■South Korea
Hopes for nuclear talks grow
South Korea's unification minister said yesterday recent diplomatic efforts by China and others had made the possibility of nuclear talks with North Korea "more tangible than ever." Jeong Se-hyun said at a business lunch he had told North Korea's delegation chief in an unprecedented three-hour session at recent ministerial talks Pyongyang had a small window of opportunity to re-enter multilateral talks rather than bilateral talks it favours with the US alone. He said he told the delegation chief it could be the North's last chance. Jeong said China's diplomatic efforts were crucial. "As a result, the possibility of reopening the dialogue and holding multilateral talks as soon as possible has become more tangible than ever," he said.
■ Australia
Solomons force approved
The Australian government formally approved yesterday the deployment of more than 2,000 troops and police to the lawless Solomon Islands, the biggest military operation in the South Pacific since World War II. "This is not some kind of colonial hangover exercise by Australia. It is a response to the request of a friend," said Prime Minister John Howard, but he said the operation ran the risk of casualties. The Australian troops and police are due to arrive in the Solomons capital, Honiara, tomorrow. Howard said the operation was expected to cost Australia between US$130 million and US$195 million annually.
■ Malaysia
Anwar's lawyers offer pledge
Jailed former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will not attempt to flee Malaysia or threaten national security if he is released on bail, defense lawyers said yesterday. Anwar is serving prison terms totaling 15 years on corruption and sodomy charges. He completed the corruption sentence in April and has applied for bail pending an appeal of the sodomy conviction. Defense attorney Karpal Singh urged a three-judge panel to approve the bail application, saying this would enable Anwar to temporarily travel to a German clinic to undergo specialized surgery for a back injury, which Anwar claims was caused in part by a 1998 police beating.
■ Singapore
Maid deaths cause concern
Fifteen Indonesian maids have fallen to their deaths from their employers' high-rise apartments in Singapore this year, the Indonesian Embassy said yesterday. Kartika Prawati, an embassy official, said most of the deaths were still under investigation, but were largely believed to be the result of inadequate training. Some of the deaths apparently occurred while maids were hanging laundry or washing windows. She could not say how many were suicides. "It's mostly [due to] lack of training," said Kartika. "We have to improve the training they receive before they come to Singapore."
■ Singapore
Korean twins start surgery
A pair of infant Korean sisters fused at the lower back underwent separation surgery yesterday at Singapore's Raffles Hospital -- despite the hospital's recent failed attempt to separate a pair of conjoined Iranian twins. The 4-month-old Korean twins went into surgery at 1pm, a spokeswoman with Raffles Hospital said on condition of anonymity. She provided no more details about the surgery, but said the hospital would hold a press conference later in the day. Local News Radio 93.8 said the operation could last between eight and 10 hours.
■United States
UK demands fair trials
The US, Britain and Australia began talks Monday over the fate of some terrorism suspects being held at a US base in Cuba, with the British delegation demanding that its citizens be given access to lawyers. US President George W. Bush agreed to the talks last week during a visit to Washington by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. British and Australian officials have objected to the possibility of US military tribunals trying British and Australian terrorism suspects being held at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
■ Russia
Decree gets law on track
President Vladimir Putin yesterday ordered the long-awaited introduction of alternative civilian service instead of the mandatory two-year spell in the country's notoriously brutal armed forces. After years in preparation and despite fierce opposition by the military, the new service starting Jan. 1 next year, allows young men to work for three-and-a-half years in hospitals and other state institutions. Putin signed a decree instructing the labor and defense ministries to make necessary adjustments for the transition. Parliament already adopted a corresponding law last summer.
■ United Kingdom
Deep diver beats record
A British woman has broken one of the toughest sporting records when she held her breath and dived 122m under the Caribbean sea. Human submarine Tanya Streeter held her breath for three minutes and 38 seconds during her underwater odyssey, British newspapers reported on Tuesday. Streeter, 30, shattered the woman's free diving record of 95m in the category which requires the diver to swim back to the surface after riding to the depths on a weighted sled. She also narrowly beat the men's record in her dive on Monday in the Turks and Caicos Islands off the coast of Florida.
