■ VATICAN
Officials to meet Chinese
Representatives of China's official Catholic Church are to hold three days of talks later this month at the Vatican with Holy See officials, the Vatican said on Saturday. A commission, set up by Pope Benedict XVI and led by Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, will meet from today to Wednesday to discuss relations, a statement said. China severed ties with the Vatican in 1951 when the Holy See recognized Taiwan. The Vatican says it will abandon ties with Taiwan if China guarantees religious freedom and allows the pope to name Chinese bishops.
■ INDIA
Autopsy suggests foul play
Doctors who conducted a fresh autopsy on a British teenager found dead on a beach in the resort of Goa believe she was murdered, officials said. The panel of three doctors recommended that police open a murder inquiry into the death of Scarlette Keeling. A first autopsy on 15-year-old Keeling concluded she had drowned, leading to charges by her family of a cover-up. The autopsy panel did not confirm rape but said that some of the injuries indicated sexual assault, the Times of India said yesterday. Keeling's body was found on the beach with her clothes partially removed on Feb. 18, while her family was on holiday in the state of Karnataka.
■ THAILAND
PM vows not to interfere
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej yesterday vowed not to interfere in the trial of his old ally Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted prime minister who is due in court this week to face corruption charges. "People said be careful, this government should not interfere with the justice system," Samak said on his weekly television address. "This government would not dare to interfere with justice." Thaksin returned to Thailand on Feb. 28 for the first time since his ouster in a military coup in September 2006. He is due in court on Wednesday when he is expected to enter a plea on charges of using his political office to win a property deal for his wife.
■ SRI LANKA
Military clashes with Tigers
At least 56 Tamil Tiger rebels and four government troops have been killed in heavy fighting across the embattled north over the weekend, the defense ministry said yesterday. Helicopter gunships were deployed against suspected Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam strongholds in the coastal district of Mannar on Saturday, the ministry said. There was no immediate word from the Tigers, but the pro-rebel Puthinam.com Web site said the guerrillas had resisted the military offensive, killing 22 government troopers and wounding 72.
■ AUSTRALIA
Dig finds outlaw's remains
Archaeologists said yesterday they believe the remains of iconic outlaw Ned Kelly have been found in a mass grave at the site of a former prison. Kelly was hanged at the Old Melbourne Gaol in 1880, but documents show his remains and those of 32 other executed prisoners were exhumed and reburied at Pentridge Prison in 1929. Digs at the site of the former prison have unearthed unmarked coffins containing the badly decomposed remains of the prisoners. Kelly, a bank robber who killed three policemen, evaded capture for nearly two years before his gang faced a final showdown with the law on June 28, 1880. Three of the four gang members were killed and Kelly, wearing heavy armor made out of ploughshares, was wounded and captured.
■ FRENCH GUIANA
Cargo vessel put into orbit
An unmanned Ariane rocket successfully put a cargo vessel into orbit in Europe's first mission to carry supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), space officials said. The modified Ariane-5 launcher lifted off at 1:03am from Europe's spaceport in Kourou on the northeast coast of South America carrying a 20 tonne cargo module on top. Dubbed the Jules Verne in honor of the visionary 19th century French science fiction writer, the module is the first Automatic Transfer Vehicle that Europe has committed to its participation in the ISS program. "We are embarking on a real voyage," Jean-Jacques Dourdain, director general of the European Space Agency said.
