World briefs

Published on Saturday 5 July 2008 19:54

THE US National Park Service is considering reopening the Statue of Liberty's crown for the first time since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

UNITED STATES

The park service requested bids last month to study what it would take to safely open the headpiece to the public, according to documents released on Independence Day by US congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York.

JAPAN

MORE than a thousand people marched in northern Japan yesterday to protest at the upcoming G8 summit of top industrialised countries.

Police clashed with marchers, detaining four people although no injuries were reported.

Protesters gathered at a park in central Sapporo to demand that the G8 nations take urgent measures to stop global warming, grant indigenous people greater rights and combat world poverty and discrimination.

Demonstrators also criticised globalisation, which they blamed for deepening poverty in marginalised regions, fuelling the world's dependence on fossil fuels and accelerating rising temperatures.

THAILAND

SUSPECTED insurgents in the south of Thailand opened fire at a bustling cafe yesterday, killing three customers and injuring four others.

The insurgents drove up to the cafe in a pick-up truck and two of them started shooting as customers ate their breakfast. The gunmen then drove off from the cafe which was frequented by police and soldiers.

The shooting occurred in Yala province's Raman district, about 480 miles south of the capital Bangkok.

AFGHANISTAN

AFGHAN security forces found more than 100 knives and swords, petrol bombs and dozens of mobile phones in a search of Kabul's main prison, the defence ministry said yesterday.

The search was launched after Taliban insurgents carried off one of the biggest jail breaks in history last month, smashing a suicide truck bomb into the gate of Kandahar prison in the south and freeing 400 of their fighters and 700 other criminals.

"The joint programme by Afghan security forces and the ministry of justice was designed to separate, supervise and search the inmates in the central Pul-i-Charkhi prison and will improve the security of the prison," the ministry said.