■ Japan
Boys sought in man's death
Police were set to arrest four teenage boys yesterday on suspicion of burning a disabled homeless man to death by throwing a fire-bomb at him, Kyodo news agency said. Makoto Amazutsumi, 60, burned to death when his cardboard box shelter under a bridge in the castle town of Himeji in central Japan caught fire last October, local police said. He was likely unable to escape the blaze because he suffered from disability in his legs, Kyodo said. Police believe the boys, whose names have not been released, threw the fire-bomb after being scolded by another homeless man for being noisy, Kyodo said. Rates of violent crime are low in Japan, but homeless people, many of whom create huts for themselves in parks and along river banks, are vulnerable to attacks.
■ China
Odd question asked of Wen
When Chinese leaders meet the press in Beijing, it's usually a staid and predictable affair, so a man shouting and waving a walking stick at Premier Wen Jiabao's (溫家寶) annual news conference yesterday raised some eyebrows. Saying he was from a Taiwanese newspaper, the man, who seemed about 70, interrupted halfway though the two-hour long conference, demanding to be allowed to ask a question. Eventually the man, who identified himself as Chou Youfei from the "Taiwan Human Rights News," was allowed to ask his question -- on environmental protection -- after Wen pointed to him and called him "emotional." "I was protesting that nobody in my side of the room had had a chance to ask a question," Chou said after the conference. He claimed to be from the provinces of Hunan and Hubei, as well as Shanghai and Taiwan. He was eventually escorted out of the building by guards.
■ Malaysia
Asthmatic woman rescued
An asthmatic British woman was rescued early yesterday after being stranded for several hours along a hill trail in Malaysia's northern island of Penang, an official said. Paula Chester, 39, from Kent, and her husband, Clize, were descending the island's 830m famous Bukit Bendera on Monday when she experienced breathing difficulties, Penang Police Chief Christopher Wan said. Her husband, worried about her asthma condition, left her behind and went down for help, but only reached the foot of the rugged hill after dark. Wan said some 30 personnel from the police, civil defense corps and fire department and trail guides organized a search party immediately and found Chester after midnight on Tuesday. Chester was weak, but unhurt, Wan added.
■ India
Terrorist attacks forbidden
A prominent Muslim seminary has issued an edict declaring terrorist attacks on all religious sites and the killing of innocent people to be anti-Islamic, a cleric said yesterday. The fatwa, or religious order, was issued after a series of bomb blasts rocked the Hindu holy town of Varanasi last week, killing 20 people. It was announced on Monday by the Darul-Ifta Firangi Mahal in Lucknow, a well-known Muslim seminary. No matter the faith, attacks on religious shrines are forbidden by Islam, according to the fatwa, which called such attacks "one of the biggest crimes against humanity."
■ Malaysia
Boxing for bullies
A Malaysian state has hit on an unorthodox method to curb bullying in schools: train the troublemakers as boxers. The idea has been proposed to schools in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah state, and the Sabah Amateur Boxing Association has been approached to coach the belligerent youths, Sabah's Youth and Sports Minister Masidi Manjun said yesterday. He said school bullies can channel their physical aggression into boxing and become good sportsmen. "Boxing will train them to be disciplined and help realize their true potential. Instead of picking fights and getting into trouble with the law, they can fight legally and make the state and country proud," he said.
■ Cambodia
King visits Laos
King Norodom Sihamoni started his first royal visit to Laos on Tuesday as part of a tour that will also take him to his country's other communist neighbor Vietnam. Cambodian palace officials hailed the Vietnam trip as the first royal state visit there since Vietnamese troops toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979, although the king's father Norodom Sihanouk met top leaders in Hanoi in 1995. The 52-year-old King Sihamoni was to meet Laotian President Khamtai Siphandon and other leaders for talks that may touch on energy and the demarcation of their 540km border.
■ Indonesia
Earthquake rocks islands
An earthquake estimated at 6.4 on the Richter scale rocked several islands in the eastern Indonesian province of Maluku yesterday, the meteorology office there said. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake that was felt strongly in the Maluku capital Ambon and in Namlea on the neighboring island of Buru, said Benny, the head of the Ambon Meteorology and Geophysics office. He said the quake, which struck at 3:57pm, was centered offshore some 138km southwest of Ambon.
■ Romania
Spare the pigeons: group
A racing pigeon association urged authorities on Monday not to cull the country's 800,000 racing pigeons, arguing that the birds were not carriers of the deadly H5N1 strain of the flu virus. "Racing pigeons have a strict diet and are vaccinated against all diseases," said a statement from the Union of Federations of Romanian Pigeon Enthusiasts. There are about 6,000 breeders in Romania who have 800,000 pigeons which take part in national and international competitions. Petruta Radu, secretary of the union, said they would meet Romanian animal health authorities to discuss the problem.
