■ INDIA
Bus plunges into gorge
A bus carrying about 50 people skidded off a mountain road and fell into a gorge in the north of the country on Wednesday, killing 19 people and injuring about 30, police said. Rescuers pulled the injured passengers from the mangled bus, they said. Some were critically hurt. The accident took place at Kotkhai, northeast of Shimla, capital of the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh. Bus accidents on mountain roads are common and highway regulations are poorly enforced. Last week, at least 22 people were killed when a bus skidded off a mountain road.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Armed group seizes workers
An unidentified armed group kidnapped 12 workers -- eight Filipinos, three South Koreans and a Nigerian -- at a South Korean company's power plant construction site in Nigeria yesterday, the company said. The armed group broke into the firm's accommodation facilities and drove the abductees away in a stolen vehicle at 2am on yesterday from Afam power station, about 30km northeast of Port Harcourt, Nigeria's southern oil hub, a statement from Daewoo Engineering and Construction said. South Korea confirmed the kidnapping and said it was unclear what the captors were demanding. The gunmen had not yet presented demands, a Daewoo official said.
■ PAKISTAN
Several injured in protests
Several people were injured in another day of angry scuffles outside the heavily guarded Supreme Court yesterday in the latest protest over the sacking of the country's chief judge. Police said dozens of lawyers, marching in support of ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, ignored warnings not to try to enter the building, where he was appearing before a judicial panel, and clashed with police. "Lawyers attacked us with sticks and we had to retaliate," officer Mehboob Ahmed said. President Pervez Musharraf is accused of trying to weaken the judiciary and tighten his grip on power.
■ PHILIPPINES
Aquino's phone `bugged'
Repairmen working near the home of former president Corazon Aquino found a tape recorder and alleged wiretapping device on her line in a telephone switching box, officials said yesterday. Aquino, 74, a political icon who restored democracy in the Philippines after leading a 1986 "people power" revolt with mass protests, said she had suspected her phone was bugged "ever since the martial law" period in the 1970s. "I've been through the worst times before," she told reporters. "All of us in the opposition then were almost sure our phones were bugged."
■ INDIA
Gere's judge transferred
A judge who issued an arrest warrant against Richard Gere for publicly kissing a Bollywood actress has been transferred from his job, a media report said yesterday. Dinesh Gupta, a magistrate in the northwestern city of Jaipur, issued arrest orders last week for both Gere and actress Shilpa Shetty after the kissing incident at an AIDS awareness event in New Delhi earlier in March. The Times of India reported that Gupta was transferred from Jaipur to the small town of Kishangarh several hours away. The paper quoted High Court Commissioner C.P. Singh as saying the transfer was "routine," but he noted that the order came from a state chief justice.
■ KENYA
Rustlers kill 14 villagers
Livestock raiders in a remote part of the country have killed 14 people, including eight children, in the latest outbreak of deadly cattle rustling, police said on Wednesday. Attackers armed with AK-47 rifles stormed the Lokwamosing area in the Turkana region, one of the country's many arid rural outposts where clans fight for scant resources and bloody livestock raids are frequent.
■ GHANA
H5N1 strain detected
The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has spread to fowl in this West African nation, a WHO official confirmed on Wednesday. Officials had said earlier this week they were investigating a suspected outbreak of the disease in birds around the eastern port city of Tema. Though H5N1 had been documented elsewhere in the region, the country had not previously had a case confirmed, the Health Ministry said. Sophia Twum-Barimah, a WHO spokeswoman in the capital, Accra, said the virus was first detected by a local lab and then confirmed by an Egyptian research center. "The public should remain calm. The situation is being technically and expertly handled," Health Minister Ernest Debrah told reporters.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Fishermen catch deer
A pair of Cornish fishermen came back with a bigger catch than usual, after hooking a live deer which had apparently fallen into the sea, a report said on Wednesday. Chris Earl and Tony Allsopp were out in their boat to check lobster pots when they spotted the animal, complete with antlers "and big worried eyes," swimming through the waves off the southwestern English coast. They found the deer near a small island called Gull Rock, apparently heading further along the Cornish coast. Animal experts said it may have fallen into the sea by nearby woods, adding that deer are known as good swimmers. Having returned to dry land -- Allsopp sitting atop the animal, as there was no other space in the boat -- the pair hauled it into Earl's van, and it was later released into the woods.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Man superglued to bike
A gang stripped a man before supergluing him to an exercise bicycle while they ransacked his house, according to a report yesterday. SAPA news agency said the attackers, dressed in suits, hijacked a man in his 50s and forced him at gunpoint to take them to his home in Johannesburg. "The victim was then forced to strip, after which he was superglued to the seat of an exercise bicycle, his hands were superglued, as were his feet and then his mouth was superglued shut," SAPA quoted Mark Stokoe, a spokesman for emergency services Netcare 911, as saying. The man was rescued about three hours later when his partner arrived home, SAPA said.
■ UNITED STATES
Baez gets cold shoulder
Military authorities who run Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital have spurned an offer from renowned folk singer Joan Baez to perform for convalescing troops, she said on Wednesday. Baez, 66, was to have appeared last week alongside rock/folk singer John Mellencamp at a concert for ailing soldiers, but officials declined to sign off on her participation, she wrote in a letter published on Wednesday in the Washington Post. "I was not `approved,'" she wrote.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
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