■ South Korea
Birth rate hits record low
The country's birth rate fell to its lowest on record last year, sparking concern about a shrinking population and aging society, officials said yesterday. The birth rate, which represents the average number of children a woman is expected to have during her reproductive lifetime, stood at 1.08 last year, down from 1.16 in 2004, the National Statistical Office said. South Korea's population, which stands at 48 million this year, is forecast to fall to 40 million in 2050, the welfare ministry said.
■ India
Heat kills more homeless
The death toll from a blistering heat wave in northern India rose to 34 yesterday as officials ordered primary schools in the most populous state to close. "Six people died of heat stroke in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 24," said Anurag Singh, a government official in Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh. Ten others have died in the eastern state of Orissa. The dead, all homeless, have included two children, Singh said. Temperatures have hovered at 43oC -- four to five degrees above normal.
■ Malaysia
Seller picks wrong customer
A peddler of pirated DVDs has been busted after unwittingly offering his wares to Consumer Affairs Minister Shafie Apdal as he sat at a popular restaurant strip, a report said yesterday. Shafie, mastermind of the government's campaign to crack down on piracy, was offered a range of the latest movie titles, the New Straits Times said. "He [the peddler] said he did not recognize Shafie and that he had approached him like he did any other customer," said the ministry's assistant director Abdul Madi Wahab who led 30 officers on the raid.
■ Myanmar
Astrologers predict storms
Astrologers are hoping that by observing the stars and planets, they will be able to forecast storms and earthquakes, a newspaper reported. A group of local astrologers is comparing their storm predictions for this year with data from the meteorology department. If they are proven to be true, the astrologers plan to include storm forecasts in the annual astrological calendars for next year and 2008, Than Htay, vice president of the Myanmar Astrology Research Bureau, was quoted as saying in the Myanmar Times. "It is important work for us because it will help keep people away from natural disasters and will prove the accuracy of astrological predictions," Than Htay said in the report.
■ Thailand
Club fire kills eight
A fire swept through a nightclub in the resort of Pattaya killing at least eight people and injuring about 54 others, police said on yesterday. The blaze swept through the "Route 999" entertainment complex shortly before opening time on Sunday evening. Police Lance Corporal Dechakamol Sudson said staff were in a routine meeting when the fire broke out. He said preliminary investigations showed it was probably caused by a short circuit in a power line near the building or a faulty air conditioner. Seven of the victims -- five women and two men -- were pronounced dead after being admitted to hospitals in Pattaya, southeast of Bangkok. Another man died inside the nightclub.
■ Philippines
Prison riot injures 11
A riot between rival gang members in a jail left at least 11 inmates injured, including four members of the Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf, jail and police officials said yesterday. Heavily armed police commandos rushed into the Metro Manila Rehabilitation Center late on Sunday to help jail guards bring the nearly two-hour riot under control, Manila police spokesman Agrimero Cruz said.
■ India
Cabbies must take English
New Delhi's taxi drivers will be getting a crash course -- in English. In a bid to help foreigners find their way around the city ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games that New Delhi will host, transport authorities will require cab and rickshaw drivers to take compulsory English classes starting July, the Times of India newspaper reported yesterday. The paper quoted city transport commissioner V.S. Madan as saying: "The program is aimed at the cabbie or an auto [rickshaw] driver because he is the first person a passenger interacts with on arrival in the city." Authorities want the drivers to have a 2,000-word vocabulary after four years of training and will give the drivers English lessons on audio tapes to play in their vehicles while waiting for fares, the paper reported.
■ China
Imperial-era tombs found
Work on a shooting range for the 2008 Beijing Olympics has been suspended after the discovery of imperial-era tombs on the site, newspapers and an antiquities official said yesterday. The tombs, found last month, are believed to date back five to six centuries to the Ming dynasty, and may be those of eunuchs serving at the imperial court, the Beijing Morning Post said. Archeologists have found coins, ceramics and jade in the tombs at the shooting range on Beijing's western outskirts, the Post and other papers said.