■ BELGIUM
Activist model found alive
Somali-born model and human-rights campaigner Waris Dirie, found alive after being missing for two days in Brussels, was simply lost in the city, prosecutors said on Saturday. "She said that she had roamed Brussels for those two-and-a-half days and that she stayed in hotel lobbies, not having money on her to allow her to pay for the hotel," prosecutors' spokesman Jean-Michel Meilleur said. "She said that she had not eaten during those three days," he told public broadcaster RTBF. Following questioning by police after she was found on Friday, Dirie, a UN ambassador in the campaign against female genital mutilation, said she "had not disappeared." "I never would have imagined causing all this," she said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Rally backs abuse victims
Hundreds of people joined a rally on the Channel island of Jersey on Saturday in support of alleged victims of a former children's home which is the focus of an abuse investigation. Police have dug up a child's skull and found traces of blood in a cellar of the Haut de la Garenne building where former residents say they were raped and subjected to repeated beatings. More than 100 people have come forward claiming they were abused at the home, while some 25 people including former senior staff are being investigated as suspects.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Lady explorer heads north
British explorer Hannah McKeand set out on Saturday from Canada's Ward Hunt Island in an attempt to become the first woman to reach the North Pole alone and unaided. McKeand, who in 2006 became the fastest person to ski unsupported to the South Pole, is expected to take 60 days to cover the 770km from Canada's northern coast to the pole, where temperatures can dip to minus 60OC. "She was in remarkable spirits with no hint of nerves or pressure," said McKeand's expedition manager Steve Jones. "Sang-froid of arctic proportions."
■ RUSSIA
Rescuers aid fisherman
Helicopters scrambled yesterday to pluck hundreds of fishermen from a drifting ice floe in the Sea of Okhotsk, news agencies reported. Helicopters and boats worked in relays to evacuate more than 450 people, while another 300 were helped by the emergency services to escape across a makeshift bridge, ITAR-TASS and Interfax reported. An Mi-8 helicopter from by the border guards "is now making a reconnaissance flight to confirm that there are no more people on the ice," an emergency situations ministry official for the far eastern Sakhalin region told Interfax.
■ SPAIN
General election held
People started voting in a general election yesterday, after a divisive campaign dominated by a cooling economy and concerns over immigration but jolted by a last-minute killing by Basque separatists. Public opinion polls suggest a win by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists, although by a margin that would leave them short of an absolute majority in parliament -- as is the case now. The voting was overshadowed by Friday's slaying of former a Socialist town councilor in the Basque region. The attack was blamed on the militant Basque group ETA.
■ TRINIDAD
Not guilty, then guilty
A truck driver got only 10 minutes to celebrate his not-guilty verdict. Kaleel McFarlane had already left the courthouse on Friday when a juror alerted the judge that the foreman meant to say the jury had cleared him of manslaughter, but found him guilty of reckless driving. The judge instructed police to return a puzzled McFarlane back to court, where he sentenced him to four-and-half months in prison. The decision sparked a revolt by McFarlane's relatives inside the courtroom. The reversal would have been illegal had the jury already disbanded, Trinidad senior counsel Israel Khan said on Saturday.
■ IRAQ
Mass grave discovered
A mass grave containing about 100 bodies has been discovered in a region north of Baghdad that has seen years of intense fighting between Shiites and Sunni extremist members of al-Qaeda. The grisly discovery on Saturday came as the Sunni parliament speaker called on Shiites and Kurds to work together with the minority he represents to pass an election law that would help reconcile warring sects and splinter groups. The grave, near Khalis in the Diyala Province about 80km north of Baghdad, is still being investigated, but the US military said the skeletal remains appear to have been there for a long time.
■ UNITED STATES
Four killed in heavy snow
A heavy winter storm walloped the Midwestern state of Ohio with more than 51cm of snow. Four people died after shoveling the heavy snow, authorities said. Snow plows and clean-up crews were to continue working overtime yesterday to dig out of a record-setting snow storm that buried many parts of Ohio and Indiana. Three men in the Cleveland area and one in the Columbus area died on Saturday while shoveling snow or shortly after, authorities said. High winds whipped the snow into 1m-tall drifts in some places and cut visibility to less than half a kilometer, the National Weather Service said.
■ UNITED STATES
Bush at Gridiron Club
President George W. Bush said an early farewell to political Washington, making his first appearance on the stage of the Gridiron Club of Washington journalists. Bush surprised the white-tie audience on Saturday night of more than 600, including Supreme Court justices, Cabinet members and lawmakers, by appearing as the final act of the club's annual revue. To the tune of Green Green Grass of Home, he sang about looking forward to his return to Texas. "As I step down from the plane and there to meet me is my mama and my papa, down the lane I look and here comes Barney, heart of gold and breath like honey," he sang.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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