■ Turkmenistan
President promises Mercs
President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov on Saturday promised each of his ministers a gift of a Mercedes Benz car to mark the 15th anniversary of his country's independence. Regional chiefs only qualify for a jeep, but they will be upgraded to a Mercedes if they bring in their cotton harvest early, Niyazov said on national television. "I have already ordered a Mercedes for each minister. We will give them out for the 15th anniversary," he said. The nation marks 15 years of independence from the Soviet Union in October.
■ Thailand
Escaped wolf re-captured
A Canadian wolf that escaped from a new zoo in Chiang Mai and caused havoc across the countryside has been captured, local officials said yesterday. The wolf, which had been brought to Chiang Mai Night Safari from the Czech Republic, escaped one month ago but zoo officials did not alert the public because they believed the animal posed no danger. But villagers were soon reporting mysterious deaths of chickens and dogs, prompting a wolf-hunt involving 50 zoo keepers. The rogue wolf at first eluded capture, but the mission ended with success late on Saturday night when hunters finally found the beast walking down a dirt road and shot it with tranquilizer guns.
■ Pakistan
Crowded bridge collapses
A search resumed yesterday for people missing after a crowded bridge collapsed in heavy rains in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 40 people, an official said. The 10m high bridge collapsed in Mardan, a city about 100km northwest of Islamabad. Witnesses said about 200 people and some vehicles were on the bridge when it fell, flinging pedestrians and cars into the flood waters below. Rescuers pulled out 40 bodies before the search was called off at night fall on Saturday, the mayor of Mardan, Himayatullah Mayar, said yesterday. Troops, civilian aid workers and local residents, using steel cutters, sledge hammers and a crane to break concrete and lift debris, were searching yesterday for the missing people, he said.
■ Pakistan
Premature blast kills bomber
A suicide bomber was killed early yesterday in the southwest when the explosives belt he was wearing exploded pre-maturely, police said. No one else was injured in the blast in Hub, an industrial town in Baluchistan Province, local police official Munir Hussain said. "This man was riding a cycle. He had strapped explosives to his body for a suicide attack and they exploded," Hussain said of the blast in Hub's Zehri Street neighborhood. The man's intended target was not immediately known, and police were investigating, Hussain said. Hub is about 580km southeast of Quetta, Baluchistan's capital.
■ Nepal
King to loose land
The government is likely to seize land owned by King Gyanendra, who recently lost most of his power and his command over the army, a Cabinet minister said yesterday. Land Reform Minister Prabhu Narayan Chaudhary said the gov-ernment was investigating the amount of land owned by Gyanendra and members of the royal family and would have details of the probe in a week. "The laws of Nepal allow an individual to own only a certain amount of land and since the king has been stripped of his immunity and brought under the tax net like all ordinary citizen, he will not be an exception," Chaudhary told reporters.
■ Russia
Cops nab art theft suspects
Police have detained the husband and son of a museum curator on suspicion of stealing hundreds of artworks from the world-famous Hermitage Museum, Interfax news agency said on Saturday. The suspects have confessed to stealing about US$5 million worth of artefacts over a period of six years with the help of a member of the museum staff who is now dead, the agency quoted a source close to the investigation as saying. The Hermitage in St Petersburg is home to a massive collection of sculpture, paintings and historic artefacts that was started by Empress Catherine the Great in 1764.
■ Somalia
Officials meet Ethiopians
Ethiopia's foreign minister met Somalia's interim leaders on Saturday in the hope of rescuing their largely powerless administration, threatened by mass desertions from its ranks. Forty officials have quit the government, many citing Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's reluctance to reach out to Islamists who control the capital Mogadishu and a large swathe of south Somalia. Somalian government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said the delegation, led by Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Seyoum Mesfin, held a closed-door meeting with Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf.
