■HONG KONG
Driving instructor arrested
A driving instructor has been arrested for allegedly swapping seats with a woman pupil who knocked down a schoolboy on a pedestrian crossing, police said yesterday. The 69-year-old instructor allegedly told police he was the driver after the accident which left the schoolboy seriously injured, a police spokesman said. The accident took place on Sunday in Hong Kong’s Kwai Chung district in an area where learner drivers are not allowed to drive, according to police. The instructor and his 32-year-old woman pupil were both arrested for allegedly perverting the course of justice and were later released on bail. The woman is also accused of careless driving.
■THAILAND
Man arrested for murder
Police said yesterday they had arrested a man for the murder of a female German tourist at the weekend during a ‘full moon party’ on the southern island of Koh Phangnan. Police said the suspect, whose name was withheld, had confessed to killing 46-year-old Munich resident Astrid al-Assaad-Schachner on Saturday night because she had been stalking him. Al-Assaad-Schachner was a regular visitor to Thailand last year, sometimes staying for several weeks to join in the monthly parties to celebrate the arrival of the full moon.
■HONG KONG
Dog poisoner targets cats
A mystery dog poisoner who has killed scores of pet dogs over the past 20 years has begun targeting cats, animal welfare experts warned yesterday. The body of a ginger and white cat was found last week off Bowen Road in the territory’s Mid Levels district, the regular haunt of the poisoner who lays tainted meat and has evaded capture for two decades. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the dead pet was found by police close to where a jogger had reported seeing suspicious pieces of meat the same day.
■MALAYSIA
One missing after rockfall
One person was missing and two people were injured in central Malaysia after a rockfall at a Buddhist temple cave popular with tourists, media reports said yesterday. The Star and the New Straits Times said rescuers freed 17 people, including a Nepali and a China national, who were trapped for three hours at the Perak Cave Temple in Ipoh after the rock fall on Sunday. The reports said the group were on a staircase to the peak of the limestone hill when boulders came crashing down, destroying the path. Two people injured have been hospitalized but a temple security guard remained missing, the reports said. Perak Chief Minister Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin was quoted as saying that rescue operations had been halted temporarily due to instability of the limestone.
■NEPAL
Female journalist killed
A female journalist who reported on women’s rights and spoke out against the dowry system in the south was killed by a group of attackers, an official said yesterday. Uma Singh was attacked at her apartment on Sunday night in Janakpur, about 240km southeast of the capital Katmandu. She died from wounds after being hacked with sharp objects, government administrator Shambhu Koirala said. Police were investigating but no arrests had been made, Koirala said. The Federation of Nepalese Journalists, the umbrella body of media rights groups, condemned the attack and said a team was being sent to probe the killing.
■FRANCE
Actor stabs ex’s boyfriend
Actor Samy Naceri, who starred in the World War II film Days of Glory, was jailed on Sunday after being charged with stabbing his former girlfriend’s companion in a confrontation on a Paris street, judicial officials said. Naceri, 47, was charged with armed voluntary violence. He was also charged with making repeated death threats, the actor’s lawyer, Francoise Cotta, said. The preliminary charges, which could be dropped if an investigation fails to turn up clear evidence, followed a confrontation on Thursday near the Champs-Elysees Avenue. Naceri and his former girlfriend were arguing and her boyfriend was called to the scene, the judicial official said. The man was stabbed, but his injuries were not considered life-threatening.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Zuma not cleared yet
The appeals court yesterday overturned a judge’s ruling dismissing graft charges against ruling African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma, opening the way for fresh corruption charges against him. The ruling comes only months before a general election and reopening the case could damage Zuma’s image at a crucial moment. The Supreme Court of Appeals said in its judgment that a High Court judge made several errors in a Sept. 12 ruling. “The appeal is upheld with costs,” judge of appeal Louis Harms said in delivering the court’s judgment.
