■ India
Bomb kills three in Assam
At least three people were killed and 20 injured in a powerful explosion at a crowded marketplace in the northeastern state of Assam, officials said yesterday. Suspected militants of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) triggered the blast on Friday at a busy vegetable market in the town of Dhekiajuli, about 140km north of Assam's main city of Guwahati, police said. "The market was crowded with evening shoppers when the powerful bomb went off," Assam police intelligence chief Khagen Sharma told AFP. "At least 12 of the injured are stated to be critical," the police official said. Two paramilitary troopers were among the injured.
■ Japan
Leader calls for nuke debate
The policy chief of the ruling party renewed his calls for a debate over whether the country should acquire nuclear weapons capability in the face of the nuclear threat now posed by North Korea. "The main goal is to stop North Korea's outrageous acts," Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party, told a press conference in Washington. "As a form of deterrence, one can argue for nuclear an option. We must discuss all options to ensure that Japan would not come under nuclear attacks," he said.
■ Vietnam
Drug trafficking ring busted
Fifty people went on a trial in northern Vietnam for alleged involvement in one of the country's largest drug trafficking rings, state media reported yesterday. The defendants, including 11 policemen and border guards, were accused of trading 70 guns and trafficking 814.5kg of opium and 3.5kg of heroin, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said. Court officials were not available for comment yesterday. The case was uncovered in December 2004 when two former border guards were caught with four guns in Hanoi, the newspaper said. They told police that they had bought the guns from a police officer who was in charge of a warehouse in Hanoi run by the Ministry of Public Security, it said.
■ Thailand
Unique show lodging offered
Cheap and quiet accommodation is available for visitors to an upcoming international horticultural show, but some may find it too quiet -- the lodgings are in the funeral hall of a Buddhist temple. Three million visitors are expected at this year's Royal Flora Ratchaphruek, which opens Wednesday in the northern city of Chiang Mai and lasts until Jan. 31, the Bangkok Post reported yesterday. The event, being held to honor the country's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, is expected to strain the capacity of the area's numerous hotels and guest houses, so 20 local temples are also throwing their gates open to visitors, the newspaper reported.
■ Philippines
Poor move into cemetary
In the crowded sprawl of Manila, the living must compete for space with the dead. Fortunately for Virginia Bernardino and hundreds of other slum dwellers who have moved into the largest cemetery in the Philippines, the deceased don't seem to mind. "So far we have not seen any ghosts here," the soft-spoken Bernardino, 59, said with a chuckle. "I think that only happens in the movies. As the saying goes, we should fear not the dead but the living." For years, Manila North Cemetery, a public graveyard in the center of the capital of 12 million people, has been a thriving community for those evicted from their homes.
■ United States
Clinton's office shut down
Former president Bill Clinton's Harlem office was shut down on Friday afternoon after a woman in the office opened a letter and a suspicious white powder spilled out, police said. The substance was later found to be nontoxic, but its disco-very led the authorities to evacuate two floors of the building and to decontaminate several workers in the office. Police said the letter included a "rambling diatribe." It was the third time since 2001 that a letter containing a mysterious but nontoxic substance had been sent to Clinton's office.
■ United States
Airborne laser aircraft rolls in
The Missile Defense Agency has rolled out an airborne laser aircraft (ABL), the latest development in a missile-defense system that was once ridiculed as a "Star Wars" fantasy. In a ceremony held on Friday at Boeing Co's Integrated Defense Systems facility in Wichita, Kansas, the agency announced it was ready to flight test some of the low-power systems on the ABL aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400F designed to destroy enemy missiles. The laser weapon's system is designed to detect, track and destroy ballistic missiles in their boost flight phase. "I believe we are building the forces of good to beat the forces of evil," said Henry "Trey" Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency
■ United States
Rove speaks on Iraq
Presidential advisor Karl Rove blasted Democrats for even suggesting the US withdraw from Iraq, saying the US can't leave one of the world's largest oil reserves in terrorist hands. Rove also said the military must be flexible in its tactics. "More sacrifice is going to be required," Rove told a ballroom full of Republicans at a fundraiser on Friday for Wisconsin candidates. "We will either create a world in which our children and our grand-children have a hope of an optimistic future or we will leave to them a world with a hateful empire centered in the Middle East."
■ Colombia
Uribe strikes deep
Famed for his tough approach, President Alvaro Uribe went one step further on Thursday when he ordered a local official suspected of corruption arrested as he sat in the audience listening to the presidential speech. Speaking in the port city of Buenaventura, Uribe accused the city mayor's secretary of trying to get a naval officer to hand over a captured stash of cocaine and ordered police to detain him. "You are unworthy to carry out your duties," Uribe said, wagging his finger as two plainclothes officers escorted the official out of the hall. "The government cannot do battle when someone in a position as important as yours lacks patriotism."
■ Canada
Sex offender not welcome
An American sex offender who was sentenced by a US judge to three years "exile" in Canada was arrested by Canadian border guards on Thursday and faces deportation, the government said. Federal ministers and legislators had expressed deep unhappiness after a New York state judge allowed former teacher Malcolm Watson -- convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old girl -- to live in Canada on probation rather than spending time in a US jail. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said the government had officially requested that Watson be deemed inadmissible because of his conviction. Immigration officials will start examining the case at a hearing on Friday.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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