■ United States
Titanic survivor dies
Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, has died, family and friends said on Sunday. She was 99. Asplund, who was five in 1912 when the tragedy occurred, lost her father and three brothers -- including a fraternal twin -- when the "unsinkable" ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. "She even said she saw the ship slip into the water," said Philip Maloof, her lawyer and close friend. ``She was the last one [left] in the world to actually see the disaster. "At least two other survivors are living in Britain, but they were too young to remember what happened. Asplund died in her sleep on Saturday at her home in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
■ Somalia
Clashes leave 18 dead
Residents began fleeing the capital early yesterday after a night of fighting between a secular militia and gunmen loyal to Mogadishu's Islamic courts reportedly left 18 people dead and 21 wounded. Witnesses said the fighting began when gunmen working for a militia commander linked to the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism opened fire on a gun truck carrying the bodyguards of Islamic Court Union chairman Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed. The alliance and the Islamic union have been squaring off for several weeks in anticipation of a battle for control of Mogadishu.
■ Italy
Presidential problems loom
The nation's political factions appeared headed for a showdown as parliament prepared yesterday to elect a new president, with none of the candidates winning a bipartisan consensus. A qualified majority is needed to elect a president in the first three rounds of voting, and no winner was expected to emerge from the first session yesterday afternoon. Center-left leader Romano Prodi has proposed a last-minute candidate, Senator for life Giorgio Napolitano, in hopes of winning consensus from the conservative forces of outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
■ Sudan
Rights group highlights risks
Darfur's warring factions must stop attacking humanitarian agencies and facilitate access to civilians in need of assistance, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said late on Sunday. In a new briefing paper, the rights group said over 3 million people in the troubled region depend on aid, and that aid workers are struggling to reach civilians in dire need of help. It said civilians are at risk from further attacks in Darfur as aid workers face mounting insecurity, targeted attacks and "administrative obstruction" by the Sudanese government. Under international humanitarian law, HRW said the warring parties "must allow impartial humanitarian agencies to assist civilians, and attacks on aid workers or deliberate obstruction of relief efforts can constitute war crimes."
■ Czech Republic
Teens accept prostitution
Health officials are expressing alarm at the high percentage of teenagers who have few qualms about swapping sex for money. A recent survey of about 1,200 secondary-school teens by Charles University's Center for Preventative Medicine found that every fourth girl and every sixth boy admitted having offered to sell sexual favors at least once. "A lot of young people do not perceive occasional commercial sex as prostitution," Dr Eva Vanickova told reporters at a conference in Prague.
■ United States
Impeachment not an issue
Democrats will launch a series of investigations of the Bush administration if they take control of Congress in November but are not out to impeach President George W. Bush, a top Democrat said on Sunday. House of Representatives Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would hold hearings on the use of intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war and investigate the high price of energy and prescription drugs if they win the extra 15 seats they need for a House majority in the mid-term elections. But Pelosi denied Republican claims that her party would move quickly to impeach Bush.
■ United States
Bush's best moment
US President George W. Bush told a German newspaper his best moment in more than five years in office was catching a big perch in his own lake. "You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best," Bush told weekly Bild am Sonntag when asked about his high point since becoming president in January 2001. "I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound [3.402kg] perch in my lake," he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday. Bush said the worst moment was Sept. 11 when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
■ United States
Mormon most wanted
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has put the leader and so-called "prophet" of a Mormon polygamist sect on its list of the country's 10 most wanted fugitives and offered a US$100,000 reward for his capture. Warren Jeffs, 50, leads an estimated 10,000 members of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints sect who accept men having more than one wife, the FBI said on its "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" Web site on Sunday. The school teacher is wanted for alleged sexual assault of a minor in 2002, and for rape. The FBI said he sometimes travels with armed bodyguards and should be considered "armed and dangerous."
■ Iraq
100,000 flee homes
More than 100,000 people have fled their homes since late February because of the insurgency and rising sectarian bloodshed, up from 65,000 just over two weeks ago, officials said. These are only the refugees who have registered with the Displacement and Migration Ministry for financial support, food and supplies since the bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine on Feb. 22 in the city of Samarra fanned sectarian tensions. "After the bombing in Samarra and the eruption of widespread violence, thousands of families left their homes to escape the constant violence," said ministry spokesman Sattar Nawrouz.
■ United Kingdom
Prescott faces probe
Scotland Yard said on Sunday it would consider a complaint from a retired police officer that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had broken the law by having sex with his civil service secretary. "We will consider it in due course," said a police spokeswoman. Tracey Temple, Prescott's former secretary, says the couple had sex in his Whitehall office while they were both meant to be working. Prescott was stripped of his ministerial department in a government reshuffle last Friday. Alistair Watson wrote to Britain's most senior police officer to say that Prescott may have committed the offence of misconduct in public office.
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
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
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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