■ Hong Kong
Chinese tourists stay away
Mainland Chinese tourists are shunning the territory because they are fed up with overcharging and intense spending pressures, according to news reports yesterday. The number of Chinese visitors during May's week-long Labor Day holiday fell to 285,000, more than 11,000 less than last year, official figures showed. Tour groups from the mainland dropped by almost 20 percent compared to last year, according to the Inland Travel Association, quoted by the South China Morning Post.
■ India
Five more perish in heat
Sunstroke killed five people overnight yesterday in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where the temperature in the city of Jhansi hit 46oC on Friday, the Press Trust of India said. At least nine heat-related deaths were confirmed on Friday in the eastern state of Orissa but the health department said the actual death toll could be as high as 38 since the onset of the hot weather in the middle of last month.
■ Bangladesh
Troops distribute water
Soldiers handed bucketfuls of drinking water yesterday to quench the thirst of thousands of Bangladeshis staging a noisy protest over a shortage of electricity and water. Witnesses said troops with water tankers moved into the crowded Demra area on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka where angry protesters barricaded a highway on Friday, clashed with police and damaged dozens of vehicles. More than 100 people were injured, including 10 policemen, in the clashes after law enforcers tried to disperse the protesters using batons and teargas. They were protesting against little or no clean water supplies in the area, along with months of daily power failures local residents said.
■ India
Mini marathon runner tested
The country's human rights watchdog agency has ordered a state government to investigate whether a four-year-old boy who ran a 65km marathon had been exploited by his sports coach and other officials. Police and state welfare authorities in eastern Orissa took Budhia Singh for medical tests on Friday, but the results were not immediately available, Press Trust of India reported. Budhia was discovered two years ago by sports coach Biranchi Das, who has often been accused of exploiting the boy's athletic talent by forcing him to run long distances for publicity. After receiving complaints from civic groups this week, India's National Human Rights Commission ordered the Orissa government to conduct a health check on the boy and investigate those who organized the run.
■ Australia
Downer voices concern
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer expressed concern yesterday at the make up of the new Solomon Islands government after a politician jailed over recent riots was appointed the nation's new police minister. The Solomon Islands parliament elected Manasseh Sogavare prime minister to replace Snyder Rini on Thursday after Rini's election on April 18 sparked violent riots and looting in the capital Honiara that led to his resignation. Politicians Charles Dausebea and Nelson Ne have been charged over the riots and both remain in police custody, but that did not stop Sogavare appointing them to his new Cabinet, with Dausebea made the country's new police minister. "For these two people to be appointed to the cabinet and for Mr Dausebea to be more than that, appointed responsible for the police, is a matter of deep concern to us," Downer said yesterday.
■ Vatican City
Pope honors Swiss Guards
Pope Benedict XVI thanked the Swiss Guards yesterday for their 500 years of service protecting popes, praising their dedication and saying they were examples for all young people who want to serve the Church. Benedict recalled the colorful history of the elite papal corps during a special Mass in St. Peter's Basilica in honor of the 500th anniversary of the corps' foundation. Guards in their distinctive gold-and-blue striped uniforms sat in the front rows of the basilica and served as the readers during the service -- a rare change for the young men who normally stand silently at attention during papal Masses. Pope Julius II summoned the first group of 150 Swiss mercenaries in 1506 to protect him and the Vatican.
■ Serbia
Mladic manhunt continues
Police made fresh arrests and raided apartments on Friday in the hunt for genocide suspect Ratko Mladic as pressure mounted on Belgrade to bring one of the most wanted men in Europe to justice. The police actions came two days after the EU punished Serbia for failing to hand Mladic over to the UN war crimes tribunal by the end of last month by suspending key rapprochement talks with the country. Since Wednesday, the police have arrested a total of five people -- among them four civilians and a retired Bosnian Serb army general, Marko Lugonja -- in their bid to strangle Mladic's support network.
