmost to calm down the volatile situation before it escalates any further."
■ Philippines
Joint effort rescues teachers
Muslim guerrillas and government troops took part in a rare joint assault and successfully rescued two kidnapped teachers yesterday in the southern Philippines, military officials and rebels said. Philippine marines and hundreds of Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels fanned out in search of schoolteachers Felipe Lacunies and his wife, Helen, after their abduction on Friday. A group of guerrillas found them abandoned in a hut in Piagapo town in Lanao del Sur province. Felipe, 58, said they were tightly guarded and were constantly taken on foot or horseback through the wilderness in Piagapo, southeast of Manila. After learning that government troops had tracked them, the kidnappers abandoned the two teachers in a hut, where they were found by the rebels.
■ Japan
Fishing boat capsizes
A South Korean fishing boat capsized in the East China Sea off southwestern Japan early yesterday, throwing all eight crew members overboard and leaving four missing, the Japanese coast guard said. The 109 Dae-sung was found capsized about 480km west of the Cape of Bo in Kagoshima on Japan's southern island of Kyushu early yesterday. The cause of the accident was not known, although the weather had been rough. Four of the eight crew members -- all believed to be South Korean men -- were rescued by a South Korean vessel that was passing through the area, but four remain missing. It was not immediately clear what condition the rescued men were in.
■ Philippines
Election official emerges
A former election official at the center of vote-rigging charges against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo emerged yesterday from months of hiding and agreed to appear before Congress, which is investigating charges that he conspired with her to rig last year's polls. Escorted by men armed with assault rifles, former Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano said, "As promised, I'll come out, I'm not hiding anything."
■ Woman immolates husband
A woman set her hard-drinking husband of 20 years on fire, killing him as payback for "wasted years," the Interfax news agency said on Saturday citing local police. The woman, who was not named by police, doused her husband with gasoline and set him on fire after finding the man passed out in the yard of their home in the eastern Zaporizhskaya region, police said. The man died of his wounds. The woman, who was being held in police custody, told officers she wanted to pay her spouse back "for wasted years" as during their two decades together she was the main breadwinner while the husband regularly drank.
■ Ukraine
Bird flu kills poultry
The government has recorded its first bird flu outbreak, prompting the president to declare a state of emergency in four Crimean villages following the deaths of more than 1,600 chickens and geese. Dead birds in the Black Sea peninsula tested positive for the H5 subtype, officials said Saturday. Bird flu had already been detected in neighboring Romania nearly two months ago, and Officials scrambled to reassure this nation of 47 million that they were well-prepared. Ukrainians, meanwhile, began debating whether to stop buying poultry -- the only meat many in this poor nation can afford.
■ Vatican
Abbas meets pope
Pope Benedict XVI met privately with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, receiving his latest invitation to visit the Holy Land. The Palestinian leader said he and the pontiff also discussed the plight of the tiny Christian minority in the Palestinian territories. "You will be very welcome in Jerusalem and all the holy places," Abbas told the pope after their 20-minute meeting in the pontiff's library. "Thank you very much," the pope replied. Both men smiled and appeared relaxed. Abbas, speaking English, told journalists that Benedict "responded positively" to his invitation but indicated no date.
■ Lebanon
Human remains found
The remains of more than 20 people who died several years ago were found on Saturday, near what had been the headquarters and a prison of Syrian intelligence, police reported. Bones were found in three mass graves on a hillside opposite the facility in the ethnically Armenian village of Anjar, just 3km from the Syrian border. They included human skulls and were found in 26 gunny sacks, which also contained underwear and the remains of one military uniform, a photographer said. An Anjar resident who requested anonymity said that "prisoners who died in the Syrian mukhabarat [secret police] prison were buried on the hill."
■ Brazil
Onassis heiress weds
Amid military-style security and fevered gossip rippling through both Brazilian and Greek high society, one of the richest women in the world -- Athina Onassis Roussel, who inherited a fortune of close to US$1 billion -- was to wed 32-year-old Brazilian Alvaro Affonso "Doda" de Miranda Neto, an Olympic show jumper, on Saturday. The couple are thought to have shelled out more than US$48,500 -- around 415 minimum monthly wages in Brazil -- just on hiring the venue. The catering cost is about the same again, with the Valentino dress and 5m-long veil costing US$1 million.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
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