■ THAILAND
Thaksin to visit England
A spokesman for deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he would be allowed to leave the country tomorrow for a four-week trip to England despite a pending corruption case against him. A court has granted Thaksin's request to visit England through April 10, his spokesman Pongthep Thepkanjana said. Thaksin requested the England trip so he can attend a Manchester City soccer match, a club he bought while living in exile in England, the spokesman said yesterday. He faces graft charges in connection with a 2003 real estate deal and is scheduled to make his first court appearance today.
■ CHINA
`Ugly Betty' learns Chinese
A TV station says it plans to make a Chinese version of the Colombian series about a plain woman trying to fit in at a fashion company. Hunan Satellite TV said a woman had been cast as the female lead. The air date of the show, called Invincible Ugly Woman in Chinese, has not been decided. Colombia's Betty la fea, or "Ugly Betty," has been dubbed into several languages and has spawned numerous adaptations, including a US version.
■ JAPAN
Sisters hide inheritance
Authorities yesterday arrested two sisters for allegedly hiding some ?5.9 billion (US$58 million) in cardboard boxes to evade tax on their inheritance. It was the largest sum of inheritance money ever concealed from authorities, said the official from the National Tax Agency, which arrested the women in Osaka. Hatsue Shimizu, 64, and Yoshiko Ishii, 55, inherited money after their father, who was in the real estate and financial business, died three years ago. "They concealed most of the money in cash" in a shed attached to Shimizu's house, the Osaka tax official said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
PM snubbed by Tussauds
Madame Tussauds said it was not sure it wanted a waxwork version of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- a statement that delighted opposition lawmakers. A spokesman for the waxwork museum said there were no plans to create a Brown figure and suggested there might not be enough public support to justify it. "We are going to wait for a general election to see what will happen because that's the ultimate test of public opinion," public relations manager Ben Lovett said. Britain's opposition Conservatives seized on the apparent snub to ridicule the prime minister, whose popularity has suffered amid a series of political blunders and funding scandals. "I guess Madame Tussauds don't want to scare their young visitors," Conservative lawmaker Chris Grayling said in a statement.
■ MOZAMBIQUE
Cyclone kills at least seven
A powerful cyclone left a trail of destruction across northern Mozambique, killing at least seven people, officials said on Monday. Cyclone Jokwe -- with winds blowing up to 200kph -- made landfall on Saturday on Mozambique Island and Nampula Province in the north, as well as the central province of Zambezia. North and central areas had been hit by their worst flooding since 2001, when 800 people died. Flood waters were subsiding, but there were now fears the cyclone would bring new devastation. Four people were killed in the coastal town of Quinga and another three died when a mosque collapsed in the town of Namige.
■ IRELAND
Ministers get death threats
Two government ministers and officials at two fertility clinics have received death threats accompanied by shotgun cartridges in the mail. The threats came from a previously unknown group calling itself the Irish Citizens Defence Force. The letters said the group was threatening to kill the ministers and clinics because the government permitted clinics to store unused embryos. Those targeted were the current health minister, Mary Harney; her predecessor Michael Martin, the current minister for trade and employment; a doctor at a south Dublin fertility clinic and the office of a west Dublin fertility clinic.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Site accident injures eight
A building under construction collapsed in Northern Ireland on Monday, injuring eight construction workers, police said. The government Health and Safety Executive opened an investigation into what went wrong at the construction site in central Belfast, where more than 50 workers were building a new headquarters of the Law Society of Northern Ireland. Witnesses said construction workers had begun pouring cement to lay the second floor of the building when it buckled, causing a domino effect that toppled concrete pillars.
■ NIGER
Rebels release hostages
Tuareg rebels released 25 soldiers who were taken hostage nine months ago in the country's troubled northern desert, the government said on Monday. Their release comes just days after Tuareg rebels in Mali, Niger's neighbor, released 22 hostages last week -- the last of about 40 soldiers and government officials taken prisoner in August raids. The hostages were flown to Niamey on a Libyan plane, suggesting the role that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi played in the negotiation.
■ UNITED STATES
WWII body found on glacier
The Department of Defense has identified the remains of a World War II airman found atop a glacier last year in California. The military announced on Monday that the airman was Ernest Munn of St Clairsville, Ohio. Munn went missing in November 1942 when his navigational trainer plane disappeared after taking off from Sacramento. He was 23. In August, backpackers in a remote area of Kings Canyon told rangers they had discovered a body near an undeployed military parachute. Munn is the second of four airmen aboard the missing plane to be identified.
■ UNITED STATES
Pills in fish harmless: firm
A company said pills found inside a Pennsylvania family's fish fillets last month were harmless over-the-counter herbal supplements. Gorton's Inc spokesman Jud Reis said the incident remains an isolated case and federal authorities were investigating. Gorton's said the woman and her children sought medical attention but weren't sickened. As a precaution, the Gloucester, Massachusetts-based company has recalled about 1,000 cases of its 6 Crispy Battered Fish Fillets in 11 states. Reis said the voluntary recall had harmed the company's business, but it would be difficult to say how much.
■ UNITED STATES
`Endeavour' on longest trip
The space shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven are on their way to the international space station. The space shuttle blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, early yesterday morning to begin what is expected to be the longest space station mission ever. It is a 16-day voyage to build a two-armed robot and add a float-in closet for a future lab. Five spacewalks are planned. Liftoff came in the middle of the night, and it was the first shuttle launch in darkness since 2006. Japan supplied the laboratory storage compartment that is flying aboard Endeavour. Canada built the robot, named Dextre.
■ UNITED STATES
Tasered man compensated
A motorist who became an Internet celebrity after video of him being stunned with a Taser by a state trooper appeared on YouTube will receive US$40,000 in a lawsuit settlement with the state, the Utah attorney general's office said on Monday. Jared Massey claimed in civil suit filed in January that his civil rights were violated because Utah Highway Patrolman Jon Gardner fired his Taser before stating he was under arrest. The confrontation was widely viewed on the Internet after Massey obtained a copy of a video taken by the cruiser's dashboard camera. The video has been viewed on YouTube at least 1.7 million times.
■ UNITED STATES
Priest loses sacrifice suit
A federal judge on Monday ruled against a Santeria priest who challenged an animal slaughter ban on the grounds that it interfered with his right to perform religious sacrifices in his home. Jose Merced sued the city of Euless, Texas, after city officials denied his request to sacrifice a goat. Merced accused the city of infringing on his religious freedom. The city said that killing goats would violate local laws prohibiting animal cruelty, the keeping of livestock and disposal of animal waste. In his ruling after a one-day trial, US District Judge John McBryde said Euless was protecting public health by banning animal slaughtering within city limits.
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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