■ China
New rocket being built
Construction of a rocket to carry astronauts into orbit in 2008 has begun, state media reported yesterday. The Shenzhou 7 was initially scheduled to be launched next year, but the government announced a delay last month, saying it needed time to prepare a spacesuit for a planned space walk. Officials earlier said the mission would probably include a spacewalk and possible maneuvers meant to practice docking at a planned Chinese space station. China's first manned space launch in 2003 made it only the third country to send a human into orbit on its own, after the former Soviet Union and the US. A second space flight carrying two astronauts took place in October.
■ Human rights
Rights group calls for action
US-based group Human Rights Watch on Sunday urged US President George W. Bush to press Chinese officials over Beijing's human rights record. "Its time for China's leadership to deliver on its promises," said Brad Adams, director of Human Rights Watch, Asia division, in a statement. "For years we've been hearing, first economic reform, then political reform. President Bush must insist that the time for reform is now, before the list of abuses gets even longer." Bush is scheduled to meeting Chinese officials on April 20 in Washington. The rights watchdog drew Bush's attention to six issues in China, including restrictions on the freedoms of thought, religion and expression, a justice system that encourages torture, and abuse of those who complain about official misconduct. "Releasing a few political or religious prisoners for public relations purposes does little to remedy China's poor human rights record," Adams said.
■ Malaysia
Trillion dollar phone bill
A man said he nearly fainted when he received a US$218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported yesterday. Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit (US$23) bill, the New Straits Times reported. But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported. It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after his death.
■ Japan
Ferry collides with creature
The coast guard searched yesterday for a giant whale that they suspect collided with a passenger ferry -- injuring 97 people -- or any other clues about the cause of the accident. Three patrol vessels and a helicopter were deployed to investigate Sunday's accident, in which the high-speed ferry is believed to have hit a whale or another large sea animal near Kagoshima Bay, according to Coast Guard official Hidehiro Yamada. Ninety-seven people were hurt, including 43 hospitalized according to ferry operator Kagoshima Shosen. The Coast Guard received a distress call from the boat shortly after the collision. The vessel was damaged but wasn't in danger of sinking.
■ New Zealand
Troops to stay in Afghanistan
The country will extend its deployment of troops to Afghanistan by another year to September next year, Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday. "I think the whole world community has an interest in Afghanistan not deteriorating as it did prior to Sept. 11 as a haven for terrorist activities," she said. New Zealand has 120 troops in a provincial reconstruction team in Bamyan Province and Defense Minister Phil Goff said the extension reflected the continuing need to support international security and reconstruction efforts. Goff said there was a lot of work to do before Afghanistan would be able to maintain its own security.
■ India
Bollywood star prosecuted
Bollywood star Salman Khan was found guilty yesterday of poaching a rare buck in a desert wildlife preserve in 1998, media reports said. Khan has faced several separate charges of poaching and illegal possession of weapons stemming from the incident where he and several other people allegedly drove into the Thar desert to shoot deer while on a break from filming. Khan was found guilty in the western city of Jodhpur of shooting a rare chinkara deer, the NDTV news channel reported. Sentencing was expected later in the day. In February, another court sentenced Khan to a year in prison on a separate charge of poaching deer and buck. He has appealed the sentence. Khan has denied the charges all along.
■ Hong Kong
WWII bombs discovered
The government has been urged to screen construction sites for unexploded World War II bombs after 588 bombs were found during work over the weekend, a news report said yesterday. The huge cache of bombs was found by drainage workers in Kowloon on Saturday and included 16 high-explosive devices that had been detonated by bomb disposal experts. Worried construction workers now say that building sites need to be checked by bomb disposal experts before work gets underway to avoid a tragedy."
■ United Kingdom
`Were-Rabbit' strikes
A "monster" rabbit has been rampaging through vegetable patches in a village in northern England, ripping up leeks, munching turnips and infuriating local gardeners. In an uncanny resemblance to the plot of the hit animated film Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, angry horticulturists in Felton, near Newcastle, have now mounted an armed guard to protect their prized cabbages and turnips. "They call it the monster. It's very big -- it's nearly the size of a dog," said Joan Smith, whose son owns one of the plots under attack. In the Wallace film, which won an Oscar for best animated feature film, the plasticine heroes battle a mutant rabbit bent on destroying their home town's annual Giant Vegetable Contest.