■ United States
Tongan relics to be returned
The centuries-old remains of Princess Fatafehi will be returned to Tonga on Friday after being kept in a museum collection in Hawaii for 85 years. Fatafehi was the part of a royal dynasty that ruled Tonga more than 600 years ago. A delegation of Tongan officials will escort her remains and the remains of about 20 other individuals back home. Fatafehi likely lived in the 1300s or 1400s, and her remains may be the oldest of all Tongan royalty. The remains were found during a 1920-1921 Bishop Museum expedition to Tonga. The museum studied and cataloged the remains but didn't display them.
■ Uganda
Dogs sniff out preacher
Police dogs on the trail of a thief sniffed out an unlikely suspect -- a born-again preacher -- who was arrested for robbing a remote village shop, a state-owned newspaper reported yesterday. Detectives released the dogs following a break-in at Igwaya village. Shocked residents watched as the dogs raced to a nearby shop owned by Pastor Livingstone Isanga, head of the Redeemed Christian Church. Hidden behind the counter were the stolen goods -- mostly bags of sugar and bicycle spokes.
■ United Kingdom
Greedy seal terminated
Marksmen in southwest Scotland have shot dead a seal that was suspected of threatening salmon stocks with its appetite for the fish, it emerged on Friday. Sammy, as the seal had been nicknamed by residents along the River Annan, was stalked and killed on April 28 on instructions from fishery managers. "We tried catching and relocating it, pushing it out with boats -- but it kept coming back," one manager said.
■ United States
Rice not running
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she expects to see a president of the US from an ethnic minority during her lifetime, but it will not be her. Rice has been asked repeatedly whether she plans to run for the open Republican candidacy in 2008. On Friday, a young man from Texas attending an annual Washington conference of Latino and Latin-American students asked Rice whether she thought it possible that "a Latino or Latina person or an African-American person or a person from any other minority" might become president of the US. "Yes," she said, prompting the first knowing laughter, and then applause. "I think it will happen, and I think it will happen in my lifetime" -- more laughter -- "but it won't be me," she said.
■ Canada
Trudeau's ex-wife was ill
Margaret Trudeau, once wife of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, revealed in a news conference in Ottawa on Friday that she secretly suffered from bipolar depression for many years, hiding her illness from the public in a life she called a "long tunnel of darkness." The one-time hippie flower child captivated Canadians when, at age 22, she married Trudeau, a man 30 years her senior. Now 57, Trudeau described how her fairy-tale romance with a dashing prime minister turned hellish when she fell into post-partum depression after the birth of their second son. Trudeau said she refused to recognize her condition or seek help until her youngest son, Michel, died in 1998 in an avalanche, followed by Pierre Trudeau's death two years later.
■ United Kingdom
Fire out on cruise liner
Crew members managed to put out a fire in the engine room of a cruise liner with 708 people aboard off the coast of southeast England early yesterday, a British coastguard official said. "They smothered the engine room ... and they have managed to extinguish the fire," said the official in the seaport of Dover, where the coastguard is coordinating the rescue. He said a call from the ship came in at 4am, and fire and rescue services scrambled to reach the vessel. He said the ship, the Calypso, was operated by Louis Cruise Lines.
■ France
Slavery course slammed
A group of lawmakers from President Jacques Chirac's conservative party urged him on Friday to scrap a 2001 law requiring French schools to teach about the ills of slavery. The call comes amid a simmering debate about the nation's colonial past and preparations to observe on Wednesday the first national day of remembrance for the victims of slavery. The national observance, ordered by Chirac, is timed for the anniversary of the May 10, 2001 passage of a law recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity and requiring schools to include lessons about slavery as a vital part of class curriculums.
■ Israel
Air strike kills five militants
An Israeli air strike killed five Palestinian militants on Friday at a training camp used by militants in the Gaza Strip, further dampening peace prospects in the region. The Israeli military said the strike targeted a camp used by the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group of militants that often fires makeshift rockets into Israel. "There was an aerial attack on a training compound ... while terrorists were training there," an Israeli military spokeswoman said. Israel has recently stepped up air strikes against militants.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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