■ Bangladesh
Pilgrims die in accident
A ferry packed with dozens of people going home for an Islamic festival capsized yesterday in a river in central Bangladesh after hitting a cargo boat, killing at least 15 people, an official said. Several passengers were still missing, the area's chief government administrator, Mohammad Moniruddin, said from the site of the accident. Rescuers recovered the bodies of four children, 10 women and one man from the sunken ferry, said local police chief Tofazzal Hossain. Rescuers were searching for the missing passengers, he said. The ferry, carrying about 70 people, sank in the Meghna River in Munshiganj district, 32km southeast of Dhaka.
■ Thailand
Martial law to remain
The military-installed government said yesterday it will maintain martial law because supporters of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra still intend to create political chaos. "As long as the situation remains not calm, martial law cannot be lifted," Defense Minister General Boonrawd Somtat told reporters. "If there are no political undercurrents, the opportunity to lift martial law will come faster."
■ Japan
By-elections boost Abe
The government yesterday hailed its first electoral victory under new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a strong vote for his handling of the North Korean nuclear crisis and regional diplomatic efforts. Abe saw his ruling Liberal Democratic Party cruise to victory in two weekend by-elections in Osaka and in Kanagawa, a prefecture west of Tokyo.
■ India
Dengue spread slowing
Cooling weather in the north of the country appears to have slowed the spread of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease that has killed at least 125 people in the past two months, news reports said. Only 56 cases of the disease were reported in New Delhi hospitals over the past 24 hours, a drop from the average of 80 a day seen in the past week, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
■ Philippines
Volcano belches ash
A volatile volcano in the eastern province of Sorsogon spewed a column of ash 1km high in a sudden explosion yesterday, covering four villages in soot. Villagers were warned of further dangerous activity from Mount Bulusan, which has already belched giant clouds of smoke and ash twice this month. Yesterday, the ash drifted on to homes southeast and southwest of the 1,565m volcano, according to the government's vulcanology bureau. Residents around Bulusan were advised to take precautions.
■ Vietnam
Ministry bans magazine
Authorities have banned a magazine for publishing articles about how men can improve their sexual performance, the third publication shut by government censors in a week. Officials at the Ministry of Culture and Information said yesterday they closed a business magazine named Kinh Doanh Va San Pham (Business and Products) and were considering revoking the press credentials of its reporters and editors. The magazine, owned by the Vietnam Alliance of Cooperatives, incurred the wrath of government officials by publishing a series of articles describing how men can improve their sexual performance and increase the pleasure of their partners. "They are supposed to write about business and production, not about sex," Vice Minister Do Quy Doan said.
■ Australia
Crocs scare off swimmers
Bathers were banished from several popular beaches in the northeast yesterday after two large crocodiles were spotted near swimming areas, officials said. A fisherman reported seeing two of the deadly reptiles, each measuring between 2m and 3m, swimming near a beach in the Queensland town of Townsville on Sunday. Lifeguards in the area confirmed that the crocs had been spotted -- the first such sighting of the beasts on beaches in the area -- and quickly closed the beaches until at least today. "I thought somebody was pulling my leg when I first heard it, but it's fair dinkum," Townsville Mayor Tony Mooney told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
■ Australia
Champion horse poisoned
A sporting mystery has been partly solved with scientists yesterday saying champion racehorse Phar Lap was poisoned before his US race debut 74 years ago. Phar Lap won 37 starts over a four-year career but the champion chestnut galloper was found with blood pouring from his lungs in California on April 5, 1932, and died before a US race in which he was tipped to beat all comers. Conspiracy theory holds that Phar Lap was killed by US gangsters, who feared the horse would cause big losses to illegal bookmakers. Australian scientists using particle accelerator technology, said careful analysis of preserved hair samples had proved Phar Lap was given a lethal dose of arsenic around 35 hours before his death.
■ Russia
Relatives to sue over siege
Relatives of those who died in the bloody hostage siege four years ago at a Moscow theater said yesterday they plan to sue officials for negligence over the bungled rescue operation. Chechen militants seized the theater Oct. 23, 2002, during the second act of the musical Nord-Ost, taking about 800 people hostage and demanding that Russian authorities end the war in Chechnya. Three days later, Russian special forces pumped a narcotic gas into the theater to knock out the hostage-takers, and then stormed the building, killing all 41 captors.
■ Bulgaria
Parvanov wins initial vote
President Georgi Parvanov won the first round of elections yesterday in his bid to serve a second term but must face a nationalist in an Oct. 29 runoff who has opposed the country's EU entry. With 99.76 percent of votes counted, official results showed that Parvanov, the former head of the ruling Socialist party, won by a large margin with 64 percent of ballots cast. In second place with 21.5 percent was nationalist Volen Siderov, leader of the xenophobic Attack party who campaigned on a platform targeting the country's large Turkish and Roma gypsy minorities.
