■ India
Officials frown on the skinny
India does not want waif-like young women sashaying down the catwalk and acting as role models for thousands of girls who are starving themselves to get svelte figures, the Indian health minister said. The minister's statement comes after the unprecedented decision taken by fashion organizers in Madrid this month to ban underweight models from walking the ramp, saying they wanted to project an image of beauty and health, not a waif-like look. The Times of India newspaper quoted Anbumani Ramadoss on Tuesday as saying that many girls in India's cities and small towns were suffering from osteoporosis due to strict dieting.
■ India
School to regulate `fatwa'
A prominent Islamic school said on Tuesday that it plans to regulate the issuing of fatwa after a television sting caught clerics issuing religious edicts in return for cash. "To stop the misuse of edicts we are seriously considering constituting a body that can regulate the issue of fatwas," Maulana Shahid Rehan, a senior official at the school in northern India, told reporters. "It is really a matter of shame that a few clerics are misusing their power and are issuing fatwas by accepting money ... it was most un-Islamic," he said. Three clerics, including the chief of the Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband seminary's fatwa department, have been caught up in the undercover sting.
■ Kazakhstan
Mine blast kills 43
Forty-three people were killed yesterday in an explosion at a mine in Kazakhstan belonging to Mittal Steel, Interfax news agency said. A spokesman contacted by reporters at the Emergencies Ministry in the town of Karaganda said: "There was an accident in the mine. There are casualties. A rescue operation is under way ... It has definitely been established that they all died because there was a methane gas explosion," a spokesman at the mine said, quoted by Interfax.
■ Afghanistan
Insurgent violence kills four
Clashes and bombings left four suspected insurgents dead and three Afghan soldiers wounded in eastern Afghanistan, the defense ministry said yesterday. The insurgents were killed in a clash with Afghan soldiers in the eastern Paktika Province on Tuesday, a statement from the defense ministry said. The troops recovered an unspecified amount of ammunition and a mortar. Three Afghan soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb in neighboring Khost province, the ministry said. In the south, in Zabul and Kandahar provinces, soldiers detained four suspected Taliban insurgents, who are battling government and foreign troops throughout the country, the statement said.
■ Indonesia
Three men face execution
Security in Central Sulawesi Province was tightened ahead of the execution of three Christians convicted of leading a mob that killed Muslims six years ago, police said on Wednesday. The three men -- Fabianus Tibo, Marianus Riwu and Dominggus Silva -- are due to face a firing squad today in the provincial capital, Palu, a move that many fear could spark fresh religious tensions in the area. The poor farmers were sentenced to death in 2001 after being found guilty of leading Christian mobs in a series of attacks that killed about 200 people, including over 70 at an Islamic boarding school, during Muslim-Christian clashes in the Poso region.
■ West Bank
Palestinian cash confiscated
The Israeli army confiscated millions of dollars during a series of pre-dawn raids yesterday on Palestinian banks across the West Bank, saying the cash was used for funding "terrorism." Palestinian security sources said that "millions of dollars, documents and files were stolen" when Israeli troops raided banks and money exchange shops in several towns, including Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin. An Israeli army spokesman confirmed it had carried out the raids, saying the operation targeted "Palestinian financial infrastructure financing terrorism."
■ Italy
Thief turns himself in
A thief accidentally turned himself in after losing his cellular phone while robbing an elderly lady, calling his own number to meet the finder -- and unwittingly arranging a date with police. The 77-year-old victim handed over the phone that the bag snatcher had dropped to police, who lured the thief to a meeting where he was arrested, news agency Agi reported on Monday. Agi said the man had been freed from prison recently under a mass pardon meant to ease congestion in jails. By the time police were waiting for him at the meeting point, the 35-year-old had already robbed another old lady and was riding a stolen scooter, Agi said.