■GERMANY
Herpes virus hereditary
Human herpes virus 6 is apparently hereditary, research conducted at the University of Rochester in the US state of New York showed. A report in a German magazine for pharmacists said that some parents pass on the human herpes virus (HHV-6) to their children because it is integrated into their chromosomes. It is the first time the virus has been shown to become part of the human DNA and then passed to subsequent generations. The long-term health consequences are unknown. The researchers studied 254 babies born between July 2003 and April 2007, the university said in a press release. Of those, 43 had congenital HHV-6 infections based on samples of blood drawn from the umbilical cord.
■SUDAN
Nine killed in clashes
At least nine people were killed in tribal clashes sparked by arguments between dancers at a peace rally, the southern army said on Sunday. Spokesman Peter Parnyang said nine members of the Shilluk tribe were killed in an attack by pastoralists from the Dinka tribe in Upper Nile State on Saturday. “It is not finished,” he said. “If they [the Shilluk] retaliate it could be very big.” Parnyang said traditional dancers from the tribes quarreled on Friday during celebrations to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement — a deal that ended two decades of north-south civil war.
■RUSSIA
Helicopter crash kills seven
At least seven people were killed in a crash in the Altai mountains of a helicopter that was flying senior officials on a hunting outing, the government of the Russian Republic of Altai reported on Sunday. The report cited by Interfax news agency stated that among those killed in the craft owned by Russian gas monopoly Gazprom was Alexander Kossopkin, the country’s presidential representative in the Duma. Previous reports of eight dead and three survivors were revised to seven dead when a fourth person was found injured. A copilot was among the survivors.
■VENEZUELA
No Fidel in public: Chavez
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday it was unlikely that ailing former Cuban leader Fidel Castro would ever appear in public again. “That Fidel in his uniform who walked the streets and towns late at night, hugging the people, won’t return,” Chavez said during his Sunday TV and radio program. “That will remain in memories.” He did not discuss the 82-year-old Castro’s current medical condition or say why he thought Castro would not return to the public stage. Chavez has continued to meet occasionally with his friend Castro in private since the former Cuban leader underwent emergency intestinal surgery about two-and-a-half years ago. Castro was last seen in public on July 26, 2006, at a celebration in eastern Cuba.
■UNITED STATES
Pelosi wants more women
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday said there should be more women in the incoming administration of president-elect Barack Obama, but praised the “diversity” of his team. “We always want more. There is no question about it,” Pelosi, the first woman in history to head the Congress, told CNN when asked if the gender balance in Obama’s Cabinet picks was to her liking. “When I went to my first meeting at the White House as a leader and looked around and saw that I was the first woman in history to be seated at that table, my first thought was, ‘We want more,’” she said, recalling events in 2002 when she was minority whip, or the second highest-ranking person in the Democratic party. “But I feel confident [in] the diversity in [Obama’s] Cabinet and among the advisers to the president, who, as you know, are as important in many ways as members of the Cabinet,” Pelosi said. Obama’s 18-strong Cabinet-in-waiting includes five women.
■UNITED STATES
Senator Voinovich to retire
Two-term Republican Senator George Voinovich of Ohio had told associates he intended to retire rather than run again in 2010, party officials said. A formal announcement was expected yesterday. Voinovich would become the third Republican in recent weeks to announce retirement plans in traditionally competitive states, giving Democrats a chance to expand their already strong majority. Veteran Senator Kit Bond of Missouri said last week he would retire at the end of his term. First-term Senator Mel Martinez of Florida has also said he would not seek reelection. Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas has also announced plans to retire, although his state is more reliably Republican than Ohio, Missouri or Florida. The officials who described Voinovich’s plans did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them.
■PERU
Bus crash kills 33
Police say at least 33 people were dead and 23 injured after a bus ran off a remote, rain-slicked mountain road. Local police Captain Jose Cotillo, who was involved in the rescue, told broadcaster Radioprogramas that rainy conditions made for poor visibility when the vehicle plunged into a ravine before dawn on Saturday. Highway police commander William Vasquez said the bus was traveling to the northern city of Querocoto. There was no word on the condition of the injured, who were being taken to hospitals. Bus crashes are common in the mountains of Peru, where most roads are unpaved.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
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