■ In Orbit
Space wedding cancelled
It would have been a match made in heaven, but it was not to be. Technical and legal problems have forced International Space Station (ISS) Commander Yuri Malenchenko to postpone his wedding, in which he would have been separated from his bride by at least 380km of atmosphere and space. The Russian Space Agency said on Monday the cosmonaut, who met his fiancee in Houston, the home of US mission control, would wait until he returns to earth in October to tie the knot. "The ISS is not a cottage in a forest ... and you can't get there by plane, only by rocket," Gorbunov added.
■ Germany
Porn star addicted to sex
Germany's most famous ex-porn star Gina Wild has revealed she is doing a bit on the side in a Frankfurt brothel because she is addicted to sex. "It's a secret I've carried around with me for a long time -- I go to the brothel several times a week. It's not for the money, it's to free my soul," Wild, 32, told Bild newspaper in an interview published on Monday. Wild, who is married, retired from the porn industry two years ago and wants to move into serious acting and modelling. "I need the satisfaction the way some other people need food," she admitted. "I'm addicted to sex." She owned up to the moonlighting after a fan recognized her working in a Frankfurt establishment.
■Spain
Thursday is girl's night out
A girl's night out has become official policy in the small southern Spanish town of Torredonjimeno after the mayor announced on Monday that he would ban men from going out on a Thursday night. The radical move by Mayor Javier Checa will see any men who go to bars between 9pm and 2am on a Thursday evening fined by the local police. Checa has said that he expects the town's men to stay at home on Thursdays, looking after the kids and doing the dishes. Money from the fines will go towards groups that deal with domestic violence and equality between the sexes."We have to make men aware of the responsibilities they have in the home. They don't just have a right to go out and drink beer with their friends, they also have to be a house-husband," Checa said.
■ United States
Police blamed for death
An outraged coroner in Pennsylvania ruled Monday that police who subdued a 136kg man by piling onto him after a minor altercation are responsible for his death and should be charged with homicide. Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht said police placed Charles Dixon Sr. in a deadly position when they put their weight on his back at a party in a Pitts-burgh suburb. Police restrained Dixon, 43, in December after he tried to stop them from arresting his brother, witnesses said. His brother allegedly caused a disturbance in a food line at the party. Witnesses testified at an inquest that as many as 13 officers restrained Dixon, who stopped breathing and died at a hospital two days later.
■ Austria
Tongue transplanted
The world's first tongue transplant has been carried out successfully by a team of Austrian surgeons on a 42-year-old patient suffering from tongue cancer, a spokesman for Vienna's general hospital announced. The operation, carried out Saturday, lasted 14 hours and the patient was "in a good general state of health" on Monday, the spokesman said. No unexpected problems occurred and the operating team did not expect any ill-effects from the operation.
■ Russia
Activists protest arrests
Leading Russian academics and human-rights activists Monday urged the country's security services to halt what they called the "fashion" for arresting scientists for espionage. "In our country a fashion has emerged for arresting scientists accused of spying and leaking state secrets," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a human rights organization. Alexeyeva said scientists are easy targets for the Federal Security Service because of their dealings with foreigners. "They can't catch real spies so they catch those we can't stop them from catching," she told a news conference.
■ United States
US repatriates hijackers
The US State Department said Monday it had returned to Cuba 12 people who hijacked a boat to flee to the US after receiving assur-ances from Havana that the hijackers would not be executed. Deputy depart-ment spokesman Philip Reeker said the 12, along with three security guards whom they had kidnapped, had been repatriated after Cuba formalized a commit-ment that they would receive jail sentences of no more than 10 years. He said the 12 Cubans were not eligible for asylum because they had illegally hijacked the vessel and assaulted US Coast Guard.
Agencies
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