Japan

One million evacuated as typhoon blows in

MORE than 1.3million people were yesterday told to evacuate their homes as typhoon Roke approached Japan, threatening the industrial city of Nagoya, in central Japan's Aichi prefecture, with heavy rain and landslides. Other cities in western Japan issued evacuation advisories on a smaller scale.

Typhoon Roke follows on the heels of tropical storm Talas, which left about 100 people dead or missing in western Japan earlier this month. - Reuters

Zambia

Presidential rivals go head-to-head in poll

ZAMBIANS voted yesterday in a closely contested election between President Rupiah Banda and opposition leader Michael Sata, a critic of foreign investment - most notably by China - in Africa's biggest copper producer.

Crowds of youths chanting "We want change, we want change" mobbed Sata as he visited a polling station in the capital, Lusaka.

Banda's Movement for Multi-Party Democracy claims most of its support in the countryside. - Reuters

PAKISTAN

Gunmen kill 20 Shia pilgrims in bus attack

GUNMEN yesterday opened fire on a bus in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan in a suspected sectarian attack, killing at least 20 Shia Muslim pilgrims travelling to Iran, police said.

Sunni Muslim militants loyal to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, have carried out high-profile attacks on members of Pakistan's Shia minority in the past. - Reuters

INDIA

Rescue workers search for quake survivors

AIR force helicopters flew rescue workers to a remote Himalayan region yesterday in search of survivors of a strong earthquake that killed dozens of people in India, Nepal and the Chinese region of Tibet.

Most of the casualties were near the epicentre of Sunday's 6.9-magnitude quake, which buckled roads and knocked down houses in the sparsely populated Indian state of Sikkim, popular with tourists for its Buddhist monasteries and spectacular hiking trails. - Reuters

TURKEY

Explosion kills three, wounds 15 in capital

A SUSPECTED car bomb yesterday ripped through a street in the Turkish capital Ankara near government buildings, killing three people and wounding 15, Interior Minister Naim Sahin said.

The blast struck the central Kizilay neighbourhood less than a kilometre from the prime minister's office, the headquarters of the chief of the army's general staff and several ministries. - Reuters

ZIMBABWE

Poachers poison reserve water holes

POACHERS in Zimbabwe have poisoned watering holes in five game reserves, killing elephants and then hacking off their tusks, the parks authority said yesterday.

"The elephant tusks were taken, leaving the carcasses. Lion skins were not taken and we suspect that they were victims of poisoning of the watering holes," Caroline Washaya Moyo, spokesman for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said. - Sapa-AFP

US

White House wants Guantanamo closed

WASHINGTON aims to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre before next year's US presidential election, US Attorney-General Eric Holder said yesterday.

"We share the view that the closing of the . facility would be a positive thing," Holder said.

"There is no question that there is strong opposition," he said. But there was "equal determination" by both President Barack Obama and himself to shut the facility before the November 2012 polls. - Sapa-AFP

KENYA

Unexploded grenade found near PM's office

AN UNEXPLODED hand grenade has been found in a building housing the office of Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga, in the capital, Nairobi .

Odinga was in his office when police asked everyone to evacuate the building to allow for a search after the grenade was discovered.

No other explosive devices were found, and police said it was too early to say who might have planted the grenade. - Reuters

Italy

Scientists on trial for quake prediction failure

SEVEN scientists and other experts went on trial on manslaughter charges yesterday for allegedly failing to warn residents of an earthquake that killed more than 300 people in central Italy in 2009.

The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the world, who insist that it is impossible to predict earthquakes and that no major tremor has ever been foretold. - Sapa-AP

SPAIN

Latin lovers fall for fake gigolo scam

MORE than 300 men fell for a Spanish sex scam, paying R1.2-million in registration fees for the false promise of work as high-class gigolos, police said yesterday.

A total of 310 men replied to national newspaper job advertisements placed by a bogus male escort agency, which demanded employment fees in advance.

Police detained two women suspected of running the con.

One of the women has been arrested twice before on similar charges, police said. - Sapa-AFP