■BANGLADESH
Suicide blast kills civilian
Officials say a suicide attack in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad has killed one civilian and wounded 15. The Ministry of the Interior said the explosion early yesterday appeared to have targeted a NATO convoy passing through the city’s main intersection. It said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber and damaged one of the military vehicles and several nearby shops.
■AFGHANISTAN
UN envoy ‘a liar’: aide
President Hamid Karzai’s aide yesterday hit back at former UN envoy Peter Galbraith for questioning the president’s “mental stability” in the latest war of words over last year’s election. Galbraith’s comments on Tuesday came amid heightened tensions between Kabul and Washington after the Afghan leader suggested that foreign powers were behind the fraud in last year’s presidential election that returned him to power. “He’s prone to tirades, he can be very emotional, act impulsively,” Galbraith told MSNBC television. “This continued tirade raises questions about his mental stability and frankly this has been something that has been of concern to diplomats in Kabul,” he said. In response, Karzai’s deputy spokesman Siamak Hirawi said: “Since he is a fraudster and a liar, so are his recent comments.”
■NEW ZEALAND
Judge leaves Vanuatu
A judge has returned from Vanuatu with his family after receiving threats over a report he wrote criticizing a police paramilitary unit. Nevin Dawson reportedly arrived on Monday, although a spokesman for Foreign Minister Murray McCully said yesterday the judge and his family had only departed Vanuatu temporarily to allow their security to be assessed. The Sunday Star-Times reported Dawson, who had been working as a coroner in Vanuatu, last month wrote a report on the death of prison escapee John Bule, who was beaten to death by members of the Vanuatu Mobile Force. The report said there was a culture of police brutality that appeared to be condoned by senior officers.
■BANGLADESH
Troops distribute water
The government yesterday deployed troops to distribute drinking water to the capital’s more than 12 million people, after lawmakers had warned that growing public discontent over a water crisis could lead to unrest. A falling water table and lack of power to run water pumps have caused a serious shortage of drinking water in Dhaka, with hundreds of residents marching in the streets daily with empty pitchers and demanding government action. The water and sewage authority says it is able to supply only 1.8 billion liters of water in the capital a day, against a demand of 2.4 billion liters, owing to frequent power cuts and a fall in groundwater levels.
■JAPAN
Seniors cheer up public
With little to celebrate given a fragile economic recovery, some cheerleaders are hitting the streets and stages to pep up the mood — including one pom-pom squad whose average age is 66. On a recent Saturday, about 20 members of elderly cheerleading club Japan Pom Pom performed at a competition near Tokyo, waving gold pom-poms and dancing to the rhythm in shiny red costumes adored with sequins and wearing bobbed silver wigs. The club, whose members’ ages average 66 and add up to 1,520 years, practices two hours a week and often performs at children’s hospitals as well as nursing homes. A group member, Takino, said their main goal was to have fun and encourage people.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Firefighters die in blaze
Two firefighters died when tackling a blaze at an apartment block, the fire brigade said yesterday. Two other firemen suffered minor burns to their hands as the fire ripped through the 15-story building in Southampton on Tuesday evening. All the residents were rescued or evacuated, and an investigation is under way. “This is an incredibly difficult and sad time for myself and everyone in Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service,” Hampshire Chief Fire Officer John Bonney said in a statement.
■ISRAEL
Nuke ambiguity maintained
The country plans to maintain its policy of ambiguity, with US backing, over its nuclear policy, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said yesterday. “This policy of ambiguity constitutes one of the pillars of Israeli national security and the Americans consider it very important,” Ayalon told army radio. “There is no reason for the Americans to change their approach or for Israel to change its position,” he said. For the past four decades, Israeli governments have insisted they would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. However, foreign military experts believe Israel has an arsenal of 200 nuclear bombs.
