■Singapore
Grandpa delivers baby
A grandfather delivered his daughter's baby when an ambulance arrived too late and the paramedic did not know how to cut the umbilical cord, media reports said yesterday. Lo Liang Kai, 58, waited another 20 minutes for Singapore Civil Defense Force (SCDF) paramedics to arrive and sever the cord attaching the baby to the mother, The Straits Times said. When the mother and daughter were finally taken to the private ambulance, it failed to start so they used the SCDF vehicle instead. The saga began when labor pains prematurely struck Lo's daughter, Teresa Lo, at her flat. Her husband called Thomson Medical Centre, but an ambulance did not turn up for more than 45 minutes, five minutes longer than it took the baby to arrive. The 27-year-old woman had not been due to give birth for another month.
■ The Philippines
Man dies in karaoke quarrel
A 35-year-old man was killed inside a karaoke bar in the Philippine capital after he refused to stop singing, a police officer said yesterday. Police officer Fedencio Basibas said Danilo Celicious died instantly from multiple gunshot wounds inside a karaoke bar in Manila's suburban city of Quezon on Sunday. "The victim and his friends were drinking and singing inside the bar when another group of men drinking in a nearby table asked that they stop singing," he said. "But the victim refused and just continued singing."
■ Vietnam
Oxen choose mung beans
It seems Cambodia's royal oxen may have also heard the rumor that recently spread through the country that eating specially-prepared mung beans can ward off the deadly SARS virus. The oxen chose the green beans, which created a stir throughout much of the country earlier this month when Cambodians heard that eating them prevented catching SARS, as their widely preferred dish in the country's ancient annual plowing ceremony. In the ceremony, for years used as an indicator of the coming growing season, the oxen ate 96 percent of the mung beans.
■ The Philippines
Corpse must be removed
Health and water officials yesterday rushed to retrieve a corpse of a 19-year-old man who drowned in an aqueduct of the Philippine capital's water system, fearing the remains might contaminate the supply. Manila Water spokesman Joel Lacsamana said the company might have to use navy divers to retrieve Randy Diaz's body, if moves to flush out the corpse fail within the next 48 hours. Diaz fell into the aqueduct on Saturday while picking fruit from a tree inside the compound of the water facility in the Manila suburban city of Quezon.
■ Australia
Suspect further identified
One of the North Koreans arrested last month aboard a boat believed to have carried heroin into Australia was accredited to Pyongyang's embassy in Beijing, a Melbourne newspaper alleged yesterday. The claim by The Australian comes after Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer called in the North Korean ambassador to protest Pyongyang's involvement in the attempt to smuggle 50km of heroin into Australia. The Pong Su, which had refused repeated requests to pull into a port on Australia's east coast, was boarded 50 nautical miles off Sydney by an Australian frigate.
■Belgium
Work begins after election
Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was set to form a new center-left government after the ruling Liberals and Socialists won a general election that also produced big gains for a far-right party. The anti-immigration Vlaams Blok won the largest vote in its 25-year history on Sunday, five months after race riots rocked the port city of Antwerp. The Blok stands no chance of entering government because all mainstream parties refuse to deal with it, but the size of its vote highlighted ethnic and linguistic tensions fuelled by high unemployment, North African immigration and concern over crime. The Liberals and Socialists won a clear parliamentary majority in Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia in this linguistically divided nation of 10 million people, but their Greens coalition partners were decimated.
■ Russia
Lawmaker implicated
Suspects in the murder of a prominent liberal Russian lawmaker have alleged the involvement of a former legislator from the nationalist Liberal Demo-cratic Party, the victim's sister told Echo of Moscow radio. Galina Starovoitova, one of the most prominent women in Russian politics, was gunned down in the stairwell of her St. Petersburg apartment building in November 1998. Starovoitova's sister, Olga Starovoitova, told Echo of Moscow on Sunday that the slain lawmaker's family was reviewing the investigation materials. She said that the former legislator who had been implicated by other suspects was living abroad, and that she could not identify him for fear of compromising the investigation.
