■ Bangladesh
Tornadoes kill at least 48
Tornadoes tore through northern Bangladesh, killing at least 48 people, injuring hundreds and blowing away thousands of flimsy huts, the United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency reported yesterday. The twisters swept through nearly two dozen farming villages in Netrokona and neighboring Mymensingh districts on Wednesday night. Most people were home after celebrating the Bengali New Year's day, Pahela Baishakh, with colorful parades and fairs. UNB reported that least 36 people were killed in Netrokona, 130km north of the capital, Dhaka.
■ Australia
Howard queries court ruling
Prime Minister John Howard yesterday questioned a court's decision to allow a 13-year-old girl who believes she is a boy to begin sex-change treatment. Howard, who describes himself as a social conservative, said he believed the Family Court might have gone too far in the case of the girl, known only as Alex. He said he was seeking further advice on what was a "very difficult, traumatic and sad situation." He did not say whether he would seek to have the decision appealed in a higher court. The Family Court ruled in favor of allowing Alex to undergo preliminary sex change processes after hearing she became suicidal at the onset of puberty and genuinely believed she was a boy trapped in a girl's body.
■ Afghanistan
Taliban mount attack
Gunmen killed a district police chief and eight Afghan soldiers in an ambush in a southern province, a senior official said yesterday, in an attack claimed by the Taliban militia. The assailants fired AK-47 assault rifles and heavy machine guns on two four-wheel drive vehicles carrying Yar Mohammed, police chief of Mizan district in Zabul province, and the soldiers around 10am on Wednesday. There were no survivors. "Taliban did this attack," said Zabul Governor Khyal Mohammed. He said one of the attackers had been killed when the soldiers fired back during the ambush.
■ Australia
Fat guy outruns cops
A chubby, barefoot Australian man outran police Wednesday when he bolted through security gates left open at the back of a court he was being led into, officials said. Security footage showed the overweight man dashing down a back lane in central Sydney pursued by at least four police and prison guards, two of whom tripped while giving chase. "There was about seven or eight fellows but they couldn't stop him. He was a big fellow, pretty strong, but he could run," witness Chris Swift said. Red-faced police and prison officials were left to blame each other for the security slip-up.
■ Australia
PM to ax Aboriginal body
Australia's top Aboriginal body will be abolished because it has failed to help the nation's impoverished indigenous population, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday. Howard said his government would introduce legislation dissolving the group next month. His pledge came less than three weeks after the opposition Labor Party said it would ax the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission if it wins elections expected later this year. "We believe very strongly that the experiment in elected representation for indigenous people has been a failure," Howard said. "We will not replace [this body] with an alternative body,'' Howard said.
■ United States
Muslim chaplain cleared
The US military dismissed convictions on Wednesday against a Muslim chaplain who was initially suspected of espionage at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects but found guilty only on lesser, sex-related charges. The appellate decision by Army General James Hill, the Southern Command chief who oversees US military operations at Guantanamo, wiped the slate clean for Captain James Yee, who ministered for 10 months to foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His decision ended what one of Yee's lawyers called a "hoax" case against the chaplain. Yee, 36, was found guilty last month of non-criminal charges of committing adultery and storing pornography on a government computer.
■ United States
Hawaiians go dough-nuts
Apparently doughnuts can clog more than just your arteries. Hawaii residents love Krispy Kreme doughnuts so much that they often stock up at a new store in Maui before boarding inter-island flights back home, overloading airline luggage bins along the way. Hawaii's first Krispy Kreme store opened on Jan. 27 in Maui, less than a mile from Kahului Airport. Doughnut shops are sprinkled liberally across the Hawaiian islands. But the novelty of a major chain, combined with the widespread custom of omiage -- bringing gifts home to family and friends -- have given rise to the commuter doughnut.
■ United Kingdom
`Tooth Ferry' to the rescue
A local councilor fed up with the exorbitant prices charged by Britain's dentists has come up with an alternative plan: he will ship people to France for cheap operations on what he is calling the "Tooth Ferry." Bernard Buckle, who represents Cowes on the Isle of Wight, has already gained interest from more than 20 people in his plan to organize a coach and ferry trip to Normandy in northern France. Buckle
was quoted yesterday as saying he felt that traveling to continental Europe was the only way for people on the Isle of Wight to receive affordable dental treatment. Britain's National Health Service does not offer treatment on the island.
■ Germany
Schroeder blocks thriller
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has won an injunction to halt the sale of a crime thriller called The End of the Chancellor which featured a likeness of him in the hairs of a gunsight on its cover. The book tells the story of a German chemist who blames the government when his business goes bankrupt. His quest for revenge leads him to shoot the head of government -- never identified by name -- on the steps of Hanover train station. Hanover is Schroeder's home town. "We didn't really think too much about it and thought it was too unimportant," said Dietrich Reinhardt, the book's publisher.
■ Macedonia
PM wins voting round
Macedonia's prime minister won the first round of this Balkan country's election to replace a president killed
in a plane crash, unofficial results showed. With 80 percent of the vote counted in Wednesday's election, Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski had about 42.9 percent or about 332,000 votes. Sasko Kedev of the opposition VMRO party was next with 34.5 percent or about 267,000 votes. The two candidates will compete in a runoff in two weeks.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
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