TOKYO - JAPANESE Nobel Physics laureate Toshihide Maskawa, an introvert who until recently had no passport, said on Wednesday he would make his first trip overseas next month to accept the award in Stockholm.

'The Nobel Prize is a social phenomenon and while it is not a research activity, I will go to accomplish that phenomenon,' he told reporters.

SHANGHAI - THE FORMER boss of one of China's biggest textile factories was arrested while attempting to flee the country, a local official said on Wednesday, as the bankrupt company's Singapore-listed unit was put under court protection, Tao Shoulong, former head of Zhejiang Jianglong Textile Printing & Dyeing Co, and his wife were arrested in southern China's Guangdong province, Qi Xiaoning, a spokesman for the local government in the eastern Chinese city of Shaoxing, confirmed in a phone interview.

MAMOUZAI (Pakistan) - A PAKISTANI Taleban commander has vowed to increase attacks on Nato and US forces in Afghanistan and also block their supply lines through Pakistan's tribal areas.

'We will increase attacks on the Nato and US forces based in Afghanistan and the supply of goods from Pakistan to these forces,' Hakeemullah, a Taleban commander, told a group of reporters who were taken on a rare trip to the group's stronghold in Aurakzai tribal region.