■Indonesia
More Bali suspects charged
Indonesian prosecutors yesterday charged another nine suspects over last year's Bali bombings, including Ali Gufron, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaeda linked terror group blamed for the attacks. Gufron, alias Mukhlas, is charged with helping to plan and execute the bombings, and could face the death penalty if convicted, chief prosecutor Muhammad Salim told reporters. Local and regional law enforcement officials say Jemaah Islamiyah funded and organized the Oct. 12 attacks, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. The other eight suspects were charged with indirect involvement in the attack, said Salim, adding they face prisons terms of between 12 years and life imprisonment.
■ China
WHO queries SARS figures
The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday questioned a reported sharp fall in new SARS cases in China, the world's worst-hit country, saying it was "concerned" at how the counting was being done. China yesterday announced just three new cases of SARS, two of them in Beijing. It has gone nine days in a row with fewer than 10 officially reported fresh infections. "We are concerned about how these cases are being counted ... We do not know enough about where these numbers are coming from," WHO spokesman Iain Simpson told journalists. "It may simply be that there has been a dramatic drop off in the number of SARS cases, but clearly because of the way that SARS emerged in China, China has a credibility problem," he said.
■ China
Wife gets sex compensation
A young wife in southern China has been awarded US$1,300 dollars for the loss of her sex life after her electrician husband lost both legs in an accident, a news report said yesterday. The woman sued her 32-year-old husband's employers after her husband fell from a telegraph pole and had to have both legs amputated, the South China Morning Post reported. The accident left him unable to have sex and the woman, from Guangzhou, sued the company over the loss of her right to have sex, the newspaper said.
■ Australia
Famous tree cashes chips
It had stood unharmed by man for almost four centuries. Dominating the lush Tasmanian rainforest, the tree known as El Grande, the largest hardwood plant on earth, was revered by environmentalists and tourists alike. Many came to gape in awe. Not any more. The 79m tree has been accidentally `cooked to death' after a fire started to provide woodchips raged out of control. `This is akin to blasting at a Sydney demolition site and saying "Whoops, we got the Opera House as well,'" said Bob Brown, a senator for Tasmania's Green party.
■ New Zealand
Handyman building missile
A New Zealand home handyman is building a cruise missile in his garage with parts bought over the Internet, and he tells how to do it on his Web site, a newspaper reported yesterday. Bruce Simpson, 49, who lives near Auckland, told the New Zealand Herald he was not building the missiles for terrorism but to test his home-made jet engines. The paper quoted security experts as saying that the ease with which he obtained parts and built a working jet engine was a warning that such weapons could be built by the wrong people. Simpson said anyone with half a brain could build a cruise missile: "You don't have to be a rocket scientist."
■Canada
SARS claims more victims
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