■ AUSTRALIA
Muslim prisoners broken up
A group of murderers and rapists who converted to Islam in Super Max prison has been broken up and its leader moved to another jail as officials feared they were using religion as a cover for a possible escape. The 12 prisoners in the nation's highest-security jail were nicknamed the "Super Max Jihadists," authorities told local media, and had placed pictures of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden on cell walls, shaved their heads and grown long beards. New South Wales Corrective Services Commissioner Ron Woodham vowed yesterday to break up the gang and translators were examining telephone conversations.
■ CHINA
Polluted land poses risks
More than 10 percent of arable land is polluted, posing a threat to the country's food production, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday. The China Daily, citing the Ministry of Land and Resources, said the situation was getting worse, with polluted water, excessive fertilizer, heavy metals and solid wastes contaminating the land. The ministry said by the end of October, the nation's arable land area had shrunk to 121.8 million hectares, a loss of 306,800 hectares in the first 10 months of of last year. Three-decades of economic boom have left waterways and coastlines severely polluted by industrial and farm chemicals and domestic sewage.
■ INDIA
Rights sought for dead
A small political party in northern India is pushing for the reinstatement of the legal rights of people who have been declared dead by unscrupulous relatives trying to steal their assets. The Mritak Sangh, or Association of the Dead, knows it is unlikely to win polls running through to next month in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous, and frequently lawless, state. But Lal Bihari, 48, the party's founder and president, said on Saturday he hopes to highlight the plight of thousands of people who have had their lives taken away from them, usually by relatives in cahoots with corrupt government officials.
■ MALAYSIA
Astronaut TV planned
The government is planning a dedicated television channel for round-the-clock coverage of the nation's first astronaut in space in October, a report said yesterday. Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Kong Cho Ha was quoted by the New Straits Times as saying that preparations were being discussed with Russian authorities to telecast the event live on Oct. 6. "Our astronaut will board the Russian spacecraft, Soyuz 2, to the International Space Station," Kong said in the report. "We have fixed the date for the launching and they are expected to dock at the ISS on Oct. 6." Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, 34, and Faiz Khaleed, 26, are vying to join a Russian space expedition.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Gender rules adopted
Textbooks depicting men only as breadwinners and women as housewives are set to disappear from schools in Seoul under new gender equality rules, reports said yesterday. The city's education office has released guidelines for all schools meaning they must discard textbooks which show stereotyped gender roles such as male doctors, the Korea Times and Korea Herald reported. History curriculums will put more focus on women's achievements. The education office will also recommend changing rules barring girls from wearing trousers to school.
■ LUXEMBOURG
Le Pen loss cheers Berlin
Germany, holder of the EU presidency, yesterday welcomed the poor showing of far right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the French presidential elections. "I'm quite satisfied that the more radical groups, like Le Pen, have fallen behind very clearly," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on arrival at an EU foreign ministers meeting. In Sunday's voting Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, the center-right and socialist candidates respectively, advanced to the May 6 runoff for France's presidency. They shut out 10 other hopefuls including Le Pen, who had hoped to repeat his shockingly strong showing of in the 2002 elections yet finished a weak fourth this time, with 10.5 percent of the vote.
■ NORWAY
Party bans Sunday sex sales
The ruling Labor Party voted to ban the purchase of sex on Sunday in a bid to stop prostitution by targeting those who buy it rather than those who sell it, officials said. The decision by the Labor Party's congress puts the country on course to join Sweden in adopting such a policy. Sweden introduced a similar ban in 1999. Prostitution is legal, although procuring it is illegal. Street prostitution in the capital, Oslo, has become increasingly visible and aggressive in the past few years, provoking calls for a ban.
■ TURKEY
Murder suspects arrested
A court on Sunday formally arrested and jailed five suspects on charges of murder in the slayings of three Christians at a publishing house in the eastern town of Malatya. Six other people were released pending trial, the court said. It was unclear what charges they faced. The three victims -- one German and two Turkish men -- were tied up and had their throats slit on Wednesday at a publishing house that was at the center of protests by some nationalists because it distributed Bibles.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Scots face sewage problem
Environment officials on Sunday launched an emergency operation to protect public safety after more than 170,000 tonnes of raw sewage was discharged into the Firth of Forth when a pump broke down. Edinburgh City Council put up signs urging people not to bathe in the water and to wash their hands thoroughly after visiting the shores of the estuary. There were fears the effluent could contain viruses and bacteria capable of infecting wounds and causing illness if ingested. Health inspectors will test the water for E. coli and other micro-organisms before the area is declared safe.
■ BOSNIA
Five babies die in fire
A fire in a downtown orphanage in Sarajevo's killed five babies and injured 19 others on Sunday, the chief prosecutor's office said. The fire broke out in a third floor room of the Ljubica Izevic children's home shortly before 6am, said Dubravko Champara of the prosecutor's office. While fire crews were able to put out the blaze rapidly, he said, three boys and two girls died from the effects of smoke inhalation. A nurse who had tried to save some of the babies was also injured, with burns to the arms and face, Champara said in a telephone interview. Nineteen others were being treated for smoke inhalation and were not thought to be in critical condition, he said.
■ UNITED STATES
Millender-McDonald dead
Democratic Representative Juanita Millender-McDonald has died of cancer. Millender-McDonald, 68, died late on Saturday at her home in Carson, California, said her chief of staff, Bandele McQueen. McQueen on Sunday could provide no details on what form of cancer Millender-McDonald had. He said she had been receiving hospice care. Under California election procedures, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has 14 days to set a date for a special election to fill the seat. Her death will not affect the balance of power in the House, where Democrats have a solid majority.
■ UNITED STATES
Teen wins text crown
Thirteen-year-old Morgan Pozgar, of Pennsylvania, was crowned LG National Texting champion on Saturday after she typed"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins in 15 seconds. "I'm going to go shopping and buy lots of clothes," the teen said after winning her US$25,000 prize from the electronics company LG. Morgan defeated nearly 200 other competitors to become the East Coast champion and then beat West Coast champion Eli Tirosh, 21, of Los Angeles. Morgan estimated that she sends more than 8,000 text messages a month.
■ VENEZUELA
Health costs to be regulated
President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that he would enact a law to regulate prices at private hospitals and warned that his government would seize any hospital caught flouting the new controls. Chavez said he would approve the law by presidential decree, using special powers granted to him by the National Assembly nearly three months ago. "We're going to have strict regulation. Any clinic that doesn't comply, let it be closed down," Chavez said. "We could take it for Inside the Barrio [a state health program], convert it into a popular clinic. No problem."
■ VENEZUELA
Chavez to complain to UN
President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said his government will lodge a protest in the UN over the release of Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles from a US jail, accusing Washington of letting a terrorist go free. Caracas has asked the US to extradite the 79-year-old former CIA agent to be tried on charges that he plotted the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger plane in which 73 people were killed. Chavez also charged that Posada has been plotting to assassinate him for years and accused US President George W. Bush of complicity in failing to bring Posada to justice. "President Bush, you are a protector of terrorists. As such, you are a terrorist," Chavez said during his TV and radio program Hello, President.
■ UNITED STATES
Police catch alligator
Human beings were not the only ones basking in a sudden spate of warm weather in Huntington, New York, over the weekend. An alligator was spotted on Saturday sunbathing by a small pond, marking a startling sight for a community about 56km from Manhattan. Suffolk County police were involved in capturing the alligator, which "wasn't too happy to see us," said Officer Vinny O'Shaughnessy. "We were incredulous at first, but then we knew that we had to do something about it." The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) is looking for whoever may have released the alligator. He or she could face animal cruelty charges, an SPCA official said.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
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