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TOKYO: A suspect behind a stabbing spree in Tokyo that left seven dead was handed to prosecutors on Tuesday as a picture emerged of an angry young man engulfed by feelings he was ugly and lonely. 25-year-old suspect Tomohiro Kato stared glumly at the floor inside a police van as he was taken to prosecutors, who will interrogate him and could press charges that carry the death penalty. Kato drove a rented two-ton truck Sunday into Akihabara, the hub of Japan's comic book and video game subculture.
-- AFP
JAKARTA: Indonesia has not frozen the sect of Ahmadiyah, but issued a warning not to implement their belief that could trigger conflict in the country, Indonesian home affair minister Mardianto said here Monday. Pressure has mounted to officially disband the Ahmandi movement in Indonesia, especially by Muslims, for its deviance from the true Islamic teaching. Right groups have opposed, saying it was against the freedom of having religion or faith.
-- Xinhua
LILLE, France: A 39-year-old Frenchman is to attempt a world first Tuesday by crossing the Channel on board a pedal-powered airship. Weather permitting, Stephane Rousson will leave Dungeness beach in southeastern England at 3:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) and hopes to reach northern France, 55 kilometers (33 miles) away five hours later. Gliding 30 meters (100 feet) above water, he intends to make the crossing in a semi-reclining position under the 16-metre (52-feet) long airship, steering it with two propellers on either side of the pedals.
-- AFP
KATHMANDU: Nepal's ousted king is thought to have close to 200 million dollars stashed away inside the country and even more abroad an author who has probed the royal finances revealed Tuesday. Surya Thapa, a journalist who has written three books on the Himalayan royals, said ex-king Gyanendra is unlikely to feel any financial squeeze as a commoner. "According to my research, he has around 195 million dollars invested in around 35 companies in Nepal and may have transferred more abroad," said Thapa.
-- AFP
BRDO PRI KRANJU, Slovenia: US President George W. Bush heads into a EU summit Tuesday seeking to tighten the squeeze on Iran's nuclear program. The US leader, already dismissed by some officials in Brussels as a "lame duck," held talks with President Danilo Turk of Slovenia, which holds the EU's rotating presidency. Bush also hopes to secure more help with war-battered Afghanistan during his visit, which will also take him to Germany, Italy, the Vatican, France, England, and Northern Ireland.
-- AFP
TIKRIT, Iraq: The leader of Saddam Hussein's clan was killed in a bomb blast on Tuesday in the city of Tikrit, capital of Iraq's northern Salahudin province, a provincial police source said. Ali al-Nidah, head of the al-Beijat clan, which encompassed the toppled Saddam Hussein, was killed in the bomb explosion near his convoy in Tikrit, the source who refused to be named told Xinhua. One of Nidah's bodyguards was wounded by the attack, the source added.
-- Xinhua
NAIROBI: The UN World Food Program (WFP) said on Tuesday that the ability of 14,000 aid workers to travel to Darfur and other parts of Sudan will be reduced with immediate effect due to a lack of funding for the Humanitarian Air Service. WFP said in a statement issued in Nairobi that its air service needs an infusion of 20 million US dollars by June 15 in order to avoid some of the cuts and maintain full service through the coming months.
-- Xinhua
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani Interior Ministry spokesman on Tuesday denied ending peace deal signed by the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) with local Taliban. "Swat peace deal is not scrapped, it is still intact," local private Dawn TV quoted Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema as saying. Earlier, senior minister of the NWFP Bashir Bilor said the peace deal with the local Taliban in Swat valley did not end.
-- Xinhua
KHARTOUM: Sudan would ask Interpol to arrest 20 Darfur rebel leaders accused of involvement in an unprecedented attack on the capital last month. "The government began procedures to retrieve 20 of the leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement through Interpol," Justice Minister Abdul Basit Sabdarat said. He named JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim as well as JEM negotiator Ahmed Tugod, spokesman Ahmed Hussein and deputy chief of staff Suleiman Sandal as some of those sought for the May 10 attack.
-- AFP
TOKYO: Japanese wives are being told to put up with the whiff of their husbands' dirty socks and underwear to save the planet from global warming. One in four Japanese housewives "always or occasionally" separates their husband's clothes from those of other family members when they do the laundry, according to a new survey. Nearly all of those who did so said their husbands' clothes were too dirty or smelled bad-with socks, underwear and pillow covers said to be particularly foul.
-- AFP
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