■ United Kingdom
Town cryer fights crime
Police in northeast England have enlisted a town cryer to help in their fight against crime, the Sunday Express reported. Cleveland Police in Middlesbrough recruited Alan Myatt to accompany officers on patrol and bellow a warning to residents to lock their doors and windows to deter sneak thieves, the newspaper said. Myatt has been walking the streets in his red robes, ringing his handbell shouting: "Oyez, oyez, Beware! Burglars, thieves and vagabonds are operating in this area. Keep all windows and doors locked. Shut it, lock it, don't give them the opportunity!"
■ Spain
Suspects to be charged
The judge overseeing the inquiry into the Madrid train bombings was yesterday due to charge around 40 suspects with involvement in the atrocity. Legal sources say judge Juan del Olmo will charge three men -- Jamal Zougam and Abdelmajid Bouchar from Morocco and Basel Ghayoun from Syria -- with actually carrying out the bombings which killed 191 people on four commuter trains on March 11, 2004. Zougam and Ghayoun have both been identified by commuters on the trains, which were blown apart by 10 bombs. Bouchar was extradited from Serbia-Montenegro after escaping from an apartment in Leganes, south of Madrid, where seven of the suspected bombers blew themselves up during a police raid three weeks after the blasts.
■ Italy
Betters favor Prodi
Gamblers backed challenger Romano Prodi on Sunday as their runaway favorite to oust Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the polls despite a home-stretch burst of support for the incumbent. Prodi was a 2-9 favorite for Irish bookie Paddy Power, with Berlusconi quoted at 11-4 on the first of two days of voting in Italy. Online betting board Betfair gave Prodi 1-5 odds and Berlusconi 4-1. Punters wagering on Betfair had placed some £275,000 (US$479,200) on the election as of Sunday evening, with about £200,000 placed on Prodi, £70,000 on Berlusconi and £5,000 on the outsiders.
■ European union
EU bans Belarus leader
The EU yesterday slapped a visa ban on Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko and 30 other top officials deemed responsible for the "violation of international electoral standards" and the recent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. A statement by the 25-nation bloc said the list of persons targeted by the travel ban would be kept open and under constant review. Possible "further targeted measures" would also be considered.
■ Iran
No spring forward this year
The government's decision not to move the clocks ahead at the beginning of spring this year has caused immense problems and irritation for Iranians. The reason, said government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham, was that the Cabinet had concluded that making the change had not led to energy savings in past years. But to hedge its bets, it decided that schools and government offices would start their day at 7am instead of the usual 8am. Energy experts dispute the Cabinet's conclusion, predicting that the decision is going to cost the government US$3.3 billion in additional energy costs anyway, the ISNA state news agency said.
■ Panama
Canal expansion finds favor
More than 56 percent of Panamanians said they will vote for a multi-billion-dollar extension of the Panama Canal in a referendum later this year, according to a survey released on Sunday. Only 19 percent said they will vote against the expansion, while 24 percent said they were undecided in the study by the polling company Dichter and Neira. Independent analysts estimate the changes will cost between US$5 billion and US$8 billion. The survey was carried out with 1,200 people from March 31 to April 3.
■ Canada
Gang suspected in deaths
Police investigating the deaths of eight men found stuffed inside four abandoned vehicles in a wooded field on Saturday morning descended on a farmhouse a few kilometers down the road. A former motorcycle gang member said there were indications the deaths were linked to the Bandidos gang. Police refused to discuss what was happening beyond the roadblock they had set up around the farmhouse in Shedden, Ontario. Edward Winterhalder, a former member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang who lives in Oklahoma, said he had talked to current members in the area who recognized the vehicles from the media coverage. "I can tell you that it's Bandidos that got killed," said Winterhalder, who left the gang in 2003.
■ United States
Specter urges more clarity
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should speak publicly about their involvement in the CIA leak case so people can understand what happened, a leading Republican senator said. "We ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated, again, by the American people," Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Sunday. In a federal court filing last week, the prosecutor in the case said Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, testified before a grand jury that he was authorized by Bush, through Cheney, to leak information from a classified document that detailed intelligence agencies' conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
■ United Kingdom
More `cautioned' rapists
The number of rapists cautioned by police and released instead of being charged more than doubled in 10 years up to 2004, according to Home Office figures. The statistics, which show that 40 people were cautioned for rape in 2004, compared with 19 in 1994, have surprised many involved in the criminal justice system. Jennifer Tempkin, a law professor at the University of Sussex said in the Times newspaper that she had never heard of a rape case resulting in just a caution. "Some explanation would be useful so we can all be sure that cautioning is being used properly," she said. "Forty cases of cautioning for rape in a year is a not [an] insubstantial figure."
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
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A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day. The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets. The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants. However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they
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