■ United States
Mourners remember Cash
As friends sang gospel and country music classics, June Carter Cash was mourned at funeral services on Sunday not far from the home she shared with husband Johnny Cash during their celebrated careers. The 73-year-old singing partner and co-writer of his smash hit Ring of Fire, Cash died on Thursday at Baptist Hospital in Nashville after heart surgery to replace a defective valve.
■ United States
Pit bull kills woman
A 75-year-old Westchester County, New York, woman sharing a quiet evening at home on Friday night with her landlord was attacked and killed by the landlord's pit bull, the police said. The attack happened at night, as Bonnie Page, a former stage actress, was unpacking a grocery bag in the two-story Cortlandt Manor home she shared with Nancy Delaney, her landlord. The pit bull, a two-year-old named B that Delaney adopted six weeks ago, jumped off her lap, ran into the kitchen and attacked Page, biting her in the face.
■ United Kingdom
Ferret terrorizes commuter
A hungry ferret caused chaos on a commuter train in central England on Sunday, leaping from passenger to passenger before ducking into the driver's cab and devouring his lunch. The wild ferret jumped on to the northbound Midland Mainline train as it picked up passengers at Leicester Station. "It ran up and down the train causing more than a little consternation -- although it is hard to say if the ferret or the passengers were more frightened," a company spokeswoman said. "It then got into the driver's cab and ate his lunch -- a cheese sandwich I think -- before he realized what was going on," she said.
■Croatia
Boy survives fall into well
A three-year-old boy has survived a fall into a 22-metre deep well in the Velika Gorica suburb of Zagreb, the daily Vecernji reported yesterday. Luka Vlahovic reportedly climbed onto the well in the back yard of his family's house and somehow fell in. His parents and neighbors who heard screaming tried to rescue him, but failed, the report said. The boy's grandfather than entered the well, but he also got stuck in it, after which firefighters were called and rescued both of them. The boy sustained only bruises, while the grandfather was not injured.
■ Chechnya
Lawmaker wants peace
Liberal Russian lawmakers called Sunday for an end to abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya and for talks aimed at bringing peace to the region, where deadly violence has persisted despite the Kremlin's efforts to defeat rebels and enhance stability. Speaking during a weekly news show on TVS television, legislator Boris Nemtsov said Russian authorities should enter negotiations with armed separatists in Chechnya, an idea President Vladimir Putin has rejected. Pointing to two separate suicide attacks that killed a total of at least 78 people last week, he said Russia's policy of maintaining a massive military force in Chechnya has been ineffective.
■ Cuba
Lost men sail to Mexico
Five Cubans who built a boat in hopes of sailing to Florida got lost on the high seas and drifted for six days before landing on an island off Mexico's Caribbean coast. The men told Mexican immigration officials they packed three days worth of food and supplies and left the Bay of Pigs before dawn on May 12. But the currents changed, carrying the group west toward Mexico instead of north toward Cabo San Antonio and the US. Their food ran out on Thursday and the men followed a sea gull until Saturday morning when they spotted the lights of Isla Mujres, an island near the resort city of Cancun.
■ France
Crash survivors go home
Twenty six German tourists, still injured or in shock after their bus crashed in France killing 28 people, returned home Sunday amid reports that one of the companies that chartered the vehicle also organized a fatal trip to Hungary earlier this month. Another 20 people remained in a hospital in France, including five who were listed in a serious but stable condition. German regional authorities said 11 of the victims had been identified but French authorities said 18 of the dead had been identified. The accident happened when the bus veered off a motorway near Lyon in the early hours of Saturday, crashing down an embankment, rolling and crushing the sleeping victims. The double-decker bus appeared to have been travelling too fast while overtaking another vehicle.
■ Serbia
War crimes investigated
Posters of the Balkans' most-wanted war crimes suspect, former Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, were posted late Sunday in downtown Belgrade, ahead of a visit by The Hague war crimes tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte. Posters with Karadzic's picture asking, "Is defence of your own people a crime?" were posted by an unidentified group. Del Ponte will visit Belgrade for a day of cooperation-related talks with high-ranking Serbia-Montenegro officials. Three of the most-wanted suspects are still at large.
Agencies
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