■ INDIA
Suspected militants slain
Police killed two suspected Pakistani militants after a car chase and gun battle on the outskirts of New Delhi before dawn yesterday. Police said the two men were shot dead in the town of Noida and one policeman was injured. “We recovered AK-47 rifles and grenades and some documents, including a Pakistani passport,” Navin Arora, a senior Noida police officer told reporters. The attack came on the eve of Republic Day today. Police said the suspects were trying to enter New Delhi.
■SOMALIA
Car bombing kills 16
A policeman and 15 civilians were reported killed on Saturday in a suicide car bombing in Mogadishu and 38 others seriously wounded, the Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera reported. The bombing at a police checkpoint came a week after the withdrawal of the remaining Ethiopian troops, and during a power vacuum contested by Islamist rebels and the interim government. The policeman shot at the car as it sped toward the checkpoint. In response, the bomber steered his car into a full bus.
■JAPAN
Medvedev invites Aso
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has invited Prime Minister Taro Aso to visit Sakhalin island next month for talks on “all issues” between the two nations, officials in Tokyo said late on Saturday. In a 15-minute phone call, Aso said he would consider the proposed meeting, the Japanese foreign ministry said. Medvedev invited Aso for a ceremony at the Sakhalin II project, which has just started, liquefied natural gas production and will export to Japan. Moscow and Tokyo have never signed a peace treaty to formally end World War II due to Tokyo’s claims over four islands which Soviet troops seized in 1945 off Japan’s northern coast.
■HONG KONG
3D porn flick planned
Filmmakers are preparing to leave filmgoers goggle-eyed by releasing the world’s first pornographic movie in 3D, the Sunday Morning Post. said yesterday. Shooting on the Chinese-language film 3D Sex And Zen, budgeted at US$4 million, is scheduled for April with producers promising some of the most realistic close-up sex scenes ever. “Just imagine that you’ll be watching it as if you were sitting beside the bed,” Stephen Shiu Jr said. “There will be many close-ups. It will look as if the actresses are only a few centimeters from the audience.” However, he said casting for the film was proving difficult. “We’re having trouble finding a male lead who is willing to undress in front of the camera,” he said. “It’s a lot more difficult to find an actor than an actress for this kind of film.”
■HONG KONG
Mugabe’s daughter studying
The daughter of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is studying at the University of Hong Kong under an assumed name, the Sunday Morning Post said yesterday. Bona Mugabe, whose father and fellow leaders are banned from visiting the US, the EU and Australia, began studying in the territory last year, a senior university source said. Her presence was revealed after her 43-year-old mother, Grace Mugabe, allegedly assaulted a British photographer who tried to take photos of her outside the Kowloon Shangri-la Hotel on Jan. 15. Police said they were still investigating the alleged assault on photographer Richard Jones, who said he had been repeatedly beaten and punched by Grace Mugabe while her bodyguard held him.
■ EL SALVADOR
Leftists gain in elections
Former leftist rebels won more seats than any other party in the legislative elections on Jan. 18, but fell short of a majority, final results showed on Saturday. The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) won 35 seats, three more than in the 2006 polls, making it the strongest party less than two months before the presidential election. But the outcome also shows that the party will have to negotiate with a conservative bloc if it takes the presidency. While President Tony Saca’s conservative Arena party lost two seats to end up with 32 in the 84 seat-unicameral congress, the Christian Democratic Party won 11 seats and the conservative National Conciliation Party won five.
■CANADA
Bird flu found in farm
Authorities discovered strains of bird flu on a western turkey farm and officials said on Saturday that 60,000 birds would have to be culled. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said tests indicate that the H5 avian influenza virus found on a turkey farm in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver, British Columbia, is “low pathogenic.” That means the severity of the illness it causes in birds is relatively low. Even so, agency officials said that along with euthanizing all birds on the premises, food inspectors are also restricting the movement of poultry and poultry products within 3km of the farm.
■UNITED STATES
Plumber recovers diamond
It took a plumber to retrieve a woman’s seven-carat diamond ring after city workers failed in efforts to flush the gem out of the pipes of a restaurant toilet. The US$70,000 diamond ring fell from Allison Berry’s hand when she flushed the toilet in the restroom of the Black Bear Diner in Phoenix, Arizona, on Jan. 14. City workers opened a pipe outside the restaurant and continuously flushed the toilet, hoping to push the ring out to the opening. When that didn’t work, the city called the office of Mr. Rooter, a plumbing service. Mike Roberts, general manager of Mr. Rooter, used a tiny video camera to track and later retrieve the diamond ring.
■UNITED STATES
Workers find cash in trash
Three state highway workers cleaning up litter in Indiana picked up an abandoned tire — and found about US$100,000 inside. State police suspect the cash, in denominations of US$5 to US$100, may be drug money. State Police spokesman Mike Burns said a drug-sniffing dog found the scent of drugs on the bills. Police said the workers found the tire on Friday in a ditch along Interstate 70 just east of Indianapolis.
■MEXICO
Relatives to see ‘acid man’
Relatives of 100 missing people want to show photos of their loved ones to a man arrested in Tijuana for allegedly helping a druglord dispose of his slain enemies by dissolving their bodies in acid, a victims’ group said on Saturday. Santiago Meza Lopez, known as the “Pozole Maker” after a local stew, is accused of disposing of 300 bodies for Teodoro Garcia Simental, a suspected former lieutenant of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel. The relatives have asked authorities for permission to meet face-to-face with the 45-year-old Meza, said Cristina Palacios, president of Citizens United Against Impunity, a group that represents families of missing people in Tijuana. Meza was arrested on Thursday and paraded by soldiers and federal police in front of reporters on Friday at a cement-block shack where he allegedly got rid of many of the bodies over several years.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
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