■ China
Spacewalk delayed
The country's third manned space mission has been pushed back by about six months to 2008 to give scientists time to create a space suit that can withstand a spacewalk, the official Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The government said last year that the Shenzhou 7 craft would launch sometime next year, though no date was given. It said the mission would be manned by three astronauts and include a spacewalk -- a first for China's space program. China launched its first manned space mission in 2003, making it the third country to send a human into orbit on its own, after the Soviet Union and the US.
■ Australia
Thai-loving politician ousted
A Thailand-loving man who last week bowed to pressure and resigned his seat in the Queensland state parliament yesterday blamed racism for his departure from politics. Former policeman Gavin Poole's exit followed criticism from Labor Party colleagues for requesting three months off to have a knee operation in Bangkok. Poole had spent six out of the last 24 months in Thailand where his Thai wife and his three children live in a luxury residence in the northeast town of Surin. The request for more time brought the issue to a head. "It's racism at its worst," Poole told Brisbane's Sunday Mail from his Surin hideaway. "One person on our side [of politics] actually sneered at me for having a Thai wife."
■ Australia
AWB probe extended
The deadline for an inquiry into charges that wheat exporter AWB paid huge bribes to Iraq has been extended by at least two months, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday. Former judge Terence Cole had been due to report at the end of this month on his investigation into allegations in a UN report that AWB paid some US$220 million in kickbacks under the 1996-2003 oil-for-food program. Howard told reporters that Cole wanted the deadline extended by "another couple of months at least" and the government had granted his request. The inquiry, which began in January, has heard evidence that monopoly exporter AWB paid the bribes to secure some US$2.3 billion dollars in contracts with Iraq.
■ Japan
Majority back amendment
Nearly two-thirds of the population back revising the country's pacifist Constitution -- which would include creating an official role for the armed forces -- according to a newspaper poll released yesterday. The Mainichi newspaper said 65 percent of respondents agreed that the Constitution should be changed, with 27 percent opposed. The poll also showed that 80 percent of respondents felt the Constitution has been useful for preserving peace and improving people's lives in postwar Japan, the paper said.
■ Japan
No quick fix expected
Politicians yesterday played down expectations for a quick agreement in coming talks with China on the development of gas resources in the East China Sea, one of a series of disputes between the two Asian neighbors. The talks taking place in Beijing today and tomorrow will be the fourth round of negotiations so far. Japan-China relations have sunk to their lowest point in decades over a range of disputes, particularly Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a Tokyo war shrine China sees as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. Trade Minister Toshihiro Nikai said rapid progress in the gas talks was unlikely.
■ France
Murder suspect returned
A suspected gang leader calling himself "brain of the barbarians" wanted for the kidnap, torture and murder of a young Jewish man in Paris was charged with murder after arriving back in France on Saturday from Ivory Coast. Youssouf Fofana, 25, had earlier been delivered into French custody for extradition after failing to convince an Abidjan court that he had Ivorian citizenship through his parents. He was charged in Paris with the kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi in what was described as a racist crime, plus acts of torture.
■ United Kingdom
Victims' families to sue
Families of the July 7 bombing victims are preparing to sue over intelligence failings that allowed the suicide bombers to launch their attacks on London. Law firms representing them have disclosed that they are exploring legal action in the light of growing evidence that the atrocities might have been preventable had there not been crucial mistakes in intelligence in the run-up to the bombing explosions. Sources at law firm Lovells said that if it was proved that the bombings were preventable, the government could face a costly negligence claim from families of the 52 people who were killed, as well as the 700 injured.
■ Yemen
Would-be killers get jail
A Yemeni court sentenced two men to five years in jail yesterday for trying to kill the former US ambassador to the Arab country with a hand grenade in 2004. Houzam al-Maas and Khalid al-Halilah, who had faced a maximum jail term of 10 years for trying to throw a hand grenade at the envoy as he was entering a shop, can appeal their sentence, their lawyers said. Maas had pleaded guilty to attempting to kill the ambassador, but told the state security court he was psychologically ill. Halilah, a taxi driver, had pleaded not guilty, saying he only drove Maas to a weapons market.
