■ News ZealandClotting agent HIV scare
A clotting agent for hemophiliacs was in short supply after health officials destroyed 3 million New Zealand dollars (US$1.74 million) worth of blood products feared to be contaminated with HIV, a newspaper reported yesterday. The New Zealand Blood Service said it destroyed a two-month supply of the clotting agent after a routine screening test in April detected that a blood donor had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the Christchurch Press said. Remaining supplies have been carefully restricted and a clotting agent made from Australian plasma was on standby for any emergency.
■ Sri Lanka
Tigers won't leave camp
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have for a second time rejected a call by European ceasefire monitors to evacuate a disputed camp, saying it is in their territory, according to the rebels' Web site yesterday. Sri Lanka's military claimed in June that the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam had encroached on their territory and built a camp in violation of a Norway-brokered ceasefire agreement. The truce monitors subsequently inspected the Wan Ela camp in Trincomalee, 230km northeast of the capital Colombo, and ruled it was on government land. The monitors asked the rebels to withdraw, but they refused.
■ Indonesia
Journalist may be set free
A US journalist arrested in June while reporting on a separatist war in Indonesia's Aceh province expects to be freed today after being sentenced on immigration charges, his lawyer said. The Banda Aceh District Court yesterday sentenced William Nessen, 46, to one month and 10 days jail. He had already spent three months in detention. Nessen was arrested after he failed to produce his passport and visa when questioned by authorities. He told the court he lost his passport and other credentials when he fled a firefight between rebels and troops in North Aceh's Nisam district.
■ South Korea
Cloning leader denied entry
South Korea yesterday denied entry to the leader of a religious sect that claimed it had produced the first cloned human, due to fears that he may engage in human-cloning activities during his stay, the Justice Ministry said. Claude Vorilhon, the founder of the Raelian movement, was turned away after arriving at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, for a 17-day visit, the ministry said. South Korea has no law banning human cloning, but has been accelerating efforts to enact its first law against the practice. The Raelian movement, which believes life on Earth was created by clones of extraterrestrials,
criticized the rejection of Vorilhon as discrimination against a religious minority.
■ Thailand
Rogue elephant tracked
Some hundred Thai officials and volunteers stepped up their hunt yesterday for a rogue bull elephant which has killed three people and remains on the loose in northern Thailand's dense jungle, police said. The elephant, which went berserk on Tuesday and trampled to death two government forestry workers and a farmer, has been spotted daily but workers have been unable to get close enough to safely anaesthetise him, they said. Officials also want to target the elephant, aged 30 to 40, in a clear area as they fear he may be seriously injured if he falls into a waterway after being sedated.
■ LebanonBlast kills two in capital
A powerful blast ripped through a car in the southern suburbs of Beirut yesterday, killing at least two people, witnesses said. Witnesses said the explosion gouged a gaping hole in the ground and propelled the car about 10m. Security forces cordoned off the area and carried around large bags to collect the body parts of the car's two occupants, which the force of the blast had thrown up to the second and third-floor levels of the surrounding buildings. Security sources said they believed one of the people killed by what they called a car bomb was a Lebanese driver for the Iranian Embassy.
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