■ India
Temple blast kills four
A grenade exploded in a Hare Krishna temple during a major Hindu religious festival in the northeastern state of Manipur, killing four people and leaving 40 others injured in a stampede following the blast, police said. The explosion took place in the state capital of Imphal on Wednesday while Hindus were celebrating the birthday of Hindu god Krishna, police officer Kasim Ali said. The temple belongs to the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. The injured included four foreign nationals, an army officer said on condition of anonymity.
■ India
Media `egged on' suicide
TV journalists keen for a story encouraged a protester to burn himself to death, giving him matches and fuel, a report quoting police said on Wednesday. The journalists in the eastern state of Bihar kept the cameras rolling as Manoj Mishra, who was demanding back pay, suffered 90 percent burns to his body, the Indian Express newspaper said. Police later filed a case against the journalists, accusing them of abetting suicide, the daily said. "The media people fully knew the intention of the man and still allowed him to proceed with his plan to commit suicide and went on shooting the scene," Jain was quoted as saying.
■ China
Brothel causing headache
A city is agonizing over whether it should preserve an ancient building that once housed a brothel in case it is seen as promoting prostitution, state media said yesterday. The problem is that if the authorities at Jinggang, Hunan Province, decide not to save the structure, they may be seen as indifferent to the value of cultural relics, Xinhua news agency said. Built in 1733, the brothel is now on the verge of collapse and the city government must reach a decision one way or the other, the agency said. It is getting little help from the public, as some vehemently oppose keeping it while others are passionately against tearing it down.
■ Japan
Tokyo pressing for release
The government dispatched diplomats yesterday to negotiate the release of three fishermen detained by Russia after a high-seas shooting killed a fellow crew member. A Russian patrol boat opened fire on their vessel on Wednesday in the latest flare up in a territorial row over a series of islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaido. Russia seized the boat, accused the crew of illegal fishing and took the three survivors to Russia for further questioning. Japanese newspapers cited Russia's Itar-Tass news agency as saying they would be indicted for poaching, smuggling and border violations. The Foreign Ministry yesterday pressed again for their immediate release. It also protested Russia's response to the alleged poaching as too extreme and demanded that the officials responsible for the shooting be punished.
■ Philippines
Arroyo orders killings probe
President Gloria Arroyo has ordered the setting up of an independent commission with "broad powers" to investigate a wave of political killings, the presidential palace said yesterday. The announcement comes days after rights group Amnesty International released a report condemning the killings and urged the government to take immediate action. "The president is now mulling over a short list of appointees for a new, powerful commission that will probe the killings of journalists and activists."
■ Czech Republic
Pluto still a planet
The question of whether Pluto is a real planet, hotly debated by scientists for decades, came to a head on Wednesday when the International Astronomers Union (IAU) proposed a definition of a planet that raises their number to 12 from nine, and includes Pluto. Some 2,500 astronomers and scientists from round the world, attending an IAU conference in Prague, have to weigh a select committee's two-part definition, on which IAU members will vote next Thursday. To be called a planet, a celestial body must be in orbit around a star while not itself being a star, and must be large enough in mass for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape.
■ Israel
Minister chides Costa Rica
Costa Rica's decision to move its embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv is regrettable and could be interpreted as a "surrender to terror," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said yesterday. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said on Wednesday the move was needed to bring the Central American nation into line with international law and mend relations with Arab nations. El Salvador will now be the only country with an embassy in Jerusalem. Most countries don't recognize Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem, the sector it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War. The country claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim the eastern sector.
■ Spain
Shepherds flock for jobs
A farm union office has been inundated with calls from people wanting to apply for jobs as shepherds after a television report mistakenly said there were 2,000 posts vacant in the region. "The program went out on Aug. 7 and we've received thousands of calls," said a spokeswoman for the young farmers' union ASAJA in the central region of Castilla-Leon. Phone calls and e-mails have come from as far away as Latin America. ASAJA was forced to put out a statement denying it had a batch of jobs on offer. Two farmers had appeared on the program and said they needed shepherds and were prepared to offer 730 euros (US$934) a month.
■ Iran
Nation open for talks
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Wednesday that the country was willing to discuss suspending uranium enrichment during negotiations with European countries and China. Mottaki, spoke two weeks before the Aug. 31 deadline set by the UN Security Council for the nation to halt the enrichment or face sanctions. Other officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have responded defiantly to the demand to suspend the program, which he says is intended to make fuel for nuclear power plants rather than nuclear weapons.
■ South Africa
Church slams moonlighting
The nation's Catholic bishops have warned priests to stop moonlighting as witchdoctors and to rely on Christ for miracles. The Catholic Bishops' Conference, which represents the bishops in several African nations, said on its Web sites some priests were adopting the traditional practice of calling on ancestors for healing. The bishops ordered priests to "desist from practices involving spirits," and to steer clear from witchcraft, fortune-telling and selling spiritual powers or magic medicines.
■ Brazil
Stroessner dies in exile
Former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, a ruthless anti-communist Cold War general who ruled from 1954 to 1989, died in exile at Brasilia's Santa Luzia hospital on Wednesday. Stroessner, 93, died of an infection caused by the pneumonia he developed after being operated for a hernia last month, according to a doctor at the hospital. "He was surrounded by his entire family," said Alfredo "Goli" Stroessner, the general's grandson and a leader of Paraguay's ruling Colorado Party, which supported the dictatorship. Stroessner lived in Brazil since he was ousted in a 1989 military coup Victims of his dictatorship have said they would stage protests if the body is sent to Paraguay for burial.
■ United States
Anti-missile fleet beefed-up
The Navy will double to six by the end of the year the number of its ships in the Pacific capable of shooting down enemy ballistic missiles, the head of the Pentagon missile-defense project involved said on Wednesday. "I think it gives the nation more options," Rear Admiral Alan Hicks, program manager for AEGIS ballistic missile defense, said in Huntsville, Alabama, after speaking to a conference on the fledgling shield. In coming years, a growing number of ship-based interceptor missiles will be deployed on 18 AEGIS cruisers and destroyers. The six ships due to be available this year will carry a specialized AEGIS combat system as well as Standard Missile SM-3 interceptors, Hicks said.
■ Canada
Activists protest star power
The constellation of political and entertainment world stars drawn to the International AIDS Conference in Toronto has drowned out the voices of the people living with AIDS, a group of activists complained. The activists, many from South Africa, nearly derailed a news conference Wednesday to protest the presence of former US president Bill Clinton and others, saying they had drawn media attention away from the plight of people living with HIV or AIDS. "We are quite aggrieved," said Sipho Mthanthi, general secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign of South Africa. The news conference quickly became an ideological discourse over whether the AIDS meeting was being tugged off track by the celebrities whose sessions have dominated news coverage of the event.
■ Peru
`Good luck potion' kills
The government warned people to be wary of fake medicine men offering cure-all miracle herb potions on Tuesday, after a bogus brew killed a man hoping to shake off his family's spell of bad luck. "Avoid consuming brews made with herbs of questionable origin or hallucinogenic plants prepared by so-called Shamans," the country's Health Ministry said in a statement, warning the potions used could kill or cause long-term illness.
■ United States
Containers spark alert
US Customs officials in Seattle evacuated one of North America's largest ship container terminals on Wednesday after two cargo containers from Pakistan alarmed bomb-sniffing dogs. Officials found no explosives or chemical or biological agents in containers, one filled with clothes and the other with large bundles of used or recycled textiles. The containers raised suspicion when a screening using gamma ray technology about the contents' density did not match the items listed on a ship's manifest.
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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