■VIETNAM
Student develops swine flu
A 23-year-old male student who returned from the US has been confirmed as having the H1N1 influenza virus, the first case in the country, a doctor said yesterday. “The patient is still strong and he looks normal, but we can confirm that he is the first case of an H1N1 infection in Vietnam,” a doctor at the Ho Chi Minh City-based Pasteur Institute said.
■AUSTRALIA
Uighur plea to be reviewed
Canberra will review its decision to reject a plea from the US to resettle Chinese citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay. “We’ll consider these individuals on a case-by-case basis in accordance with our immigration law and in accordance with our domestic and international immigration obligations,” Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said yesterday. Last year, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was urged by Beijing not to accede to Washington’s request to take in the Uighurs from Xinjiang Province because it wants them repatriated.
■MYANMAR
Ancient pagoda collapses
A 2,300-year-old pagoda collapsed while workers were attempting to repair it, killing at least two people and injuring scores more, security officials said yesterday. But witnesses said at least six people had died and 30 people were injured. Some people were still trapped beneath the rubble a day after the collapse on Saturday, said Tin Shwe, who runs a small shop near the temple. The structure collapsed because of age and deterioration, a temple official said. Damage to the Danok temple was detected in 2006. Tin Shwe said most of the victims were navy personnel doing reconstruction work on the temple, located in southern Yangon.
■INDONESIA
Landslide buries family
A landslide buried alive a family of six in South Sulawesi Province, state-run media said yesterday. The landslide occurred on Saturday in Tanah Toraja, burying four other houses and cutting off road links to the village. Rescue workers recovered four bodies on Saturday afternoon and continue searching for two more family members who remain buried and feared dead under tonnes of soil, the Antara news agency reported. A village resident was quoted as saying that all of the victims were trapped in their house when the landslide struck, adding that a thundering sound was heard from the hill moments before the landslide.
■JAPAN
Aso likely to put off poll
A close aide of Prime Minister Taro Aso said yesterday he would likely wait until August to call a snap election. Aso has faced persistent calls to put his unpopular government to an electoral test. “We have submitted a number of bills before parliament,” Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Hiroyuki Hosoda said during a debate program by Fuji Television Network. “I believe these bills need to be passed,” he said, noting specifically the anti-piracy bill that would give more clout to naval troops deployed in waters off Somalia. “Provided substantial deliberation is done, I think it is greatly possible that the election will come in August,” he said.
■MALAYSIA
Family fights for Sikh burial
A Sikh family is fighting for the right to cremate the body of a dead relative who Islamic authorities say converted and should be buried according to Muslim tradition, a lawyer said yesterday. Mohan Singh, 41, died of a heart attack last Monday. Since then, both his Sikh family and Islamic authorities have claimed the body, which remains at the hospital, the family’s lawyer, Rajesh Kumar, said. Officials from the Islamic department of central Selangor state say Singh converted to Islam in 1992. They have filed a case in the state’s Shariah high court, which runs parallel to a secular court system. But the family, refusing to attend the Shariah court hearings, filed a separate case at a High Court on Friday, seeking to stop the body from being released to the Islamic authorities for burial.
■PHILIPPINES
Guerrillas die in attack
Seven Muslim separatist guerrillas died after a foiled attack on a military outpost, a military spokesman said yesterday. Rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked the military in Datu Piang town in Mindanao late on Saturday in an attempt to destroy artillery at the base, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce said. “Seven rebels were killed in the fighting, but there could be more as the MILF forces retreated with their wounded,” Ponce said. Last week, the MILF bombed a bridge and burned houses in Mindanao.
■CHINA
Mine managers detained
Authorities detained three managers of a coal mine where a gas leak killed 30 miners and injured 77, state TV reported yesterday. There were 131 people working in the Tonghua mine when the accident occurred on Saturday, news reports said. Xinhua news agency said 20 miners were trapped but later rescued. The mine’s boss, chief engineer and project manager were detained after an initial investigation found they might have violated operating rules, China Central Television reported yesterday. It gave no other details.
■LEBANON
Alleged spies charged
Beirut charged four people with collaborating with Israel on Saturday, raising to 23 the number of suspected spies who have been charged in the last few months, a court official said. Since the recent crackdown began in April, 35 people have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel, police commander Brigadier General Ashraf Rifi said. Beirut considers itself at war with Israel and bans its citizens from having any contact with the Jewish state. Spying for or collaborating with Israel can be punishable by death. Military prosecutor Saqr Saqr also charged the four men on Saturday with providing Israel with information about civilian and military positions and political figures, a court official said.
■WEST BANK
Six killed in gunbattle
A gunbattle between Palestinian police and Hamas militants killed six people yesterday, security officials said, in the deadliest outbreak of violence since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas began a crackdown against Hamas two years ago. Three of the dead were policemen loyal to the Western-backed Abbas, the security officials said. The policemen were trying to arrest Hamas fighters who were hiding in a house in the city of Qalqiliya when shooting began, they said. Two of the dead were fighters from Hamas and the other victim was the civilian owner of the house where the clash took place.
