■ CAMBODIA
PM leaves for India
Prime Minister Hun Sen left for an official four-day visit to India yesterday in hopes of boosting ties, an official said. Hun Sen will hold talks with his counterpart Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and India's President APJ Abdul Kalam. Agreements on defense cooperation, the transfer of prisoners, and agriculture and water resource management are on the agenda, said Sri Thamrongk, an adviser to Hun Sen. A memorandum of understanding on petroleum cooperation is also expected to be discussed.
■ INDIA
Former prime minister dies
Former prime minister Chandra Shekhar, who served briefly during a period of political turmoil, died yesterday from a blood-related illness at the age of 80, a report said. Shekhar died of a blood disease after being ill for three months, the Press Trust of India reported. The socialist politician became the eleventh prime minister of India in 1990 after splitting from his Janata Dal party and formed an unsteady coalition government under a new party that collapsed within eight months. During his term, Shekhar staunchly opposed economic liberalization, which was finally initiated by his successor Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s.
■ INDIA
Hymn TV show coming
A new reality television contest of hymn-singing pop idols is aiming to bring spirituality to young Indians influenced by liberal Western lifestyles and stressed by increasing work pressures. Producers of Swaradhiraj,or "Supreme ruler of musical notes" -- which is expected to be aired in October -- say contestants will sing spiritual songs of any religion. "Youth today are going to discotheques. They are drinking too much, smoking too much and being influenced by Western media," said Arvind Joshi, an official from Aastha, India's largest spirituality TV channel, which will air the show. "Even divorce rates are increasing ... so we are trying to make them start thinking in the right direction."
■ INDIA
US pedophile arrested
A convicted US pedophile who jumped parole and fled to Asia is expected to be sent back to the US late on Saturday, an Indian police official said. Alan Jay Horowitz, a former Jewish rabbi and child psychiatrist, had served 15 years in jail for abusing children before he fled the country last year. He was arrested at a south Indian beach resort in May. "We have handed Alan over to US embassy officials in Delhi this morning and they are taking him by Continental Airlines to New Jersey" late on Saturday, Sethil Kumar, a police official from southern Tamil Nadu state, said.
■ MALAYSIA
Sumatran rhinos may be bred
The government may try to breed Sumatran rhinos in captivity on Borneo island in an effort to rescue one of the world's rarest rhinos from extinction, a news report said yesterday. The rain forests of Malaysia's Sabah state are the last preserve of the Borneo Sumatran rhino, a subspecies of the bristly, snub-nosed Sumatran rhino. Scientists estimate only between 25 and 50 of the animals still exist in Sabah's jungles. The state's Wildlife Department Deputy Director Laurentius Ambu said conservationists met this month in Sabah and pointed out the need for captive breeding of the animal, the New Straits Times newspaper reported. Such attempts could be made at Sabah's five-month-old Lok Kawi Wildlife Park.
■ ISRAEL
Rocket attack launched
Palestinian militants fired seven rockets on southern Israel yesterday and one hit a college near the town of Sderot but no injuries or damage were reported, the army said. The Islamic Jihad militant group said in a text message that it fired a total of five rockets on Israel. The group launches the homemade projectiles against Israel almost daily, causing panic but only occasionally casualties.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Johnston returns home
BBC reporter Alan Johnston was reunited with his family on Saturday after almost four months as a hostage in Gaza. "Coming home has just never, never felt so very good," said the still gaunt-looking Johnston. "This strange dark period is coming to an end." Johnston, 45, was seized in March by a small armed group, the Army of Islam, and was freed on Wednesday. He had covered Gaza for the BBC for three years, the only foreign reporter to live in the coastal strip. Speaking on Saturday to reporters outside his parents' home in Scotland, Johnston described his captivity as "the psychological battle of my life."
■ KENYA
Illegal meat recovered
Wildlife officials recovered more than 200kg of illegal zebra and wildebeest meat early on Saturday and were investigating claims that it was bound for a market in Kenya's capital, officials said. Three people were charged with poaching and illegal trade in wildlife meat, police said. The meat was being transported in a minibus in "unhygienic" conditions, Kenya Wildlife Service spokesman Paul Udoto said. The truck was stopped before dawn during a police check just outside Nairobi. "This is a big threat to human consumption," Udoto said, citing the risk of anthrax and the hemorrhagic sickness Rift Valley fever. "It has not been inspected by veterinary officials."
