■INDIA
Fifteen dead in mine siege
Dozens of heavily armed Maoist rebels stormed a bauxite mine in the east and held roughly 100 mine employees hostage before police regained control of the facility early yesterday morning, authorities said. At least 11 police officers and four militants died in the nine-hour shootout in the Panchpatmali area of the state of Orissa, said senior police official M.M. Praharaj. The militants were hoping to steal large quantities of explosives used for mining, but they fled without them, Praharaj said. C.R. Pradhan, director of the mine company, National Aluminum Company Ltd, said the workers held inside the mine were not harmed, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted him as saying.
■PHILIPPINES
Health chief criticized
Environment groups yesterday lambasted the health secretary for supervising the burning of thousands of bottles of salmonella-tainted peanut butter. The Ecological Waste Coalition criticized Health Secretary Francisco Duque for supervising the incineration of the contaminated products last week in Taguig City in metropolitan Manila. The group said the disposal was a violation of the Clean Air Act, which prohibits the burning of materials that emit toxic and poisonous fumes. Greenpeace South-East Asia said the incineration was outrageous “when you consider that it was the health secretary involved in violating a measure intended to safeguard public health.”
■NEPAL
Ex-rebels win three seats
Former communist rebels won three of six seats in the national assembly, an election official said yesterday, but it will have virtually no effect on the 601-person assembly. The by-election on Friday saw the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) win three seats, and the Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) and Madeshi People’s Rights Forum win one seat each, Election Commission spokesman Uddhav Baskota said. He said the election — to fill seats left vacant by resignations — will have no significant effect on the 601-member Constituent Assembly, which is charged with rewriting the Constitution and governing the Himalayan nation.
■MALAYSIA
Bus crash kills six
Six people were killed and five injured early yesterday when a bus went out of control and overturned along a major highway in Selangor state. The injured passengers were taken to a nearby hospital, the official Bernama news agency reported. The double-decker bus was carrying 34 passengers plus the driver and his assistant en route to the Selangor state from the northern state of Kedah when the accident occurred. The bus driver was among the dead.
■PHILIPPINES
Anti-drug agents killed
Three government anti-drug agents were killed in an attack yesterday in the south, the military and police said. Three agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency were also wounded in the ambush in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao Province, 930km south of Manila. Colonel Jonathan Ponce, a local army spokesman, said the agents were on a mission to raid a suspected safe house of a notorious drug pusher in the town when they were attacked. “The agents had just gotten off their vehicles when they were fired upon by unidentified gunmen,” he said. Superintendent Danilo Bacas, a regional police spokesman, said government forces have launched pursuit operations to track down the assailants.
■IRELAND
Man recovers from coma
A man brought home to die after being beaten senseless on a Sydney street in August has surprised his doctors and his family by coming out of a coma in a Cork hospital on St Patrick’s Day. David Keohane, 29, awoke eight months after sustaining serious head injuries in the attack, news reports said on Monday. Keohane’s family ascribe his miraculous recovery to daily prayers they offered to nun Mary MacKillop and said they would be writing to Pope Benedict XVI to expedite her sainthood. The Sydney nun was beatified after the Vatican recognized one miracle in her name. Two miracles are needed for sainthood.
■ISRAEL
Fishing boat explodes
The Israeli military says an unmanned Palestinian fishing boat has exploded off the Gaza coast in an apparent attempt to hit Israeli naval patrols in the area, but there were no casualties. An army spokesman said the boat was “a safe distance” from the nearest Israeli vessel when it blew up yesterday morning about 300m off the northern Gaza coast, near the Israeli border. The explosion was heard further along the coast in Gaza City but local Palestinian media did not immediately report on the incident.
■RUSSIA
Soldiers kills three
A soldier in Chechnya killed three fellow servicemen before attempting to kill himself, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday, citing a law-enforcement source in the war-ravaged region. “The serviceman killed the commander of his platoon and two soldiers with fire from a Kalashnikov automatic rifle,” the source told Interfax. The serviceman then attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head with the same rifle but failed and was hospitalized, said the source, adding that the incident was under investigation. The shooting took place on Sunday evening at a Russian military post near the village of Borzoi in the south of Chechnya.