■ Norway
Woman gets beer from tap
A woman thought she was in heaven when beer instead of water flowed from the taps in her flat in Kristiansund, west Norway. "I turned on the tap to clean some knives and forks and beer came out," Haldis Gundersen said from her home. "We thought we were in heaven." Beer in Norway is among the most expensive in the world with a 0.4 liter costing about US$7.48 in a bar. Gundersen said she tried the beer but that it tasted a bit odd and was not fizzy. It turned out that a worker in a bar two floors below had mixed up the pipes on Saturday.
■ Italy
Presidential rivals face off
Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who recently stormed out of a televised interview, was expected back on TV for a highly anticipated, US-style debate with his center-left opponent in next month's election. The prime-time debate yesterday on state-run broadcaster RAI was expected to attract millions of viewers and highlight the sharp contrast in style between the two contenders: the flamboyant Berlusconi versus the soft-spoken Romano Prodi, a former premier and EU chief who heads the center-left bloc. "What makes it fun is that the faceoff is between two people who are anthropologically different, because of their history, culture, vision, approach to life," said Edoardo Novelli, a professor of political communication at Milan University. "It's a little bit like Italian comedy."
■ Georgia
Officers resign over killing
Three high-ranking interior ministry officers resigned on Monday, in a move that opposition political parties claimed was connected to the January murder of a student by law enforcement agents. Data Akhalaya, head of the interior ministry's Constitutional Security Department, rebuffed claims that he had ties to the Jan. 28. murder of Sandro Gvirgvliani, saying that he was resigning so as not to hinder the investigation. His deputy, Oleg Melnikov, and the chief of the ministry's General Inspectorate, Vasil Sanodze, also submitted their resignations.
■ South Africa
Transport workers strike
Transport workers went on strike across the nation on Monday, hoping to cripple railways and ports and so press their complaints against the planned restructuring of a semi-public freight and transportation firm. After meeting with Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin, union leaders stepped back from threats of weeklong industrial action. Erwin promised the government would try to broker a solution. Union leaders have complained that the proposed transfer of the passenger network Metrorail would jeopardize their pension arrangements, the South African Press Association reported.
■ Uruguay
Hunt on for soccer killers
The government promised drastic measures on Monday to find and punish the murderers of a soccer fan who was beaten to death at a bus stop following a match last Saturday. The crime prompted the Uruguayan Football Association to call off the rest of the weekend's program. "I've ordered every police chief in Montevideo to do everything in their power to get to the bottom of this unjustifiable act, this horrendous crime," Interior Minister Jose Diaz said. Cerro supporter Hector da Cunha, 35, was waiting at a bus stop with his wife and son near Montevideo's Centenario stadium when he was surrounded by a group of 10 to 15 supporters from rival club Penarol, police said. He was beaten to death by the Penarol supporters, who took his Cerro hat as a trophy.
■ United States
Tampering threatens trial
A US judge will consider whether to spare the life of al-Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, after revelations of witness coaching by a government lawyer pitched his Sept. 11 death penalty case into turmoil. Judge Leonie Brinkema angrily suspended proceedings on Monday after discovering violations of strict rules designed to protect witness testimony in the trial. "It is very difficult for this case go forward," Brinkema said. Defense lawyers claimed the incident has prejudiced Moussaoui's chances of a fair sentencing trial, as Brinkema acknowledged that the integrity of the US criminal justice system was on the line. If she decides to dismiss the trial, Moussaoui, 37, will spend his life in jail without parole.
■ United States
Samples surprise scientists
Samples of a comet brought back by the Stardust spacecraft show that at least some of the icy bodies contain a surprising amount of material formed under high heat, scientists reported on Monday. Initial studies found materials believed formed near the sun in the early history of the solar system and somehow ejected into the cold, distant regions where comets form, they said. "It's sort of a big surprise to see such hot materials so far out in the solar system," Thomas Morgan, NASA program scientist for the mission, said in a news conference from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Studying the chemical composition of the heated particles should determine if they are from the hot formation of the inner solar system 4.6 billion years ago or perhaps from stars farther away.
■ United States
Oscar winner Stapleton dies
Maureen Stapleton, an actress whose subtle vulnerability and down-to-earth toughness earned her dramatic and comedic roles on stage, screen and TV, died in Massachusetts on Monday at age 80. The longtime smoker died from chronic pulmonary disease, said her son, Daniel Allentuck. Stapleton won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as anarchist-writer Emma Goldman in Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds after three previous nominations. She earned an Emmy for Among the Paths to Eden in 1967 and two Tony awards, for The Rose Tattoo and The Gingerbread Lady.
■ United States
Pageant winner killed
The reigning Miss Deaf Texas died after being struck by a train, officials said in Austin. Tara Rose McAvoy, 18, was walking on Monday near railroad tracks when she was struck, authorities said. A witness said the train sounded its horn right up until the accident occurred. She had been deaf since birth.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
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