■ Malaysia
Watchdog pans government
An international media watchdog condemned Malaysia's police on Thursday for trying to stifle coverage of the murder of a Mongolian woman. Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said police had put pressure on journalists over the murder, which officers are suspected of being involved in. "Police have been summoning and putting pressure on journalists while the head of police has told the press that it was speculating dangerously," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. Malaysia's top police chief on Monday defended a move to haul in five journalists for their report on the gruesome murder of Mongolian model, Altantuya Shaariibuu, 28.
■ India
Brawl over land kills 14
Two families clashed with guns and knives yesterday over land ownership in a northern Indian town, killing 14 people and injuring three others, police said. The clash among neighbors occurred in Sitapur, 80km southwest of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state. The three hurt have been hospitalized, said Surendra Srivastava, a police spokesman. "Home-made guns and knives were used in the bloody tussle," Srivastava said. "The heads of both families have died." Possession over land has caused tension for years between the neighbors, and a brawl left one person dead in 1998.
■ Japan
Woman put on abduction list
Police said yesterday that a woman missing for nearly 30 years was the 17th Japanese victim of a program started by North Korea in the 1970s to abduct Japanese citizens, a news report said yesterday. Investigators suspect that Kyoko Matsumoto, who disappeared from western Japan in 1977, was kidnapped by North Korean agents and taken by boat to the communist state, according to the report. Matsumoto, then 29, was added yesterday to a list of abduction victims identified by the Japanese police, according to a National Police Agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
■ Indonesia
Missing plane carrying 12
A small plane carrying 12 people was reported missing yesterday in a remote area of Papua Province, an airport official and police said. The Trigana Air plane left the town of Mulia at 7:50am for nearby Ilaga, but had not shown up more than four hours after it was scheduled to land, an airport official said. The Twin Otter was carrying nine passengers -- many believed to be local government officials -- and three crew, Papua police spokesman Colonel Kartono Wangsadisatra said.
■ South Korea
Nuclear reactor planned
An international consortium including South Korea will next week sign a formal agreement to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in France by 2015, officials said yesterday. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) consortium will finalize the deal on Tuesday in Paris after nearly 10 years of informal and preparatory talks by South Korea, Russia, China, the EU, the US, India and Japan, the Ministry of Science and Technology said. ITER, a fusion energy project worth US$12.8 billion and expected to run over 30 years, will be built at Cadarache in southern France. It aims to provide a clean source of energy that can replace fossil fuel. South Korea joined the project in June 2003 and is expected to pay about 9 percent of the US$5 billion construction cost, Yonhap said.
■ United Kingdom
Police hunt Tiger traders
London's Metropolitan Police yesterday launched an initiative to crack down on the illegal sale of products made from endangered species in Chinese medicine shops. "Operation Charm," backed by wildlife charities and the Chinese community, will focus on shops that sell goods that are made -- or claim to be made -- from endangered species. There is a growing market in London for products made from endangered animals, including products made from tiger bone and rhino horn. "It is quite unacceptable that illegal acts in London are contributing to the decline of creatures like the tiger," said Andy Fisher, the head of the Met's Wildlife Crime Unit. "In `Operation Charm' we want to stop the illegal trade in these animals in London. Anyone who persists in doing so could spend five years in prison." There are now estimated to be fewer than 5,000 tigers left in the wild, down from 100,000 in 1900.
■ France
Chinese card scam busted
Three people suspected of running a counterfeit credit card ring were arrested this week in Paris and their equipment seized, police said on Thursday. According to one investigator, the three made the bogus cards from numbers received directly from China and sent Chinese students in France out to make purchases with them. Officers seized special printers used to make the cards, as well as a stock of 300 cards already encoded with data and 700 other blank ones. It was not known how much the gang netted from the operation.
■ United States
Foley probe starts
Florida authorities have opened an investigation into the sexually explicit computer messages that disgraced lawmaker Mark Foley sent to male former interns. "It was a preliminary inquiry before, but we found the basis to open up a criminal investigation," Kristen Perezluha, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said on Thursday. The FBI is investigating whether Foley broke federal laws with his messages to teenaged former congressional pages, and the House Ethics Committee is looking into whether senior Republican officials hid what they knew about the messages. Foley resigned on Sept. 29 after being confronted with the lurid messages. His attorney, David Roth, has said Foley never had inappropriate sexual contact with minors.
■ South Africa
ANC whip suspended
The ruling African National Congress suspended its chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe on Thursday after finding clear evidence he had sexually harrassed a parliamentary intern in an initial probe. According to widespread media reports, the unnamed intern was propositioned by Goniwe after a recent party at his home. She has also complained of being threatened since making the accusation and is currently being looked after by the head of the ANC women's caucus in the parliament, Vytjie Mentor. The disciplinary committee said there was evidence to substantiate the claims of intimidation. Goniwe's predecessor as chief whip, Tony Yengeni, has also had legal troubles. He is currently serving a prison term for corruption and is himself in hot water after being photographed drinking beer in apparent contravention of his parole conditions.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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