■ France
Cult leader to go back on trial
Franco-Swiss conductor Michel Tabachnik is due to go back on trial today, four years after he was acquitted of conspiring to brainwash 74 members of the Solar Temple doomsday cult into accepting death by through an occult ritual. The 64-year-old musician is now being charged with "criminal conspiracy" in relation to 16 of those cult members, three of them children, whose charred bodies were discovered in the French Alps in 1995. On June 25, 2001, French judges cleared Tabachnik of the charges of brainwashing due to lack of evidence. But prosecutors, which had accused him of playing a key role in convincing cult members to willingly to go to their deaths, filed an appeal.
■ Russia
Applicants flood Putin site
People submitted more than 300,000 questions for President Vladimir Putin within the first 24 hours after phone lines opened for his annual televised question-and-answer marathon, organizers said on Sunday. The organizers' Web site, president-line.ru, said a total of 305,735 queries had been submitted by 10am on Sunday, with three days to go before tomorrow's televised session. The most popular subjects to date included student funding, the minimum wage, economic reform, relations with Russia's neighbors and soaring housing costs, the Web site said.
■ Iran
Two kids aren't enough
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday opposed encouraging families to have just two children and said his country could cope with 50 million more people than the 70 million it has now, the student news agency ISNA reported. Ahmadinejad's remarks to a meeting of the government and parliament run counter to Tehran's long-held policy of controlling population growth, which rocketed during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war when family planning was ignored. "I am against saying that two children are enough. Our country has a lot of capacity. It has the capacity for many children to grow in it. [Iran] even has the capacity for 120 million people," he said.
■ United Kingdom
Travel writer dies
British travel writer Eric Newby, who chronicled his adventures in Afghanistan, India and Italy in a series of books, has died aged 86, his family said on Sunday. He was known for his 1958 book A short walk in the Hindu Kush, a light-hearted account of his journey from London to the mountains of Afgha-nistan, and Slowly down the Ganges, the story of a 1,930km journey by Newby and his wife down India's holy river. Newby died on Friday near Guildford, southern England, from natural causes, his daughter Sonia Ashmore said. He had been in poor health for some time, she said.
■United Kingdom
British teens sexually active
A study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that 38 percent of British 15-year-olds had had sex in the period from 2001 to 2002. That compared to just 15 percent in Poland, 16 percent in Spain and was also far greater than the countries with the second highest proportion -- Sweden, Finland and Germany. In addition Britain had the highest rate of teenage births, an average of 26 live births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19. Sexually related diseases such as Chlamydia and herpes had also risen among young people, with one in three 15-year-olds admitting they didn't use condoms.
■United States
Jail or Canada?
In an unusual sentence that has immigration lawyers questioning its legality, a US citizen has agreed to stay out of the US for the next three years as punishment for having sex with a 15-year-old female student. The exile started yesterday for the 35-year-old former Buffalo Seminary teacher, who was arrested in April in New York State after a mall security guard noticed him and the girl sitting in a parked car for two hours. Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark called the plea deal "a little dicey" but said the girl's family was happy with it. Under the sentence, Watson can only enter the US to report to his probation officer.
■United States
No charges against exhumers
Prosecutors won't seek charges against people who exhumed the remains of a man who claimed to be outlaw Billy the Kid. Tom Sullivan and Steve Sederwall dug up the bones of John Miller in May last year. Miller was buried at the state-owned Pioneers' Home Cemetery in Prescott, Arizona, nearly 70 years ago. "It appears officials in charge of the facility gave permission and the people who were attempting to recover samples of the remains believed they had permission to do so,'' Bill FitzGerald, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, said last week. Sullivan and Sederwall have been hunting for the Kid's bones since 2003.
■ Italy
Politician gets protection
An deputy is to be put under police protection after a fundamentalist imam shouted at her during a televised debate on the Islamic veil, the Ansa agency reported on Sunday. Daniela Santanche, the right wing National Alliance's deputy in Lom-bardy, will "very soon" benefit from police protection provided by Milan's chief of police. The lawmaker said that the veil was not required by the Koran and was strongly contradicted by Ali Abu Shwaima, imam of the Segrate Mosque near Milan, in a live broadcast on Friday evening on the private television channel Sky. "It is not true. I will not allow the ignorant to talk about Islam," the imam said, calling Santanche "an infidel."
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
Myanmar’s junta chief met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the first time since seizing power, state media reported yesterday, the highest-level meeting with a key ally for the internationally sanctioned military leader. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021, overthrowing Myanmar’s brief experiment with democracy and plunging the nation into civil war. In the four years since, his armed forces have battled dozens of ethnic armed groups and rebel militias — some with close links to China — opposed to its rule. The conflict has seen Min Aung Hlaing draw condemnation from rights groups and pursued by the
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