■ITALY
Mafia targets priest’s home
Mafia leaders angry at church officials for excluding them from the annual Easter procession in the Italian town of Sant’Onofrio got their revenge by opening fire on a prior’s house in a drive-by shooting. The Affruntata procession was subsequently canceled “for spiritual and public order reasons,” parish priest Father Franco Fragala said. Police believe the attack on the home of church prior Michele Virdo in the early hours of Sunday was a reprisal for a decree that, in effect, excluded the local mafia from their traditional roles in the parade. The chance to be a bearer of one of the statues that are carried in a procession through the town of 3,000 people in Calabria was traditionally decided by auction, and the mob ensured its bids were successful. Until, that is, the local bishop, Monsignor Luigi Renzo, ruled that the issue of who carried the statues should be decided by lot rather than auction. At the draw, not a single place in the teams of porters went to a known mobster.
■SOUTH AFRICA
No more hate song: ANC
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) says it has ordered its youth leader to stop singing the song Kill the Boer that some blame for the slaying of right-wing leader Eugene Terre’Blanche. Beeld newspaper yesterday quoted ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe as saying he and President Jacob Zuma told youth league leader Julius Malema to stop singing the song, which a court has ruled hate speech and unconstitutional.
■NORWAY
Ex-bishop admits abuse
A German-born former Catholic bishop, Georg Muller, has admitted sexually abusing a minor 20 years ago, the Norwegian Catholic Church said yesterday. Georg Muller, 58, who was born near Trier in Germany, stepped down as bishop of Trondheim last year, officially because he was unsuited for the work. According to the daily Adresseavisen, which broke the story, the affair goes back more than 20 years to when Muller was a priest in Trondheim. The victim was a choir boy, who is now around 30 years old, and has been paid damages by the Church.
■FRANCE
Houston has mucus problem
Pop diva Whitney Houston is in a Paris hospital suffering from nose and throat problems, her entourage said yesterday. Houston, 46, canceled the first concert of her European tour in Paris on Tuesday because of a “respiratory infection,” and will likely have to miss the second in Manchester, England, scheduled for today, a member of her entourage said. The source said she was being treated in the Paris hospital for “chronic rhinopharyngitis [a swelling of the mucus membranes in the nose and pharynx] and an infection whose cause has not been identified.”
■RUSSIA
Space ticket price rises
The price for US astronauts to hitch a ride on a Russian spaceship is going up. NASA on Tuesday signed a contract to pay US$55.8 million per astronaut for six Americans to fly into space on Russian Soyuz capsules in 2013 and 2014. NASA needs to get rides on Russian rockets to the International Space Station because it plans to retire its space shuttle fleet later this year. NASA now pays US$26.3 million per astronaut when it uses Russian ships. NASA spokesman John Yembrick said the cost is going up because Russia has to build more capsules for the extra flights. NASA had already agreed to pay as much as US$51 million a seat for flights in 2011 and 2012, before the latest increase.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez opponent freed
An opponent of President Hugo Chavez was freed by a court on Tuesday after spending more than seven months in jail while awaiting trial for allegedly injuring a police officer during a protest. Caracas city administrator Richard Blanco, who insists he is innocent and says the charges are politically motivated, announced outside the courthouse that he plans to start campaigning as a candidate for the National Assembly in Sept. 26 elections. Blanco was freed on condition that he appear in court every 15 days, that he not leave Venezuela without the judge’s permission and that he not speak to the media about his case ahead of his trial, defense lawyer Negar Granados said.
■ECUADOR
Journalists claim censorship
Twenty columnists and contributors to the Ecuadorean state newspaper El Telegrafo said on Tuesday they would no longer write for the paper because of alleged censorship. In a signed letter sent to media outlets, the writers said they were quitting to protest “acts of censorship and the violation of the rights of free expression and press freedom.” El Telegrafo was a private newspaper until three years ago, when it was taken over by the government amid debts and legal problems. On April 1, a note from management directed that the newspaper’s editorial section not publish “commentaries, strategic information and other strictly internal information” written by the columnists and contributors.
■PANAMA
New case against Noriega
A Panamanian court is opening a new case against former strongman Manuel Noriega for his alleged role in the death and disappearance and death of an activist in 1970, officials said on Tuesday. Noriega, currently held in the US and awaiting extradition to France, is accused of having overseen the arrest of leftist activist Heliodoro Portugal by the military when he commanded the Panamanian Defense Forces, the successor to the National Guard. Portugal’s body was found in September 1999 — more than 29 years after his arrest — near former military barracks close to Tocumen International Airport.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
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