■ United Kingdom
Divers cross channel
Six men and one women on Saturday became the first people to swim across the English Channel from Britain to France in an underwater scuba relay. "No problems whatsoever. It went like clockwork actually," organizer Colin Osbourne told reporters after the team reached the French coast and returned to England by boat. The team took to the sea at Dover on the southeastern English coast at 6:10am and reached Cap Gris Nez in northeastern France 34km away just over 12 hours later, he said. "We didn't expect to get across at that sort of speed," Osbourne said.
■ Sudan
Darfur rebels dump deal
Former Darfur rebels said on Saturday they had stopped implementing a peace deal until the government honors a promise to make Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) leader Minni Arcua Minnawi a special presidential assistant. Minnawi was supposed to arrive in Khartoum on Saturday to start the post-deal reconstruction of Darfur but refused to show up. An SLA official told reporters waiting at the airport that the rebel leader would not come until he was appointed. "The government is not serious about this peace and Minni will not come to Khartoum until this decree is issued from the presidency appointing him as assistant to the president," said al-Fadil al-Tijani, the SLA head of political affairs.
■ Germany
Scientists revise Ludwig
King Ludwig II of Bavaria can finally rest easy in his grave. More than a century after his death, scientists have shown him to be one of the unsung pioneers of flight. Ludwig drew up plans for a flying car more than two decades before the Wright brothers took to the air, but when he tried to build it he was declared insane and stripped of his crown. But now German aeronautical experts who have studied Ludwig's designs say they would have worked. Sketches recovered from letters show the monarch had planned to create flying machines that would take him across Alpine region of the country.
■ United States
Governors oppose measure
US governors are closing ranks in opposition to a proposal in Congress that would let President George W. Bush take control of the National Guard during emergencies without the consent of governors. The idea, spurred by the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina's landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, is part of a version of the National Defense Authorization Act passed by the House of Representatives. It has not yet been agreed to by the Senate.
■ United States
Authorities review blockade
Federal authorities will review last year's blockade of a Mississippi River bridge by armed police officers who turned back Hurricane Katrina evacuees trying to flee New Orleans. The investigation will be carried out by the US Attorney's Office in New Orleans in conjunction with the justice department's Civil Rights Division, First Assistant US Attorney Jan Mann said on Friday. Already, the results of a state investigation have been turned over to the Orleans Parish district attorney. Several hundred evacuees said they were told to cross the bridge to be evacuated from the city on Sept. 1. But suburban police stopped them on the bridge and forced them to turn around. The case raised widespread allegations of racism.
■ Iraq
Italian troops withdrawing
Iraqi forces will this month take full charge of security in the southern province of Dhi Qar from Italian troops, who are in the course of withdrawing from Iraq, an Iraqi official said yesterday. "In the coming days of this month, the security of the province will be handed over to the Iraqi forces by the Italians," Aziz Kadhim Alwa, head of the security committee of the province said. Alwa said the decision was taken after Italians found Iraqi forces capable of handling the "province's security after training by the coalition troops".
■ United Kingdom
Drug trial victim has cancer
One of six men who fell violently ill in March during clinical trials of a new drug has been told by his doctors that he is showing early signs of cancer, a newspaper reported yesterday. David Oakley, 35, from London, has been told by doctors that he is showing "definite early signs" of lymph cancer, the Mail on Sunday reported. He has also been warned that he faces the risk of multiple sclerosis, lupus, ME, rheumatoid arthritis and other illnesses. He told the newspaper that he had an "aggressive" form of cancer and faces further tests to see what treatment is needed. He said he took part in the trial to raise money for his wedding in June to wife Katrina, 29.
■ United Kingdom
Blair plans to stay on
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has told colleagues he plans to stay on the job for at least another year, defying calls from members of his own party to step down sooner, the Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday. Blair's popularity has slumped amid government scandals over sex, alleged sleaze and incompetence and his refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. However, "he is talking about at least another year," the newspaper quoted an unidentified "close colleague" as saying. The newspaper said Blair's decision could lead to "a new war" with Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who has made no secret of his ambition to take over as party leader and prime minister.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
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