■ Sri Lanka
Troops have narrow escape
Fifteen soldiers had a narrow escape yesterday when a roadside bomb set by Tamil rebels exploded near them as they patrolled in a northern Sri Lankan town, the military said. One soldier was slightly wounded in the attack near the garrison town of Vavuniya, military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said. Samarasinghe blamed the separatist Tamil Tigers for the bomb, and said the troops were lucky because the remote-controlled device apparently exploded prematurely.
■ Japan
PM apologizes to emigrants
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi offered a formal apology yesterday to Japanese nationals who migrated to the Dominican Republic under false promises of a Caribbean paradise. "The government sincerely reflects on its past and apologizes for how it dealt with those who migrated and experienced great suffering," Koizumi said in a statement. Koizumi promised to compensate the migrants and to offer other aid, including assistance and education to older and poor descendants of the migrants.
■ Australia
Star's jeans cost A$30,000
A pair of old jeans owned by actor Hugh Jackman have been sold at a fundraising auction for A$30,000 (US$22,476), more than double the amount paid for Nicole Kidman's denim duds. Jackman's jeans -- decorated by a local artist and signed by the X Men star -- were among 17 pairs auctioned late on Thursday at a "Jeans for Genes" fundraising event for the Childrens Medical Research Institute in Sydney. The Australian-born actor's pants were the hit of the evening, outselling Kidman's, which went for A$11,000.
■ Thailand
King undergoes surgery
King Bhumibol Adulyadej was recovering yesterday in a Bangkok hospital after undergoing surgery on his spine, which the prime minister said went "better than expected." The 78-year-old king underwent surgery on Thursday to relieve pressure on nerves in his spinal cord, a problem that makes walking difficult and that can be very painful. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said doctors were pleased with the results of the operation, but that the king would need to remain in hospital for some time.
■ Hong Kong
Ex-governor drops by for tea
The last British governor to rule Hong Kong, Chris Patten, arrived in the former colony on Thursday for a five-day visit that will include tea with the chief executive. Patten, who antagonized Beijing by pressing for democracy in the run-up to Hong Kong's 1997 return to Chinese sovereignty, is visiting for a series of book signings and interviews. He will have tea on Monday with his former financial secretary Donald Tsang (曾蔭權), who has since stepped up to chief executive and lives in Patten's old home, Government House. Patten is also due to visit the priests from Hong Kong's Catholic Cathedral where he used to worship alongside Tsang, who is also a Catholic.
■ New Zealand
Nissan pulls raunchy ad
Japanese carmaker Nissan said yesterday it has pulled a raunchy commercial starring Sex and the City actress Kim Cattrall from New Zealand television after complaints over its content. Cattrall, who plays sex-obsessed, promiscuous Samantha Jones in the US series, appears in the ad purring with excitement about Nissan's new sedan. "Why didn't you tell me it was so big, I just wasn't prepared for it?" she gushes. "The all-new Nissan Tiida makes you feel really, really, really good inside." She tells a salesman: "Ah! That was amazing. Absolutely fabulous! I mean the great body and the way you moved it." The ad sparked a number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board.
■ China
Bilis death toll spikes
The official death toll from rain storms and flooding triggered by Tropical Storm Bilis has spiked dramatically to 482, state media said yesterday. The sudden rise from 228 came after authorities revised the number of deaths in Hunan Province to 346, compared with 92 previously, Xinhua reported. There was no immediate explanation for the sudden increase in the death toll, and no immediate claim of a cover-up. However, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued an urgent notice warning local governments to be honest about disaster tolls. A total of 33 counties and six cities across Hunan have been hit by rainstorms, floods, landslides and mudflows, affecting 7.3 million people. The province has evacuated 800,000 people.
■ Tibet
Cable thieves nabbed
Less than a month after Tibet opened to train travel, Chinese police there have arrested seven people for stealing electrical cables from the new railway, state media said yesterday. The seven were caught near the Tibetan capital Lhasa after taking about 400,000 yuan (US$50,000) worth of cables, the Beijing Youth Daily said, citing a Xinhua news agency report. This was the first case of theft from the railway, which runs through some of the poorest parts of China, the report said. Theft of cables and metal fixtures is widespread in China, where rising metal prices drive a lucrative illicit trade.
■ Catvia
Drunkard's penis reattached
A man who cut off his own penis in a drunken bet had his organ stitched back on Thursday by Latvian doctors, the first such operation in the country's history, Latvian public television reported. While strongly under the influence of alcohol, the 30-year-old man made a bet with his friend for 1,000 lats (US$1,800) that he would cut off his penis, according to the television report. He was brought to hospital severely bleeding. His penis was with him in a plastic bag. "We have had a few cases with penis traumas, when it was half-cut or damaged, but this is the first time that it was totally cut off -- and brought to hospital in a plastic bag," said microsurgeon Aivars Tihonovs from Gailezers hospital in the Latvian capital, Riga.
