■ JAPAN
Neighbours catch baby
A five-month-old baby was caught by neighbors after her mother threw her from the third-floor window of a burning building in Osaka yesterday, police said. Rion Morioka was uninjured in the fall but was being treated for smoke inhalation, as was her mother Miyuki, 24, Kyodo news agency said. She and the baby's father, Junichi, 22, both jumped from the window, about 7m above the ground. Junichi suffered broken bones. Neighbors had spread bedding on the ground and shouted to the couple to throw the baby after the fire broke out, the agency said.
■ MALAYSIA
Fight disrupts wedding
A wedding for 22 couples in Sabah state was abandoned after the imam leading the ceremony came to blows with a religious official, the Star newspaper said yesterday. An officer from the Sabah Islamic Affairs Department claimed the imam -- who was from Borneo -- did not have permission from the town's religious affairs unit to conduct the marriages. The argument degenerated into a scuffle between the two men, causing the 22 couples and their family members to flee.
■ JAPAN
Velvet Revolver banned
US hard rockers Velvet Revolver have canceled a tour after being denied visas. The band, featuring three members of rock legends Guns N' Roses and the Stone Temple Pilots' former frontman Scott Weiland, issued an apology to Japanese fans on their Web site. "We don't understand why the authorities won't give us visas when they granted them for us in 2005 for what was a successful tour and a great experience. We love Japan and look forward to our return there," they said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Kidman says she was scared
Nicole Kidman told a judge yesterday that she was "really, really scared" when chased in her car by Jamie Fawcett two years ago. Fawcett sued the Sun-Herald for defamation over an article that said he was Sydney's most disliked freelance photographer and that his behavior toward Kidman was so ``intrusive and threatening'' that he scared her. A jury has already found that the article defamed Fawcett. The court is mulling whether to award damages.
■ KENYA
Lion, hyenas attack man
Kenyan surgeons have amputated the arms and reconstructed the face of a herder who slew a lion, only to be mauled later by a pack of hyenas, an official said yesterday. Moses Lekalau, 35, on Friday speared a lion to death in Samburu, about 260km northeast of the capital Nairobi, only to be savaged by hyenas that emerged from the bush. Lekalau speared the lion that had attacked him while walking home with his livestock, then bludgeoned it to death. Lekalau hails from a nomadic pastoralist community where boys are ritually required to kill lions as a signature of maturing into manhood.
■ ITALY
Berlusconi starts party
Opposition leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi announced the creation of a new political party on Sunday, saying the People of Liberty party would ensure democracy, development and freedom for the future. The hasty announcement came as a surprise: Berlusconi announced it during an impromptu news conference in a Milan piazza where his existing Forza Italia party was collecting signatures calling for early elections. The media mogul said his supporters had gathered so many signatures calling for change -- 7 million by his count -- that he felt the time was right to announce the creation of a new party.
■ SPAIN
Right-wing supporters rally
Hundreds of demonstrators nostalgic for the country's right-wing past held a rally on Sunday to commemorate a hardline leader killed during the civil war. The rally, held next to the royal palace in Madrid's old quarter, was in remembrance of the killing of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1936 by leftist forces. Tensions between opposing political forces have been high since a teenager was stabbed to death by a right-wing activist during a clash between rival groups on Nov. 11. Primo de Rivera founded the Falange, the political movement linked to dictator Francisco Franco's regime, which ended in 1975. Most of those attending were elderly.
■ BELGIUM
Protesters call for unity
An estimated 35,000 people marched in the capital on Sunday to vent their anger about a political deadlock that has prevented a government from taking office and stoked fears the nation of Dutch and French speakers may break apart. The demonstrators, members of both linguistic groups, gathered at a park in Brussels to sing the national anthem and hear speakers call for unity. A petition signed by some 140,000 people urges politicians "to stop wasting money at our expense on quarrels that interest only a small minority." The issue of more self-rule for Dutch and French-speaking regions has deadlocked bids to form a center-right government since June elections.
■ RUSSIA
Crew rescued from sea
Nearly all of the crew and passengers of the cargo ship that sank on Sunday during a storm in the Sea of Japan were rescued overnight, with only one still missing, news agency Interfax reported. Of the 30 crew and six passengers that were cast adrift on the high seas after escaping the sinking ship, 35 were rescued, Interfax said. The ship, registered in the Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, had been transporting timber to China. The vessel sunk 180km south of the port of Nakhodka.
■ UNITED STATES
Cattle run through town
Cattle roundups are mostly a thing of the past, and this is western Pennsylvania, but on Thursday a Stoystown resident called to report a herd of cattle stampeding through her yard. Mayor Bill Boyd was first on the scene, honking his horn at the nine bulls, cows and calves that were plodding along, barely 90m from Main Street in this borough of just over 400 people. A handful of residents joined in and together they managed to get the wandering herd corralled on a nearby field. Boyd said he did not know who owned the cattle.
■ UNITED STATES
Order agrees to pay US$50m
A Roman Catholic religious order has agreed to pay US$50 million to more than 100 Alaska Natives who allege sexual abuse by Jesuit priests, a lawyer for the accusers said on Sunday. The settlement with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus is the largest one yet against a Catholic religious order, said Anchorage lawyer Ken Roosa. "These are people who were altar boys and altar servers and altar girls," Roosa said. "These are people who tried to tell their story and in many instances were beaten or told to shut up and told, `How can you say such things about a man of God?'" The sexual abuse allegations involved 13 or 14 clerics and children aged five years old to teenagers.
■ UNITED STATES
Kucinich joins protest
Thousands of people demonstrated outside a big US Army base on Sunday to demand the closure of a defense department training school they say promotes torture and murder in Latin America. Long-shot Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich joined the annual protest outside the Fort Benning Army base in Georgia to shut down the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Protesters say it teaches security personnel from Latin American countries to use repressive tactics and that graduates have overthrown legitimate governments, citing a coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 as an example.
■ UNITED STATES
Reverend refuses vow
A Lutheran church in Chicago has ordained a lesbian who refuses to take a vow of celibacy, becoming the first in the denomination to test a new resolution that gives bishops leeway in disciplining such violations. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America requires vows of celibacy for gay but not for heterosexual clergy -- a policy the Reverend Jen Rude, 27, calls discriminatory. Rude, whose father and grandfather are both Lutheran ministers, expressed gratitude to the congregation. "It's meaningful to me in the sense that my call is being affirmed not only by God, but the people of God," she said.
■ COLOMBIA
FARC landmines kill seven
Seven soldiers were killed by landmines and four guerrillas died in a subsequent gun battle over control of a longtime rebel stronghold near the center of the country, the army said on Sunday. A soldier tripped a landmine that set off a chain of explosions in Tolima province late on Saturday. Those who survived the blasts fired on members of Colombia's biggest rebel force, the FARC, which was born in Tolima in 1964. Four of the FARC rebels were killed in that exchange. President Alvaro Uribe has pushed the guerrillas on to the defensive with his US-backed security policies but thousands are still killed every year in this war involving a mosaic of militias funded by the multibillion-dollar cocaine trade.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported yesterday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since US president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory on Oct. 6. At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region. Kim also criticized the US over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion.
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