■TURKEY
Police probe ‘coup plot’
The state-run news agency said police were searching the headquarters of a TV station and several branches of a secularist association as part of a widening probe into an alleged coup plot. The Anatolia news agency said police raided the pro-secular Kanal B television and branches of the Association to Protect Contemporary Life early yesterday. More than 200 suspects have been detained since 2007 in the case that highlights a rift between an increasingly powerful class of pious Muslims and secular elites who fear the Islamic-rooted government is seeking to impose religion on society.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Police find body parts
Body parts from the same man have been turning up across the countryside. Police say they’re investigating a murder, but have yet to identify the victim. On March 22 a left leg was found in a travel bag near a highway in the village of Cottered, 65km north of London. On March 29, an arm — cut off at the elbow and the wrist — was found in the village of Weathampstead, 24km southwest of Cottered. Two days later, on a farmer found a head in his field in Asfordby, 140km north of both locations. Post-mortem examinations have confirmed that the body parts belonged to the same man. Since then, more body parts have turned up, including a right leg last Monday and part of a torso on Saturday. Officials have been unable to give a precise physical description of the man but say he suffered from eczema.
■UNITED STATES
Deputy marshal to be tried
Deputy marshal John Ambrose faces trial on charges alleging he leaked secrets to the Mafia. Ambrose, 50, was due to go on trial yesterday for allegedly telling organized crime figures seven years ago that a so-called made member of the Chicago mob had switched sides and was providing detailed information to federal prosecutors. US District Judge John Grady has ordered extraordinary security including screens in the courtroom to conceal the faces of key witnesses from spectators. Ambrose is accused of leaking information to the mob about former hit man, Nicholas Calabrese, who was the government’s star witness at the landmark 2007 “Family Secrets” trial that targeted top members of the Chicago mob. Ambrose was assigned to guard Calabrese on two occasions when witness security officials lodged him at “safe sites” for questioning. Ambrose is charged with stealing information from a Witness Security Program file on Calabrese and passing it to a go-between believing it would go to reputed mob boss John “No Nose” DiFronzo.
■UNITED STATES
Soldiers’ bodies arrive
The remains of five soldiers killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq arrived at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, in a quiet ceremony on Sunday evening. Five flag-draped transfer cases were unloaded from a jet as families watched. The five soldiers were killed on Friday when a suicide bomber driving a truck detonated a tonne of explosives near a police headquarters in Mosul.
■UNITED STATES
Family stunned by arrest
Relatives of a Sunday school teacher arrested in the killing of an eight-year-old girl found stuffed into a suitcase said on Sunday they are baffled by the accusations against the woman they know as a loving, single parent. “I just can’t comprehend. There are no words,” said Brian Lawless, the father of 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby, who is being held in San Joaquin County Jail on suspicion of kidnapping and killing Sandra Cantu. Lawless said Huckaby lived for her five-year-old daughter, Madison. “She just always had an extra patience with her. Never raised her voice. Never yelled. Never struck her,” he said. “She was that same way with other children. She loved other children.”
■COLOMBIA
Motorcyclists seek releases
A caravan of some 500 motorcycles completed a three-week ride on Sunday dedicated to hostages held by Colombian rebels, but fell short of securing the release of captives, organizers said. Caravan leader Herbin Hoyos said riders were encouraged by the support they received along the nearly 5,000km route. But he lamented not persuading members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to release at least one captive before the ride’s conclusion in Bogota. “I promised publicly to give my motorcycle to any guerrilla who came forward to turn over a captive,” Hoyos said.
■UNITED STATES
Christian center homes burn
A massive fire damaged or destroyed dozens of wood-frame buildings, mostly unoccupied summer homes, at a 146-year-old Christian center in New Hampshire on Sunday. State Fire Marshal William Degnan said no injuries to civilians had been reported at the Alton Bay Christian Conference Center on Lake Winnipesaukee. Witnesses said they watched as buildings burned to the ground in minutes. One firefighter was hurt when a propane tank exploded.
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
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
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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