■ISRAEL
‘Doomsday’ drill starts
The Jewish state launched the biggest civil defense drill in its history, training soldiers, emergency crews and civilians for the possibility of war. The five-day drill will include simulated rocket attacks on Israeli cities. Air-raid sirens are to sound across the country tomorrow. The drill comes at a time of tension with Iran. Jerusalem believes Iran is developing nuclear weapons and has not ruled out a military strike. Iran says its nuclear program is only for energy production. Israeli officials are playing down any connection between those tensions and this week’s exercise. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the drill “was not created as a response to the events of recent weeks and months.”
■SUDAN
Former president dies
A former president known for imposing Islamic law in the country died Saturday at the age of 79, the official news agency said. Gaafar Numeiri became president in 1969 and held the post for 16 years despite a coup attempt by the communist left in the early 1970s. Numeiri was also known for signing a peace accord in 1972 to end a rebellion in the south that started in 1955. The agreement gave the mostly Christian and animist south a degree of autonomy from the mostly Muslim north. But Numeiri imposed Islamic law, or Shariah, in the country in 1983, increasing tension with the south.
■GEORGIA
S Ossetia holds election
The rebel-held province of South Ossetia held a parliamentary election yesterday that was expected to strengthen the Moscow-friendly leader’s hold on power. South Ossetia declared independence after Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war there in August. Only Russia and Nicaragua have recognized the independence. Critics of South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity claim he stifles dissent and scares challengers away with threats of violence. They say money for restoring infrastructure destroyed in the conflict has disappeared and are calling for a boycott of yesterday’s election.
■PERU
Dozens flee in prison break
At least 44 inmates broke out of a remote prison in the northern jungle on Saturday after threatening guards with knives, National Penal Institute (INPE) reported. Prisoners ambushed two guards at dawn at the San Humberto de Bagua Grande prison in Utcubamba and threatened them with the blades, INPE said in a statement. The inmates fled through the front door, taking with them an AKM automatic rifle, the INPE said.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez halts talkathon
President Hugo Chavez on Saturday canceled the broadcast of his promised show, interrupting a four-day marathon of himself talking, singing, and haranguing detractors. Chavez had vowed a Thursday-to-yesterday broadcast of his weekly radio and TV program Hello President to mark the show’s 10-year anniversary. Normally the show runs for several hours on Sundays, but Chavez said he wanted a special extended edition. Chavez held broadcast talkathons lasting some six hours each on Thursday and Friday. For Saturday, a debate had been scheduled between Chavez and conservative Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, a novelist who ran for president in 1990. But by late Friday Chavez was backtracking. “I can help by moderating, but the debate is between intellectuals and I am simply a president, a soldier,” he said. The dialogue should be with “revolutionary and socialist” thinkers, he said. Vargas Llosa and other Latin American intellectuals in Caracas for a separate event on democracy said they were not interested in debating other thinkers.
■COLOMBIA
Fourteen killed in clashes
Fierce battles between the military and Marxist guerillas left 14 people dead in the latest fighting. There were few details about the fighting in La Macarena National Park in the southern of the country, where five soldiers and five rebels were slain, the military said. The military statement said that its task force Omega would continue to press the offensive against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has been fighting an insurgency for 45 years. FARC fighters also attacked a courthouse in Garzon, Huila Province disguised as soldiers, killing two court guards and a police officer. A local official was abducted. A bomb detonated in a vehicle left behind by the attackers killed one soldier and wounded two others.
■UNITED STATES
Priest joins Episcopalians
A popular US Roman Catholic priest photographed frolicking with a woman on a Florida beach has joined the Episcopal Church to pursue the priesthood in a faith that allows married clergy. “I’ve seen with my own eyes how many brothers of mine serve God as married men and with the blessing of having their own families,” said Father Alberto Cutie, whose removal from his Miami Beach parish prompted public debate about the Catholic Church’s celibacy requirement for priests.
■UNITED STATES
Mormon leader robbed
A group of armed assailants attacked and robbed Russell Nelson, an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his wife and two other couples in Mozambique late on Friday, a church source in Salt Lake City said on Saturday. Nelson and his wife, Wendy, were on a church assignment when the incident happened, the source said. The church has 12 apostles, who form the governing body of the Mormon institution.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests. Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system. “By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send
HAVANA: Repeated blackouts have left residents of the Cuban capital concerned about food, water supply and the nation’s future, but so far, there have been few protests Maria Elena Cardenas, 76, lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street. “You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city. Cuba’s government has spent the last days attempting to get the island’s national grid functioning after repeated island-wide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food
Botswana is this week holding a presidential election energized by a campaign by one previous head-of-state to unseat his handpicked successor whose first term has seen rising discontent amid a downturn in the diamond-dependent economy. The charismatic Ian Khama dramatically returned from self-exile six weeks ago determined to undo what he has called a “mistake” in handing over in 2018 to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who seeks re-election tomorrow. While he cannot run as president again having served two terms, Khama has worked his influence and standing to support the opposition in the southern African country of 2.6 million people. “The return of
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected a plan for the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to visit Kyiv due to Guterres’ attendance at this week’s BRICS summit in Russia, a Ukrainian official said on Friday. Kyiv was enraged by Guterres’ appearance at the event in the city of Kazan on Thursday and his handshake with its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Guterres, who called for a “just peace” in Ukraine at the BRICS event and has repeatedly condemned the invasion, discussed a visit to Ukraine with Zelenskiy when they met in New York
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