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World news quick take

■Hong Kong
SARS ruled out in flu cases
Eighteen people who were rushed to a Hong Kong hospital last week had influenza and not SARS, a government spokeswoman said, quashing fears that the deadly respiratory disease had resurfaced in the city. "It's confirmed that they have influenza A. It's definitely not SARS," said the Health Department spokeswoman yesterday. Sixteen of them are patients at a mental institution, one a staff member and another a relative of a patient. Another 18 people from the same institution and three other places were subsequently taken to hospital but they too were found to be suffering from influenza A, the spokeswoman said. "The conditions of all 36 are stable," she added.

■ Indonesia
Death requested for bomber
Indonesian prosecutors yesterday demanded that the Islamic militant accused of masterminding last year's bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali be sentenced to death. Around 50 people present in court, several of them relatives of foreign victims of the Oct. 12 attack, applauded when the sentence demand was read out. Imam Samudra, a 33-year-old computer expert, has already admitted to taking part in the blasts that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists enjoying an evening out in a popular nightclub strip on the island.

■ Indonesia
Suu Kyi may be released
Myanmar's foreign minister said yesterday that pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi would not be detained indefinitely and indicated that the military junta was working on her release. Win Aung was speaking after talks with his Indonesian counterpart, Hassan Wirajuda, and before meeting President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Myanmar is facing mounting international pressure over the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, detained since a deadly May 30 clash between her supporters and a pro-government group. Win Aung denied ASEAN was putting pressure on Myanmar, saying Yangon's neighbors were working with it to resolve the issue.

■ Japan
Aftershocks hit in Miyagi
Several tremors, including one measuring a strong 5 on the Richter scale, shook northeastern Japan early yesterday, the latest aftershocks from a series of more powerful earthquakes that left hundreds injured over the weekend. The tremor hit northern Miyagi prefecture, about 300km north of Tokyo, shortly after 4am, an official at the Japan Meteorological Agency said. Police in the mostly rural area with a population of around 2.3 million said Saturday's quakes injured more than 420 people, as well as causing landslides and power blackouts. The prefecture authorities put the injury toll higher at over 560.

■ New Zealand
Man stabbed in brain
A man was recovering in Wellington Hospital on Monday after surgeons worked for five hours to remove a knife embedded in his brain. Police said a 37-year-old man would appear in court on an assault charge. They said the two men knew each other and had a long standing disagreement. The early morning stabbing took place in a street in central Wellington and an ambulance took the man to hospital with the knife still stuck in his brain.

■Spain
ETA bombs airport
The Basque separatist group ETA struck again on Sunday in its summer campaign against tourism targets and the Spanish economy, exploding a car bomb outside the airport at Santander, in northern Spain. The bomb, hidden inside a Renault 19 in the airport car park, caused damage to the airport building and other cars but did not cause any injuries. A telephoned warning gave the police an hour to evacuate the airport before the bomb exploded. "ETA does whatever it can whenever it can," the interior minister, Angel Acebes, said. The attack was made less than a week after ETA exploded bombs in tourist hotels in Benidorm and Alicante.

■ United states
Nixon ordered break-in
Former US president Richard Nixon personally ordered the Watergate break-in of the Democratic party headquarters, according to a senior aide who was jailed for his part in the affair. Hitherto it has been assumed that the president took part only in covering up the break-in organized by other members of his team in 1972. Jeb Magruder, who was jailed for seven months for his part in the break-in, now claims, in a television documentary to be shown in the US this week, that Nixon was involved from the beginning. Magruder says he was with the attorney general, the late John Mitchell, on March 30, 1972 and heard the president give instructions on the telephone to go ahead with the break-in. He says he heard Nixon's voice say: "John ... we need to get the information on [the Democratic party chairman] Larry O'Brien, and the only way we can do that is through Liddy's plan. And you need to do that."

■ Russia
Court rejects hostage claim
A Moscow court rejected appeals yesterday in 21 compensation cases filed by survivors and relatives of victims of last October's hostage-taking raid by Chechen rebels at a Moscow theater and the Russian rescue operation that left scores dead, news agencies reported. The Moscow City Court upheld rulings by a lower court that said city authorities were not obligated to pay moral damages, the Interfax news agency reported.

■ United Kingdom
Missiles to copy dragonfly
The seemingly magical dances of the dragonfly could provide the model for devastating new anti-aircraft weaponry. Scientists believe the techniques used by dragonflies and hoverflies to trick their prey could be mimicked by anti-aircraft missiles, the New Scientist reported. The prospective missiles would adopt a strategy of "motion camouflage" where predator insects make their prey think they are stationary when they are actually moving closer.

■ Finland
Brits land karaoke crown
The British have been declared the world's best bar-room crooners after winning the inaugural world karaoke championships, though they avoided a showdown with karaoke-mad Japan, who refused to compete. British restaurant worker Danni Gadby, 23, and stock analyst Uche Eke, 31, were crowned champions in the small Finnish town of Heinola in the early hours of Sunday morning after belting out classics such as Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon." The contest was the latest in a string of bizarre competitions hosted by Finland, including sauna endurance, mobile phone throwing and wife carrying, as Finns think of new ways to attract tourists to the remote Nordic country.

Agencies
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