■ Chechnya
Kremlin ally made minister
Ramzan Kadyrov, the outspoken leader of a violent paramilitary force that controls much of Chechnya, continued his political rise on Saturday when he was appointed the republic's prime minister. Kadyrov, 29, is the son of Akhmad Kadyrov, a former Chechen president and separatist turned Kremlin loyalist who was assassinated in 2004. The father had allowed the son to lead several thousand former rebels in a notorious unit called the Presidential Security Service, which gave him a firm base of power. Since his father's death, Ramzan Kadyrov has ascended swiftly, making clear his allegiances to Russian President Vladimir Putin while exerting a heavy-handed influence over Chechnya's ruins.
■ United Kingdom
Police shop for in-store jails
One of London's premier department stores is in talks with police to build jail cells inside the store to hold shoplifters and identity thieves, Metropolitan Police said on Saturday. The police said they were in early negotiations for the construction of jail cells at the Selfridges store's flagship Oxford Street location in London. The cells would operate as "short-term holding facilities for low-level shoplifters," a police spokeswoman said. Police are considering the move in light of overcrowding London jails, which they say are swamped with small-time pickpockets and credit-card thieves.
■ Turkey
Protesters get flowers
Protesters attending a pre-Women's Day demonstration in Istanbul were handed flowers by police officers, a marked contrast to the same demonstration last year when the women were tear-gassed and many injured by baton-wielding riot police, newspapers reported yesterday. Authorities had given permission for Saturday's demonstration in the Kadikoy district, and police on duty included an unusually large number of women officers. Turkey was severely criticized by human rights groups and the EU after last year's Women's Day demonstration had been broken up by riot police. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had refused to condemn the police action at the time. Instead, he accused the media of hurting the country's image abroad.
■ Benin
Presidential poll peaceful
Residents cast ballots yesterday for a new head of state, choosing among more than two dozen presidential hopefuls in a poll the West African country's two main political strongmen are barred from running in because of age limits. Voters lined up at polling stations erected at schools and under trees in the open air, peacefully stamping ballot papers and dropping them into transparent plastic ballot boxes. No serious problems were reported. Excluded from the poll were 73-year-old incumbent President Mathieu Kerekou, who has ruled Benin for all but five of the last 34 years since taking power in a 1972 coup. Also excluded: longtime opposition rival Nicephore Soglo, 72, the country's only other president since the 1970s.
■ Israel
Israeli Arabs protest
Thousands marched in protest through the Israeli-Arab town of Nazareth on Saturday after an Israeli man, his Christian wife and their daughter set off firecrackers in one of Christianity's holiest sites. The incident on Friday at the Church of the Annunciation touched off brawls which media reports said left a dozen police and a dozen civilians injured and several police vehicles and an ambulance damaged. The church is built above a sunken grotto where, according to Roman Catholic tradition, the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she was to bear Jesus. Police said the motives in Friday's incident were personal, not political, but attacks on holy sites nearly always spark tensions in Israel whose Arab minority has been targeted in the past by extremists and often complains of discrimination.
■ West Bank
Fatah not joining Hamas
Lawmakers of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party decided on Saturday to reject an invitation to join a governing coalition led by the Islamist militant group Hamas, party officials said. The officials said Fatah's 134-member revolutionary council would likely approve the decision, possibly complicating Hamas's efforts to fulfil its goal of forming a broad-based Cabinet. Among the reasons cited by Fatah for opposing being part of such a government was Hamas' failure to recognize past peace agreements with Israel. The lawmakers also said that the once dominant party needs time to rebuild after the electoral defeat. Hamas officials on a visit to Moscow said that while they preferred a partnership with Fatah, their 74 seats in the 132-member legislature, plus the guaranteed backing of four independent lawmakers, could suffice even without Fatah.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
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CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
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