■ TURKEY
Anti-Kurdish rally held
Around 5,000 flag-waving nationalist Turks held a rally on Saturday to denounce escalating attacks by separatist Kurdish guerrillas, and the US for not cracking down on rebel bases in northern Iraq. Turkey has been pressuring the US and Iraq to eradicate bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Iraq, saying it was ready to stage a cross-border offensive if necessary. "Down with the USA and their collaborators," the crowd chanted in Ankara's Tandogan square. Last week, Turkey's military chief asked the government to set political guidelines for an incursion into northern Iraq.
■ ALGERIA
Journalist gets 10 years
A court in the troubled Kabylie region sentenced an Algerian journalist to 10 years in prison on Saturday for spying for Israel, lawyers said. Said Sahnoun, a correspondent for newspapers in sub-Saharan Africa, was found guilty of providing information to Israel's Mossad intelligence service after a criminal court trial in Tizi Ouzou town, 100km east of Algiers. Prosecutors said he provided information about the Algerian army's military capabilities and about an Islamist rebel group known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, lawyers involved in the case said. The rebel group, which this year began calling itself al-Qaeda's north African wing, claimed responsibility for triple suicide bombings that killed 33 people on April 11 in Algiers.
■ IRAQ
US soldier killed
A US soldier was killed in Iraq in an explosion near his vehicle during operations in Salahuddin Province, northwest of Baghdad, the US military said yesterday. The blast on Saturday wounded four other soldiers, the military said in a statement. The name of the slain soldier was withheld pending notification of his family. The death brings to 3,602 the number of members of the US military who have died since the beginning of the war.
■ UNITED STATES
`Polar' bear stops traffic
A black bear climbed 30m up a power pole and brought traffic to a halt on a California desert highway near Lancaster as motorists stopped to gawk and take pictures. "Not a whole lot we could do except keep the people out of the area and let him decide he needed to come down and continue his way on to the mountains, and with the assistance of the Highway Patrol, that's what we did," game warden Martin Wall said. After a couple of hours on Friday of taking in the view from a crossbar supporting electrical wires, the bear came back to earth, walked across the highway and ran off into the desert scrub.
■ UNITED STATES
Village person plans tour
Victor Willis, the original policeman in the disco band The Village People, is planning his first performance in about 25 years after completing a drug treatment program earlier this year, his publicist said. Willis, 55, will appear at the House of Blues in Las Vegas on Aug. 31 in a show previewing his planned 2008 world tour, publicist Alice Wolf said on Friday. His tour is to begin in March, she said. "He'll come out on his motorcycle" as the cop and perform Village People hits and his solo work, she said. Willis was the co-writer for hits such as Y-M-C-A and In the Navy. He was arrested in San Francisco last year after police found cocaine and drug paraphernalia in his car.
■ UNITED STATES
Woman jailed over lawncare
A 70-year-old woman who said she could not afford to water her brown, sickly lawn was briefly jailed after refusing to accept a ticket for violating a city ordinance. Betty Perry has not watered her lawn in a year, said Lieutenant Doug Edwards, a police spokesman for Orem, 50km south of Salt Lake City, Utah. When an officer knocked on Perry's door on Friday, she refused to accept a citation for not watering the lawn. A scuffle ensued and Perry was eventually handcuffed and taken to jail, where she spent more than an hour before officials decided custody was inappropriate. The unidentified police officer who arrested Perry was suspended.
■ UNITED STATES
`Graffiti artist' punished
Writing "I love Alex" on a school gymnasium wall brought a 12-year-old the same punishment as if she had made terrorist threats. The Katy, Texas, school district rated the message, written with a baby blue marker by sixth-grader Shelby Sendelbach, as a "Level 4" infraction -- the same as for threats, drug possession and assault. Only murder, gun possession, sexual assault and arson are considered more severe by the suburban Houston district. Shelby was assigned to an alternative school for the semester in accordance with state law for punishment for graffiti. Her parents, Lisa and Stu Sendelbach, have appealed. "We are shocked that the rules make no distinction between what Shelby is accused of and what a gang member does with a can of black spray paint," her father said.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
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