Brothels should be exempt from tough anti-smoking laws because its a tradition for prostitutes and their customers to enjoy a cigarette together after having sex, an industry lobby group said yesterday. An Asian marine security drill has begun without China or South Korea, which had been scheduled to play key roles in the exercise, the coast guard said yesterday, after an apparent misunderstanding over its purpose. The drill scenario is based on a simulation of a suspicious ship being refused entry to the port of Shanghai and then being tracked by Chinese and other coast guard vessels in turn as it heads away from the port.
It would have been the first time that China had been involved in such a joint drill. His encased remains, draped in the South Korean national flag, were escorted and carried by a military honor guard out of Incheon Airport. Lee, who was cremated after his death on May 22, was the first Korean to head an UN agency. He will be buried at a national cemetery in the central city of Daejon today, according to the government.
President Roh Moo-Hyun has paid tribute to Lee whose death the foreign ministry last week called a "great loss" for the country.
A top Norwegian envoy warned on Saturday that Sri Lanka could be headed toward war, even as the parties agreed in principle to meet for talks to discuss the safety of Scandinavian cease-fire monitors. Some unmarked graves found two months ago in the country's restive south appear to hold bodies of slain migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar, Thai authorities said yesterday.
Most of the bodies were found in late March in Pattani, one of three insurgency-hit provinces in the south. They were buried in unmarked graves at cemeteries for the region's ethnic Chinese community, the Central Institute of Forensic Science said. Israeli jets attacked Syrian-backed Palestinian and Lebanese guerrillas in Lebanon yesterday, sparking gunbattles on the volatile border hours after rockets fired into northern Israel wounded an Israeli soldier. At least one Palestinian militant and a Lebanese Hezbollah fighter were killed in one of the worst bouts of violence since Israeli troops ended a year occupation of southern Lebanon six years ago.
