World news quick take

■Cambodia
US buys freedom from ICC
The Cambodian foreign affairs minister signed an agreement yesterday to exempt US citizens and troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), established to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Cambodia's foreign affairs minister Hor Namhong signed the agreement during a signing ceremony for another agreement for US$3 million in United States aid to Cambodia for education on child labor. The US embassy publicized the signing of the grant agreement on US education aid, but neither the embassy or the Cambodian government previously announced the signing of the ICC exemption. The US administration of George W. Bush, which has said the court could be used in politically-motivated prosecutions of its servicemen and officials. US legislation passed in 2002 makes many countries ineligible for military assistance if they recognize the ICC.

■ Thailand
Men given deadly concoction
A Thai man died and eight others were hospitalized after drinking a liquid that was labeled wine but could burn a hole through plastic cups, police said yesterday. The victims, received the bottles labeled La Sante wine from a white friend, police said. The Thais consumed the wine Thursday to celebrate a birthday, but within five minutes, three men were vomiting and fell into convulsions before passing out, and the others also became ill, Supot said. More tests are needed to know what the liquid is, he said. La Sante wine has won awards in a national contest and its producer, the Chiang Rai Winery, said the bottle and the label were poor copies of its product, according to the Thai Rath newspaper.

■ Hong Kong
Spitting fines enacted
Hong Kong is issuing spot fines of nearly US$200 for people caught spitting in the street in a move to make the city more hygienic after the devastating SARS outbreak, officials said yesterday. More than 100 fixed penalty notices for spitting, littering and stubbing out cigarettes on the street were issued on the first day of the crackdown Thursday, a government spokesman said. The penalty of HK$1,500 is more than double the previous HK$600 (US$76) penalty.

■ Australia
Canberra to aid Solomons
Australia working on a 10-year rescue operation for the crime-ridden Solomon Islands, costing A$2 billion (US$1.3 billion), the Australian newspaper reported yesterday. It said the operation to quell militia violence and restore order in the near-bankrupt nation -- the biggest military intervention in the South Pacific since World War Two -- could cost at least A$150 million a year. The aid includes "a commitment to provide substantial financial and technical support through the Solomons administration for up to 10 years," the paper said, sourcing unidentified government agencies.

■ North Korea
WFP reports on shortage
North Korea has had a good crop year but is still short of around 1 million tonnes of food, about 20 percent of its basic requirements, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday. The agency's North Korea country representative, Rick Corsino, said that the WFP was also 80,000 tonnes short of food donations for the year. The WFP has 330,000 tonnes of food either distributed or pledged for North Korea in 2003.

■United States
`Dixiecrat' stalwart dies
Former US senator Strom Thurmond, the fiery former segregationist whose career in Congress spanned nearly half a century, died late Thursday in his hometown of Edgefield, South Carolina. He was 100.
His death was announced on the Senate floor, where senators debating a health-care bill paused for a moment of silence. "A giant oak in the forest of public service has fallen," said Senator Ernest Hollings, who represented South Carolina together with Thurmond for 36 years. Thurmond was best known for his fiery opposition to racial integration. As South Carolina's governor, he ran for president in 1948 under the banner of the "Dixiecrats," a group of anti-civil rights southern Democrats.

■ Canada
Man smuggles pigeons
A US man pleaded guilty to smuggling charges in Canada on Thursday after customs officers, fearing he was carrying concealed weapons across the border, found his shirt stuffed with live pigeons. Canadian customs officials said the man, who was moving to Calgary, Alberta, tried to cross the Montana-Saskatchewan border in January and was asked to pull over for a vehicle check. But the driver, Richard Colson, 56, appeared to have trouble pulling his car into the examination garage. In his shirt he had four birds individually wrapped in paper lunch bags. He had no health certificates for the pigeons as required for birds entering the country.

■ United Kingdom
A pill a day ...
A once-a-day pill for everyone over 55 could undo some of the ill-effects of our sedentary, high-cholesterol, western lifestyle and slash the rate of strokes and heart attacks by more than 80 percent, doctors said on Thursday. The bold concept of the Polypill, made of a combination of six different drugs, was launched in the British Medical Journal by its inventors with the claim that it could have "a greater impact on the prevention of disease in the western world than any other known intervention."

■ United Kingdom
Labour losing in polls
Britain's Conservatives have overtaken Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party in the opinion polls for the first time in 11 years, according to a survey for yesterday's Daily Telegraph newspaper. A YouGov poll found Tory support now stands at 37 percent, an increase of one point since the end of May. Labour support has fallen two points to 35 percent. The Liberal Democrats, the smaller opposition party, have edged up to 21 percent.

■ United Kingdom
Nude hiker arrested
Hiker Steve Gough started a trek across Britain wearing only socks, boots and a hat -- and ended up in court. Gough, 44, was arrested on June 17 while doing a TV interview at the start of his walk from Land's End in southwest England to John O'Groats in the far north of Scotland. He had decided to wear little more than his backpack on the 1,363km trek to publicize his campaign for a relaxation of the laws on public nudity. The campaigner from Eastleigh in southern England was charged with breaching the peace. But the case was abandoned Thursday after magistrates found he had not committed a criminal offense.

Agencies