■AFGHANISTAN
Japan to pay police salaries
Japan will pay the salaries of 80,000 Afghanistan police officers for six months as part of its continuing financial support for the country, a government official said yesterday. Tokyo will also fund the building of 200 schools and 100 hospitals, and train thousands of teachers in Afghanistan, Foreign Ministry official Miyako Watanabe said. The projects will be paid out of the US$520 million remaining in the funds pledged by Tokyo to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure.
■CHINA
Official sacked over jaunt
A Chinese Communist Party official has been sacked for leading a delegation on a jaunt to Egypt and Dubai, where the group splurged on diamonds and stayed at top hotels, state media said yesterday. An Internet blogger initially exposed Tan Rigui (譚日貴), the deputy party secretary of a district in Guangdong Province, by posting a video online showing some of his government-funded “work trip,” the China Daily said. A government investigation then found that Tan led 13 officials from his Duanzhou district to Egypt on the two-week trip early in 2007, the paper said. The trip ended with a stay at the ultra-luxurious Burj Al-Arab in Dubai, which bills itself as the world’s only seven-star hotel, according to the paper.
■AUSTRALIA
Shark victim gets hand back
Sydney surgeons said yesterday it was a miracle that Bondi Beach shark attack victim Glenn Orgias has two hands rather than just one. “I thought the hopes for the hand were close to zero, but I have hope in time that Glenn will have a working hand,” plastic surgeon Kevin Ho said. “We’re far from out of the woods, but I think for him to make it to this stage is a minor miracle.” Orgias, 33, was mauled by a 2.5m great white shark while surfing two weeks ago. His bicep was ripped open and his hand was left hanging by 4cm strip of skin.
■CHINA
Taxi drivers block traffic
Taxi drivers angry about unfair competition from unlicensed cabs staged a strike in Fujian Province on Monday. About 100 drivers in the city of Zhangzhou marched to the municipal government on Monday morning, Xinhua News Agency said. In the afternoon, they gathered on an overpass and blocked traffic for two hours. “The rampant spread of unlicensed cabs has greatly affected our business. I can only earn 40 yuan [US$5.80] a day,” Xinhua quoted an unnamed cab driver as saying. About 800 licensed cabs work in Zhangzhou, but they are believed to be greatly outnumbered by unlicensed taxis, Xinhua said.
■ALGERIA
Blast kills nine: official
A bomb attack killed nine security guards and injured three in northern Algeria near a power facility, officials and the local media said on Monday. The security agents were working for the facility operated by the national electricity provider, Sonelgaz, near Ziama Mansouriah in the north, two local town officials said. The bombing occurred at their housing compound. El Watan daily said the bombing late on Sunday was preceded by mortar fire on the security agents’ housing compound, but the officials could not confirm this. Algerian authorities made no immediate comment on the attack, the second against security agents from the Spas security company in recent years.
■UNITED NATIONS
Plea made to Myanmar
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged the Myanmar junta to free all political prisoners, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. “I wish to reiterate my call for the release of all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the resumption of dialogue between the government and the opposition without delay and without preconditions,” Ban said. “I welcome the announcement of the amnesty as a first step toward a larger and bigger implementation,” he said, but cautioned “there are still hundreds and hundreds of detainees” held for “political reasons.” Myanmar announced last Friday that it would release more than 6,300 prisoners to allow them to participate in elections next year. The opposition said 17 of them were political prisoners.
■UNITED STATES
Possible dad wants tests
A man who says he donated sperm to octuplet mother Nadya Suleman a decade ago said on Monday that she should agree to perform a DNA test to see if he is the father of her 14 children. Denis Beaudoin told ABC’s Good Morning America that he dated Suleman, 33, from 1997 to 1999 and that he donated his sperm to her after she supposedly claimed to have ovarian cancer and needed to act quickly to have children. “She really wanted to have kids,” Beaudoin said. “She asked me to donate sperm … I thought it was kind of out of the ordinary, but I cared about her so much, and we were in love.” Suleman has said that all 14 of her children were conceived through in vitro fertilization with sperm from an unidentified friend. She denied to ABC that Beaudoin was the father.
■UNITED STATES
Biden meets Clooney
Actor George Clooney met with Vice President Joseph Biden at the White House last night to discuss the actor’s trip to eastern Chad and Washington’s policy in Sudan, an administration spokeswoman said. Clooney, who also met separately with President Barack Obama, said he was told that the White House would name a full-time envoy on Darfur, ABC News reported. White House officials declined to comment. Clooney hadn’t been scheduled to meet with Obama, though the president invited him into the Oval Office to talk after running into him at the White House, ABC said.
■UNITED STATES
FBI rescues teen prostitutes
The FBI has rescued more than 45 suspected teenage prostitutes, some as young as 13, in a nationwide sweep to remove kids from the illegal sex trade and punish their pimps. During a three-night initiative called Operation Cross Country, federal agents working with local law enforcement also arrested more than 50 suspected pimps, preliminary bureau data showed. The teens ranged in age from 13 to 17. Historically, federal authorities rarely play a role in anti-prostitution crackdowns, but the FBI is becoming more involved as it tries to rescue children caught up in the business.
■MEXICO
Governor’s convoy attacked
Gunmen shot at a convoy carrying Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza, killing one of his bodyguards and wounding two other agents. The federal Attorney General’s Office said on Monday it did not appear that Reyes Baeza was the target of an assassination attempt. State investigators believe the shooting erupted over a traffic altercation between the bodyguards at the back of the convoy and armed men in two other cars, the office said in a statement.
■NIGERIA
Mom dies after birth of six
A Nigerian woman gave birth to sextuplets but died after a Cesarean section, an official said on Monday. The woman died early on Sunday, a day after the three boys and three girls were born in the southwestern town of Sagamu, hospital official Femi Ajayi said. Ajayi said doctors battled for several hours to save the woman’s life after she developed complications. He gave no further details about the cause of her death but said all six babies were healthy and receiving the best of care.
■SPAIN
Weary Solbes wants to quit
Economy Minister Pedro Solbes, long rumored to be weary of his post, said on Monday he was envious of the justice minister who has just resigned. Mariano Fernandez Bermejo quit on Monday after a hunting trip he shared with a prominent judge investigating opposition party members became an issue in regional elections. Asked at a conference in Madrid if he was envious of Bermejo, Solbes said: “Yes, in the sense that he’s an ex-minister.” Solbes’ desire to retire has long been an open secret. He wanted to step down at last March’s general election before Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero persuaded him to stay.
■NETHERLANDS
ICC to rule on Beshir case
The International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Monday it would rule next week whether to seek the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir for alleged war crimes in Darfur. A pre-trial chamber of judges in The Hague said it “would issue on Wednesday, March 4, its decision concerning the prosecution application” for a warrant for Beshir, a court statement said. ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the court last July for an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Sudan’s war-torn western region.
■ITALY
Coca-Cola plan criticized
Venetian Mayor Massimo Cacciari’s plan to install Coca-Cola vending machines has the city’s bar owners and media up in arms. “Coca-Cola drinks up Venice,” La Stampa newspaper said in its online edition on Monday. La Stampa said the five-year deal is worth 2.1 million euros (US$2.69 million). Venice’s City Hall confirmed the report, but said the deal has not been signed yet and that the vending machines would not be installed in or near city landmarks such as St. Mark’s Square or the Rialto Bridge. “I’m stunned at the controversy that is erupting over a partnership between the Venice City Hall and one of the largest and most prestigious brands in the world, Coca-Cola,” Cacciari said in a statement. He said the deal was part of a “financial strategy that today is indispensable for the safeguard of our artistic heritage.”
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
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
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
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