■ Israel
New mossie-killing method
Mosquitoes' thirst for sugar could help kill the pests and eradicate the malaria they spread, scientists said on Tuesday. Yosef Schlein and Gunter Muller of Jerusalem's Hebrew University said they wiped out virtually the entire mosquito population of a southern oasis by spraying a sugar solution mixed with "Spinosad" insecticide on acacia trees. "The mosquitoes are about 30 times more attracted to the acacia than other plant life," Schlein said, explaining why that particular tree was chosen. Acacias are also common in Africa, where malaria has been on the rise due to environmental changes, drug resistance and mosquito resistance to conventional insecticides, according to the researchers' study published in scientific journals.
■ United Kingdom
Cherie Blair investigated
The wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair only pretended to slap a cheeky teenager, but child protection officials reported her to the police and officers questioned her before dismissing the incident. Cherie Blair was being photographed with teenager Miles Gandolfi at the UK Schools Games sports event in Glasgow, Scotland, when the 17-year-old jokingly raised his hand behind her head to make a "bunny ears" gesture. In response, Blair, a prominent human-rights lawyer and mother of four children, took it in good humor and pretended to slap Gandolfi, telling him he was cheeky. Newspaper pictures then showed them laughing and hugging each other. But officials from the Child Protection in Sports Unit reported Blair to police who then questioned promising fencer Gandolfi about the incident.
■ Russia
Gorbachev admires Putin
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on Tuesday he supported tough measures taken by President Vladimir Putin and wished he had adopted them. Gorbachev, whose political reforms led to the collapse of the communist empire, said he should have squashed the challenge from Boris Yeltsin, his arch-rival.
■ United States
Longer stay in Iraq?
The top US commander in the Middle East said on Tuesday that more than 140,000 soldiers could be needed in Iraq at least until spring because of continuing sectarian violence and the need to secure Baghdad. "I think that this level probably will have to be sustained through next spring, and then we'll re-evaluate," General John Abizaid said, adding that more troops would be deployed if needed. These comments were the first indication that senior commanders believed reductions were unlikely until well into next year. He also acknowledged that after five years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military would be hard pressed to come up with more troops.
■ United States
New York is safest
New York remained the safest of the country's 10 largest cities last year, with about one crime reported for every 37 people, according to FBI statistics. The large city with the highest crime rate was Dallas, with about one crime reported for every 12 people. Los Angeles ranked third- safest, with about one crime for every 26 people. San Jose took the No. 2 safest spot, while San Diego ranked fourth, followed by Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Antonio and Phoenix. The number of reported crimes in New York fell 4.3 percent last year, while the number nationwide dropped 1.2 percent. Meanwhile, national figures showed that violent crime rose 2.3 percent last year, the first increase since
2001.
■ Nicaragua
Ten jailed over killer hooch
Ten people have been jailed to face charges of stealing methanol and mixing it into a moonshine cane liquor that killed 44 people and poisoned around 800. Police said on Tuesday the 10 could face more than 20 years in jail. The poisonous hooch caused chaos in the northern city of Leon earlier this month. Apart from the 44 killed, 12 people were blinded and five are still in critical condition. The suspects are accused of stealing methanol from a truck and selling it to distributors of a local firewater. The truck driver was part of the conspiracy and is on the run, police said.
■ Iraq
Saddam kicked out
The new chief judge in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial ejected the ousted Iraqi leader from the courtroom for refusing to sit down moments after hearings began on yesterday. Defense lawyers also stormed out in protest against the sacking of Mohammed al-Ureybi's predecessor. "Take him out of the courtroom," Ureybi ordered guards after a defiant Saddam refused to sit down. Ureybi was named to take over the court after the government sacked Abdullah al-Amiri for saying Saddam was "not a dictator." All the defendants -- Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali," and five others -- remained as the trial continued, with testimonies from Kurdish witnesses.
■ Nuclear Power
Buffett goes nuclear
Billionaire Warren Buffett pledged US$50 million on Tuesday to help set up an international nuclear fuel bank that aspiring powers could turn to for reactor fuel instead of making it on their own. Buffett's aim is to curb the risks of nuclear proliferation by providing an alternative to the kind of indigenous production of nuclear fuel that Iran is embarking upon, which carries the risk of military diversion for weapons. "This pledge is an investment in a safer world," Buffett said in a statement.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
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