■ Mexico
Upscale tequila on sale
Forget about the kind of tequila you slam down on the bar or knock back at parties in throat-burning shots with salt and lemon. If you're paying six figures, you might prefer to savor it in small sips. An impossibly upmarket brand of tequila -- 100 percent blue Agave lovingly aged for six years and sold in a limited edition platinum bottle with fancy artwork on the label -- went on sale in Mexico on Thursday night for US$225,000 a bottle. "Tonight we are trying for the Guinness Book of Records with the most expensive bottle in the world," Fernando Altamirano, chief executive of producer Tequila Ley .925, told a launch party for the liquor.
■ United States
Cohabitation law nixed
A judge in North Carolina has ruled unconstitutional a 201-year-old law banning cohabitation of unmarried couples that was cited in the firing of a local Sheriff's office employee. "I am absolutely thrilled with the court's decision," said Deborah Hobbs, 41, who lost her job as an emergency services telephone operator in Pender county because she lived with her boyfriend. Hobbs was fired in 2004 after her boss told her she violated a North Carolina law banning unmarried couples from living together. "I just didn't think it was any of my employers business whether I was married or not, as long as I was good at my job," she said.
■ United Kingdom
Parrot foils thief
An ill-tempered parrot left English police a vital clue to the thief who took the bird from a pet shop. Tristand Maidment, 23, pleaded guilty on Thursday to stealing a macaw named Mickey from a pet shop in Frome, southwestern England, last month. Maidment said he couldn't remember being bitten by the parrot, but the wound left a trial of blood which allowed police to make a DNA match to the suspect. Mickey's owner, Angus Hart, said the parrot was notoriously bad tempered and about 50 years old.
■ Malta
Planes fly to the rescue
Two Spanish planes were flying to Malta on Thursday to come to the aid of 51 Africans stranded for a week aboard a Spanish trawler which had rescued them in waters off the tiny island nation, the Spanish foreign ministry said. The trawler was making its way to Malta to dock, the ministry said. Spain, Malta and three other countries -- including Libya, whose ports are the starting point for many of the boats which carry clandestine migrants across the Mediterranean -- have agreed to take in the Africans.
■ Italy
Terror suspects arrested
Police arrested four Algerians in northern Italy on terrorism charges yesterday, a police official said. The suspects were affiliated with the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, an Algerian group said to have links to al-Qaeda, said an official with the Carabinieri paramilitary police in the northern city of Padua. The four were allegedly in charge of financing and recruiting new militants as well as acquiring false documents, including identity documents and work permits for immigrants, said the official. The group had its base in the nearby city of Vicenza but operated across northern and southern Italy, the official said.
■ United States
Accused seaman acquitted
A military jury acquitted a former US Naval Academy quarterback of raping a female midshipman in her dormitory room. But jurors on Thursday convicted Lamar Owens Jr on charges of conduct unbecoming an officer and disobeying a lawful order. "They have determined, obviously, that a consensual act took place," said Commander John Maksym, the trial judge. He added that the jury of five Naval officers found that Owens "wrongfully entered the room without permission and wrongfully engaged in consensual sex." Owens, standing at attention as the verdicts were read, showed no emotion. He remains free without bond.
■ Spain
Gang members found dead
The decomposed bodies of two men believed to be the leaders of Dublin's most notorious drug gang have been recovered from under a warehouse near the resort of Alicante. DNA tests are being conducted to determine whether the remains, found at the bottom of a 2m-deep pit covered with cement, belong to Shane Coates, 31, and Stephen Sugg, 27, from the "Westies" gang. They had been missing since 2004. "From the size of the bodies, it is probable that is who they are," said an Alicante police spokesman, Alcerez Gallego. "That is the hypothesis we're working with." The bodies were unearthed on Tuesday after Irish police received a tip-off.
■ Canada
Murder rate shoots up
Canada's murder rate shot up last year to its highest in nearly a decade. Statistics Canada (Statscan) said 658 people were murdered last year, meaning the homicide rate was up 4 percent from 2004. It gave no reason for the increase, which followed a dramatic 13 percent jump in 2004. The national homicide rate was 2 per 100,000 population, Statscan said. That is relatively low by international standard and less than half that of the US rate, which was 5.5 per 100,000 in 2004, according to the FBI. Edmonton, the capital of the western province of Alberta, had the highest rate with 4.3 homicides per 100,000 people.
■ Mexico
Left-winger gives no ground
The country's leftist presidential candidate said on Thursday he would never recognize the results of the July 2 election as legitimate, and his supporters protested outside the offices of a national airline he accuses of giving illicit support to his rival. With Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's followers mounting new protests every day, Roman Catholic Bishops called on Mexicans to pray for the healing of political rifts caused by the still-disputed presidential election. Lopez Obrador, former mayor of Mexico City, lost the race to conservative, ruling-party candidate Felipe Calderon, by a margin of less than 0.6 percent.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
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